Thursday, June 10th
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“ God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” Romans 5:18–19
Active listening involves attention, being present, and hospitality, and it is a component of devotion, nurturing, and wonder. There is perhaps no greater way to show our regard for our friends, family, and others than to truly listen to them. The “listening heart,” leads to a deepening of relationship and a greater sense of self for all parties. This kind of communication isn’t limited to human interactions. Listen to an animal, the waves on a beach, the roar of a city neighbourhood, and you will come to a greater appreciation of your place in the universe.
Over the past weeks I have been reflecting on our relationship with and within creation and have invited you to listen to God’s spirit speaking through all creation. With the latest discovery of 215 children’s unmarked graves at the Kamloops residential school we are asked by our Indigenous neighbours to listen and lament for lost children. They need us to listen - to listen, to mourn, remember, and restore. This past Sunday Dianne reminded us that God’s mission in this world is restoration and reconciliation, and that this is where God is leading us. The kind of listening we need to do is one that opens our hearts to restoration and reconciliation.
Theologian Paul Tillich said, “All things and all men [sic], so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being.... But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.” (quoted in Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen) Love that listens is active not passive. It calls us to put aside our ourselves, our world view; and in that space of grace to hear the drum beat of another’s heart, experience, world view, perspective, history. If after listening without internal or external interference we can repeat and paraphrase what the other said, then we begin the true work of restoration and reconciliation while honouring the other’s voice. In my own life I've found that when I am able to listen carefully enough to anyone, listen to them with my full heart, then the walls of separation come crumbling down. I will be the first to admit this kind of listening isn’t always easy or comes naturally. As I strive to grow in faith and follow Jesus in God’s ministry of restoration and reconciliation, I know this listening is God’s call and I will never be too old to grow in faith.
Martin Buber believed that such "active listening" is not only the secret to fulfilling relationships between people, but a vital passageway to faith. In Buber's model, listening involves a kind of active attentiveness to another's words or actions, engaging them as though they are directed specifically at us.
And so, as we listen to the voices of lament, remembering of the Kamloops indigenous peoples, and now the Muslim family killed in Ontario, let us listen through the ears of faith, praying with those who mourn, working for restoration and reconciliation as followers of Jesus, remembering Paul’s words, “…God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, … has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
A morning or evening prayer by Ted Loder,
Draw Me to Yourself
In this moment
draw me to yourself, Lord,
and make me aware
not so much of what I’ve given
as of all I have received
and so have yet to share.
Send me forth
in power and gladness
and with great courage
to live out in the world
what I pray and profess,
that, in sharing,
I may do justice,
make peace,
grow in love,
enjoy myself,
other people,
and your world now,
and you forever.