The story we
heard from the Hebrew Scriptures today is probably one of my favorite bible
stories. It works on so many levels:
For the original
audience, 25 centuries ago, it explained the source of Solomon’s famous wisdom,
and assured Israel that their king was supported by God.
It’s a
reassuring story to hear when we’re embarking on a big project or
responsibility – Solomon says he doesn’t feel ready for the huge work of being
king, and God responds with all that he will need.
It’s got a
moral, like a fairy tale in which the youngest son is the one who gets it right
by asking for help instead of power.
But my affection
for this story comes down to two words. In the translation we read today, those
words are an “understanding mind.” But several scholars point out that a better
translation of what Solomon asks for would be a “hearing heart;” a listening
heart.
The root word
that describes this heart of Solomon’s carries the sense of hearing with
focused attention, a sense of immediacy, depth and responsiveness. It’s listening, but not just the
listening we do every day when we listen to the radio, the boss, the teacher, a
spouse or parent.
This is the kind
of listening many of us only do occasionally, when something catches our
attention so profoundly that we miss the ringing phone, and forget the other
people in the room.
That kind of
listening can be life-changing.
This year the
Vestry and I are reading a book together called Fierce Conversations. The basic premise of the book is that
we succeed or fail at life, work, and relationships “gradually, then suddenly,
one conversation at a time.” (p1)
So the author
offers excellent examples and advice on how to have conversations that allow
you to confront difficulties, have a more effective meeting, and make decisions.
It’s given us
some good ideas and discussion, but a couple months ago we got to a chapter on
listening called, “Be here, prepared to be nowhere else.” Almost everybody knew
the misery of trying to talk to a boss or a friend who was scanning email,
typing, cleaning or just watching the room throughout the conversation.
Then the
atmosphere began to crackle and spark as people described the opposite
experience of being absolutely listened to – even once. We all sat up straighter that night as
we remembered the powerful experience of value and relationship when a listener
put aside every distraction and was utterly present.
Has that ever
happened to you?
I hope so, because I want you to imagine that experience now, in Solomon’s conversation with God – a conversation that begins with God saying, “Ask for whatever you want me to give to you.”
Imagine the
intensity of God’s focus, God’s listening, in that invitation.
And imagine what
it takes for Solomon to ask for the ability to listen that way in every
conversation: to God, to the vast multitude of God’s people, to anyone.
Imagine how it
must feel, to be listening so wholly as God responds,“I will give you a hearing
heart, and there will be no one like you.
And I will give you also what you did not ask: riches, and honor, and
long life as you walk in my ways.”
There is a power
in that kind of hearing that sends a shiver up my spine.
No wonder it’s a
gift of God.
It takes wisdom
to ask for that kind of wisdom, and it takes courage to ask for that gift, and
to use it. But when we do, it brings gifts we never asked for.
I imagine that
if you’ve had those moments of really hearing, of that kind of listening that
is present, prepared to be nowhere else, you know the kinds of gifts it brings:
love and inspiration, deeper relationships, new knowledge, and hope.
And if that’s
not wisdom, I don’t know what is.
So listening
matters. It’s a practical,
everyday, essential wisdom.
It matters at
work. It matters at church. And it
matters at home – above all, this is the way we need to listen to those we
love. It makes marriages, and
deepens the connection between parents and children.
In the Fierce
Conversations book, Susan Scott offers concrete and practical ways to
increase our wisdom, our listening and hearing. She says that to have those fully present conversations,
“you must have a fierce affection … genuine curiosity [and] an insatiable
appetite for learning more every day about [the relationship]. And all of this
is helped significantly by your willingness to occasionally set aside all the
topics ping-ponging inside your own head and simply be with this other person,
here and now.” (96)
To help with
that listening, Scott suggests asking “What else?”
not once, but three times when finding out how something matters and what could be.
not once, but three times when finding out how something matters and what could be.
And when you get
to “I don’t know,” Scott offers, “What would it be if you did know?”
Those are
powerful questions. I know, because people have asked me.
And it’s
powerful listening.
So powerful it’s
no wonder that’s where wisdom starts and grows, with a hearing heart.
That hearing
heart matters tremendously as we listen to one another,
but the deepest
gift of wisdom comes when we open that hearing heart to God.
Many of us
already have practices that help us to listen to God: meditation, deep reading
of scripture, listening to music or to dreams, going for a walk or a run. Those
are valuable practices, but Susan Scott’s advice applies here, too.
The beginning of
wisdom may be as simple as ending your prayers by asking God, “What else?”
And listening.
“What else?”
Three times. The silences and the
answers get richer. Who knows what you’ll hear?
And when you
find yourself saying, “I don’t know,” trust that God is asking you, “What would
it be if you do know?”
It helps to
practice those conversations with the people close to us, because as we
practice, we’ll get better and better at listening to God’s people and to God.
So listen.
Listen deeply,
prepared to be nowhere else,
give your heart
a chance to hear,
and perhaps you,
like Solomon, will hear God saying,
I will give you
also all that you have not asked.
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