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Sunday, December 13, 2009
DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Luke 1:26-38
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
I am going to do what I have told other speakers never to do when they start talking. I am going to start with a joke. Ready? Alright. What do Jesus, Mary and a really good bartender have in common? They all listen…O.K., it’s not really a joke, but as a kickoff to a sermon message, actually it still needs work but that’s what I have.
Think about it, whenever Jesus performed any healing in the gospels he always started by doing this. He modeled for us one of the most compassionate things that one human being can do for another. Paul Tillich was a theologian who said that the first duty of love is to listen. It is something that someone like me gets tons of and others, like the guys down in the park, hardly get any of. It’s the ears of people.
It was the first thing that Mary did when she was visited by the Angel Gabriel.
It is the beginning to any conflict resolution. It makes people feel fantastic when it is done right. I have heard it said that Bill Clinton used to make you feel like you were the most important person in the world when he was listening to you. Now Billy might not be a role model in other areas of life, but as a listener it sounds like he had it down. We all have our gifts.
A lot of you know that I worked in Los Angeles. At one point, I worked closely with Dick Clark on one of his shows. When the show ended we had a wrap party. When I walked up to Dick and introduced him to Laura, the first thing he said was, “What do you do Laura?” When Laura told him she was an actress, he went on and on saying what a hard job that was and continued to ask her questions about HERSELF…let me remind you….HE DISCOVERED THE BEATLES! And this singer girl named Madonna. I was so, so impressed with the way he took the focus off himself and instead, listened.
Listening is at the center of Jesus’ ministry and is something that I try to get better at everyday at the job. Most comics are lousy at it and most good bartenders are great at it. They say they train you in it in seminary but I must have missed that class.
Listening is truly an art form. Can you imagine if Mary was lousy at it? Listen to today’s scripture:
Luke 1:26-38
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Imagine if Gabriel said: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary replied, “I’m sorry what? I missed that.” The beginning of Jesus very existence began with Mary LISTENING.
Jesus always began this way. He listened. He listened to the demons inside the man with an unclean spirit, he listened to the leper, he listened to the Pharisees ask their questions, and sometimes he even listened to the questions that were in their hearts that they didn’t even say out loud. He listened to the Centurion’s plea to heal his servant and, to Jairus’ plea to help his only daughter. Jesus always began by giving people his time and attention. Jesus listened to people. Jesus still listens to people. Jesus listens to you.
So shouldn’t we? When we listen to others, we are being like Jesus. Not a bad model. Jesus strikes me as a pretty busy guy, yet he was ALWAYS being interrupted. He always made time. I remember a college professor that became famous in the early 80’s: Leo Buscalia. He was a professor at USC in California. He always said, “People first, things second.” I think this was Jesus’ M.O. as well. Despite always being interrupted, he made the time. Sounds like something we might want to consider as well.
The other thing I noticed was that Jesus never bothered to listen to the back story on anyone. He never said, “Well, how did we get in this situation? As you think back on this, what would you have changed? Would you have done anything different?” NO! He just Listened to them, Loved them and Let them go. The three L’s: Listen, Love, Let’em go.
This is what Mary does in the story. First she listens. Then she stated her love of God. “I am a servant of the Lord.” Then she let the Angel go. She also let go of a bunch of other things as well. She let go of her need to control. She let go of her need to know the future. She let go of her need to have things go the way she planned. I have to do a lot of that now that the Bishop decides my future. I have to let go of what I THINK would be best for me. Letting go of my need to control my future is huge. I went from a career where I controlled everything; bookings, material, travel, wardrobe, everything, to a career where I control nothing. I could be living in Salt Lake City this time next year. We might all have a little bit less stress if we let go of our need for control.
When we listen we do that, if we are truly listening, if we are really hearing and not just waiting for our turn to speak. James Lipton, the host of Inside The Actor’s Studio, ran up against this when he was interviewing Jack Lemmon. He was talking to Lemmon about his movie, Days of Wine and Roses and said, “Remember when you said that line when you were in that AA meeting in the movie? You stood up and said, do you remember?” And Lemmon said, “I’m, your name, and I’m an alcoholic…which I am.” And Lipton said, “Are you the character talking now or Jack Lemmon?” And Lemmon said, “Me, Jack Lemmon. I’m an alcoholic.” This was the first time Jack Lemmon admitted this in public. James Lipton was dumbfounded. He just said, “That was a really amazing scene.” And then he just kept on going. He was so sure he knew where he wanted the conversation to go; he didn’t know what to do when it took this amazing, raw, transparent turn.
We have to listen, really listen if we want to be like Jesus and Mary. Someone once said that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Use them in the right proportion.
We often say that we are the hands and feet of Christ. We are also his ears. Sometimes all people need is someone to nod their head and hear their words, to not give them quick answers, and to not judge them. One of the most often heard reasons that I hear that brought people into AfterHours was the line on the bar ads and the coasters, “Less Judgment.” It’s like we said last week. Aren’t we all so sick of being Judged? Jesus just listened to them, loved them and let them go. We need to learn to listen without an agenda. When we are down in the park, one of the things we give the guys that they appreciate the most is our time. Time to listen. Time not to judge. Time to not give answers but just simply to listen.
Try listening to others this Christmas season. It might be the best gift you can give someone.
There is another side to listening and it’s not just to people. Lily Tomlin said once, “Why is it when we talk to God it’s called prayer and when God talks to us, we are crazy?” Do you spend most of your prayer time talking or listening? What do you hear when you sit quietly and just relax into that still small voice? It is a small voice. You have to be pretty quite to hear it. Do you hear what I hear? I doubt it. Everyone is different.
So what do you hear when you listen? And that will be our little chat next week…