Genesis 11:4 - Confusion

 Genesis 11:4 - "Let us make a name." To make a name implied self-direction. The struggle for humanity: to grow, to develop, to become all that being in the image of God promises without perverting that image through pridefulness and violence. The Lord gave the people a name: Babel! They aspired to the wrong goals, and the result was God's judgement. Babel means confusion. Aspiration was not bad; it is good. Building, creating--being a steward of talent and resources is good. To use talent and resources to make a name, that is, a life apart from God is not good, and such perversion of ability leads to confusion.

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Humility. I believe that almost every spiritual problem can be solved by humility. One way to understand humility is to see it as accuracy. Humility means seeing and describing yourself as you are without defensiveness or exaggeration. Humility requires self-awareness which means to recognize your strengths and to recognize your weaknesses and limitations. In this understanding pride is a subset of humility. To take pride in one's work and to be willing to offer one's abilities in service to others is good. Such pride produces a confidence that is well-founded. A humble person can be confident. So self-awareness includes this desire to be a good steward of one's strengths. At the same time humility requires the desire and commitment to improve one's deficits to the degree possible. Humility is both self-awareness and self-forgetfulness. To be self-forgetful as an expression of humility means that a person is eager to listen to others, to work at understanding others and to be helpful as wanted and needed by others. Listening is first an inclination and then a skill. People who have assertive personalities may need to work harder at wanting to listen. If they do not have the inclination to listen they can still become listeners through discipline. Listening is essential to understanding, but understanding often requires more, particularly, when cultural, racial, language, education, gender, life experiences, and parenting differences create world views that diverge. So pridefulness, unwillingness to see things as they really are is the opposite of humility, but pride is a subset of humility. In Genesis 11 the people became prideful which led to confusion and destruction. Peter reminded the church that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

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As in all matters of virtue grace is the beginning point. Humility is a picture of salvation. Jesus told a story of two men who went to pray. One man, religious leader, prayed with gratitude that he was not like the other man who had come to pray. He was grateful not to be a sinner. The second man fell on his face and acknowledged his sin and prayed to be forgiven. Jesus asked which man left the place of prayer right with God. Sin, wrong doing, separates us from God when we do not acknowledge it. In everyone's life, except perhaps one who is mentally ill, there is an awareness of right and wrong. To refuse to accept this reality of sin is to persist in wrong doing and to separate oneself from God who is both loving and righteous. God's loved expressed in grace that offers forgiveness puts us right with God when we acknowledge and ask forgiveness for our sins.

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Grandchildren. Yesterday I showed Stone, our four-year old grandson, a picture of himself with his siblings when he was less than one year old, and I asked him if he recognized everyone in the picture. He named them all, and said, "I'm the baby!" I have enjoyed watching each one of my grandchildren grow from infant to child and now to watch our granddaughter become a teenager. Each stage is wonderful. At the dinner table last evening the youngest was crying, and the oldest was helping him with instructions: "take a deep breath, drink some water." The wonder of family humbles me. We grow into maturity and help the one behind us grow, too. It is a good picture of the church family. We have in every church different ages of faith, and those ages are not necessarily matched by years. Some are older chronologically but younger spiritually. Still, the goal in our church family is to help the ones who are younger to grow to maturity. It is a wonder of family life.

Listening to a Sermon Part Two

As promised in my last entry I am writing in this essay about specific strategies we can take when listening to a sermon. Just as Jacob wrestled with God through the night to gain a blessing (Genesis 32:24), the worshiper will sometimes feel that he or she is in a wrestling match, too. It can happen because the sermon is poor or it can happen because the worshiper has come to the service with distractions from home or work or is simply tired and needing rest. For multiple reasons it can be hard to listen to a sermon. 

When struggling to listen to a sermon it is important to remember that the struggle is a spiritual one between the worshiper and God. The struggle is not between the worshiper and the preacher. For some reason God has brought the worshiper to this service at this time. The preacher has a responsibility to God as well, and the preacher will be required to answer to God for his or her work, but the worshiper’s main concern is not the preacher. The chief issue in worship is to encounter God and to make the effort to discover the purpose of the time ahead. 

If we give some thought to the matter we realize that thirty minutes is a short period of time. We can easily waste thirty minutes on a tasteless story in the newspaper or a magazine or waste thirty minutes watching a mindless situation comedy on television. We can spend thirty minutes playing a game of solitaire without complaint. Sometimes, many of us just sit for thirty minutes day dreaming. 

Our resistance to the sermon is a hint that something spiritual is happening. For some reason we resist this time in the pew. It bores us or makes us uncomfortable or it even can make us angry. All of these emotions we do not feel when we waste time elsewhere; so, what is happening? Why has God brought us into this difficult struggle?

We may not immediately discover the reason for the resistance in ourselves, but we can pray to have the grace to understand that our resistance is not primarily the preacher’s problem. We pray to accept our responsibility to make something good happen in the half hour ahead of us. We can pray that whatever kind of sermon we hear, good or bad, we will find a way to make an offering of worship to God. That prayer and commitment to take responsibility for the sermon is the first strategy of the listener.

Once we decide to take responsibility as a listener for the sermon then we can employ other strategies, and we will need them from time to time when we hear a bad sermon. Bad sermons are often opaque. We cannot see the purpose or the importance of them. The preacher does not make it clear why we should listen to this particular message, and he or she does not explain what help we should expect to receive in listening. It seems that we are looking at a dark cloud of words that communicate nothing of substance to us. When listening to such a sermon the good listener will not attempt to make sense of the whole sermon. It is likely, because of poor preparation, that even the preacher is not sure what the message is supposed to be. Bad preaching makes one feel lost in the dark. 

However, if one listens carefully one will hear a single sentence that makes sense. It will be like a flash of lightening in the dark night. It is brief but for a moment there is power and illumination. It is almost impossible to speak for thirty minutes and not say one productive, meaningful, applicable sentence. The listener will wait and watch for that sentence. When such a sentence flashes it will be worth the entire thirty minutes of sitting. An insight will be gained. A resolution will be made. Something good will have happened. The listener will have won the wrestling match. So, here are the first two strategies for listening to a sermon: first, take responsibility for the sermon’s impact on the listener; second, listen for one helpful sentence.

Here is a third strategy. Although it often happens in bad sermons, that the preacher does not really speak from the Bible, the listener can listen for some passing reference to the Scripture and turn to the reference in his or her Bible. A careful listener will identify questions that arise from reading the text that are not answered or even addressed by the preacher. Those questions can be a guide to the listener in the coming week to do more Bible study, to talk with friends about the questions or if the opportunity arises, to ask the preacher, “What about this?” In that way the sermon becomes useful to the listener and, perhaps, to others as well.

A fourth strategy is to enter into a mental dialogue with the preacher and with God. In some church traditions the people in the pews will speak aloud to the preacher. This back and forth or call and response practice is used in many African American churches (see The Hum by Crawford). When a member of the congregation says, “Amen,” aloud then the preacher is affirmed and encouraged to continue along the same line of thought. Occasionally, the preacher will hear someone in the congregation, praying aloud, “Help him, Lord!” The preacher in that situation will realize that he is floundering; the sermon is not working, and some change is needed in that very moment. I have had the experience of someone saying to me as I preached, “I can’t hear you!” or “Say it again!” Although disconcerting to preachers who have not been accustomed to such dialogue, the practice can be helpful. In a dynamic and vocal way the congregation that enters into this back and forth exchange is taking responsibility, along with the preacher, for the sermon and the worship experience.

For churches in which the congregation does not speak aloud to the preacher, the call and response can be a prayer to God, “Help her, Lord!” It can be an exclamation of silent praise, “That’s the sentence I’ve been waiting to hear!” It can be a prayer in which the congregant admits to the Lord, “I am finding it hard to get anything today; help me.”

Some people in the congregation will write notes in which they enter a dialogue with the preacher. It may not be possible to get a good outline from a bad sermon, but one can raise questions to write in the notes. One can record ideas that arise which may or may not be in reference to the sermon but simply come unsought as one sits and listens. Whatever form it takes the person in the pew is practicing active listening. It doesn’t depend entirely on the preacher. The listener is working to bring meaning to the worship experience.

A fifth strategy for listening to sermons is to manage our distractions. The preacher may create distractions, and the worshiper may bring distractions into the service. A brief prayer before worship helps. Whenever one feels a distraction arise one can say a prayer, too. In fact, God may send the distractions to help us pray. In the middle of the service we think of someone in the congregation who is ill or who is going through a divorce or has lost a job or is struggling with faith. Our minds go to that person and so can our prayers. Those distractions seem to be a movement of the Spirit in our hearts, and we ask the Lord to use the sermon to speak to that person.

Sometimes the distractions arise from our own health. We may be hurting and finding it difficult to sit on a pew or hard chair. If our bones are hurting so badly we can’t sit easily we may choose before the service to sit in the back where we can rise and stand without bothering others. Preachers and worshipers understand this need and if done thoughtfully it does not disturb worship for anyone. Those who notice will hopefully say a prayer for someone who is hurting.

Distractions can come because we have a challenging week ahead and find ourselves thinking of the work before us instead of listening to the sermon. Again, the best strategy is to pray. If we miss the sermon completely because we are distracted, but we spend the thirty minutes in prayer we will have made good use of the sermon time.

Some distractions come from the preacher or other worship leaders. The way someone dresses can distract us.  We find ourselves thinking about the clothing instead of the leader’s message or announcement or song or Scripture reading.

Preachers can distract people with their mannerisms. A person’s accent can distract us. If the preacher uses poor grammar it can distract. If a preacher licks his or her lips or paces or bobs the head or twists a ring or clenches or wrings his or her hands it can distract us. If the preacher is low energy or too high in energy it can distract. If the preacher talks too loudly or too softly it can distract us. Speaking too fast or speaking too slowly can distract us. This list doesn’t end.

Distractions will come. Sometimes they are sent by God to help us pray, but sometimes the distractions can be described as the work of the devil. They keep us from active listening and our spiritual responsibility. The strategy is to manage the distractions. They will come, but we can manage them. Sometimes we avoid them. Always, we can pray which will be our best strategy.

The reader can add to my five strategies: taking responsibility for one’s worship experience; listening for one helpful sentence; using the Bible for reflection whether the preacher does or not; joining a mental dialogue with God and with the preacher, if only to say, “Help him, Lord”; and finally, managing distractions in a way that makes them work for good, not bad, in one’s worship experience. 

When one begins to develop strategies for listening then it becomes a delightful challenge. It is an intellectual and spiritual exercise to be an active listener. You will grow in your ability and range of listening strategies. You will enrich your worship experience.

One final essay is coming on the listening experience. There are bad sermons that cannot be heard without damage to one’s life in Christ. These sermons are to be avoided. My final entry will give a description and warning. Sometimes, the best response is, “Don’t listen.”

Listening to a Sermon

Part One

Almost any preacher can be heard on the internet these days. The better speakers gather a following. They are not only interesting and colorful speakers, they are often insightful theologians. Some of my friends have become connoisseurs of this excellent, mass media preaching. It helps them in their Christian discipleship. I am glad such preachers are available and helpful to so many.

However, most preachers do not have a mass audience.  Many of them are good preachers who give sermons that are worthy of a wider distribution. However, for reasons of access or promotion or God’s providence their sermons remain locally heard and appreciated but never gain wide spread recognition.

Still, there are many preachers who are not scintillating speakers. They do not offer profound insights. People continue to gather and listen to these more modest preachers week after week. At times I have thought that the people have simply accepted with grace the limited ability of their preacher, and they have allowed their expectations of any improvement in preaching to sink. 

Recently, my thinking has changed. I’ve come to believe that many more people in our churches have developed a skill that all of us  who go to church need to develop: the ability to listen to a sermon, even a poor one and gain something of value. Mark Twain once said that he had never heard a sermon from which he did not gain something; he did add that there had been a few close calls. I’ve come to believe that more important than the skill of the preacher is the skill of the listener. I am writing this reflection on how to listen to a sermon because I believe we can improve our experience in worship if we develop listening skills that overcome the weaknesses of a preacher. 

One foundation for all good listening is the realization that our experience of preaching improves as we appreciate its context in worship. Unlike an internet sermon in which one listens to the preacher while jogging or commuting home from work or cleaning house the preachers we hear on Sunday morning are being heard in the context of a worship service in which the hearers are participating. People sing hymns, offer prayers for their friends by name. They listen to announcements for upcoming activities. They put their money in the offering plates as a part of their worship. They hear scriptures read. They spend time before and after the service talking with people they have come to know in the congregation. Many of these folks will have volunteered in Sunday school or volunteered as greeters or ushers, sung in the choir or stayed after service to count the collection. The sermon fits in the context of congregational life, particularly it is best understood as only one element in worship. So, people who have become good listeners to sermons are people who have thoughtfully realized or simply reached the understanding intuitively that the sermon is a part of worship and not the whole point of their participation. Certainly, the quality of the sermon alone does not determine the validity or power of their worship experience.

Because the preacher and the musicians are up front it is easy to think of preaching and worship leadership as a performance which we in the audience can judge to be good or bad. However, the people who manage to make the most of sermons have learned that the preacher is not performing for the congregation. These good listeners have learned that God is the audience, and the congregation members are the performers. The people are there to offer their worship to God. The preacher and the musicians are prompters who help the people remember their lines as they perform their worship for God. Worship is bigger than the preacher or anyone else who stands up front to sing or give announcements or pray or read. Worship rises to God from the people who are gathered together in the pews. A worshiper who is focused on God may become almost indifferent to the music or to the sermon. Just as a well prepared performer does not really need a prompter to feed him or her the lines in his or her part, so a person who becomes absorbed in worship may not need or even notice the people standing up front in worship leadership because the worship experience transcends the prompters. 

As a preacher I know that happens. I have on occasion received a compliment from someone about my sermon as the person was leaving the church after service. They repeated to me what they had heard from God through the sermon. However, I realized immediately I had never said or meant to say what they heard. They were engaged with God. He was speaking to them but not with the words that I had been using. 

The same phenomena happens with music. Particularly helpful to worship is congregational singing. People who join their voices with others in praise to God are often comforted, inspired, challenged and confirmed in their faith. The quality of the singing is not so important as the ease with which people can enter into the experience. Music is not meant for the people up front to be honored as performers. Applause in a worship service seems odd to the purpose of worship. Applause from the congregation for musicians reinforces the idea that the performers are the ones up front and it makes the people in the congregation an audience such as you would find at a concert. The music, especially congregational singing, helps the people to offer the performance of their praise to God. The only applause should be applause in heaven.

Applause is not a problem for sermon givers. Very few sermons offered in local congregations elicit applause. That’s just as well! In fact, limited ability preachers can serve God better than highly talented preachers. The limited preacher serves better if the congregation hearing a talented preacher thinks too much of the preacher and fails, thereby, to offer their thoughts and praise where it belongs, to God alone. The sign of a good preacher is his or her ability to help people turn their thoughts to God. Never does a preacher want the congregation to leave the service saying, “What a great preacher!” Always, the good preacher wants the people to leave saying, “What a great Savior is our Lord!” The same applies to music and to all of our leaders in worship. As John the Baptist said in reference to Jesus, he must increase, and I must decrease.

Congregations that listen regularly to good preaching will, hopefully, become accustomed to the preaching. They will not be surprised by good preaching. They will expect it week by week. Hopefully, the congregation will learn to listen for God through the good preaching. The encounter with God will be far more significant than the efforts of the hard working and talented preacher. In time people will no longer notice that their preacher is exceptionally good in his or her calling. They take good preaching for granted. Being taken for granted is probably good for the spiritual health of the preacher, and the reward for his or her efforts will not be applause, but it will be a congregation that worships with reverence and joy. 

Congregations that listen regularly to modest preachers with limited ability or even to preachers who could do better if they worked harder, can, also, learn in time to look past the preacher to God. It will be harder for these listeners, but there are ways to become a good listener even to preachers who offer poorly prepared sermons or sermons that seem on the surface to have little insight or challenge to offer. Even these sermons can become in the ears of a good listener the work of God. In my next entry I will give specifics.