Can I Hear You Now?

In writing my final paper for this year's classes, I was trying to briefly express the mutuality of listening that has come to serve as a counterbalance to my desire to be heard by others. This is what I came up with...

For about ten years, Verizon has had a very effective marketing campaign for their wireless network, “Can you hear me now?” In fact, when we hear those five words, chances are good that we will picture the guy on the cell phone walking through all manner of locations testing his coverage. It is a simple phrase that hits at the heart of a deep human need, that of being heard. My most traumatic moments are usually tied to my not being able to communicate the issues of the heart, of identity, to another person. Either because they wouldn’t listen or because I didn’t feel safe sharing. Talk about heartburn! However, I have concluded that a better question for me to ask is, “Can I hear you now?”

If I can’t hear you, is it because I am not listening, because my cultural filters don’t allow me to truly hear what you are saying, because we don’t speak the same language, or perhaps because you don’t feel safe enough around me to say what is in your heart? I suppose there could be another reason I can’t hear you—you may have been so oppressed and rejected that you don’t realize that you have something to say. Trust me you do. Everyone has been given a voice—having been made in the image of God—we, like the Prophet Isaiah, need the Lord to touch our mouth with a coal from the altar because our voice and the voices that surround us have been tainted by sin (Isaiah 6:1-7).

I have found that what I must proclaim involves much more than getting people to hear me. It involves getting myself stop talking and pay attention long enough to be able to hear them more fully. It is as people are given voice, made fully human in my eyes (and theirs), that I can learn from them and we can grow together. It also involves enabling others to become free enough to add their voice to the great anthem of that is the Mission of God in the world.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)

As we surrender our pride and our fear to our loving Savior—Jesus Christ—he draws us together in dialog, in just actions, and in mutual hospitality, as brothers and sisters in the family of God. I have a feeling that it is a family gathering we have been looking forward to our whole lives, whether we knew it or not. We can have a better network.

I am also working on listening long enough and engaging personally enough to allow you to speak what we both need to hear.

Feel free to tell me what you think.

You have the final say.

So I am asking, “Can I hear you now?” 

Throne Down, or Thrown Down

This week is a guest appearance of a post from my other blog (a Bible/Devotional blog http://psalms-honest2god.blogspot.com/)

Mark 13:1-2

Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him,

"Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!"

And Jesus answered and said to him,

"Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

Comments:

2001 landslide from major earthquake
in El Salvador

Jesus was quick to teach that the things that we think are impressive, solid, immovable, and permanent will be torn down if we honor them more than we honor God. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? We occasionally have earthquakes here in Oregon (I can think of two pretty big ones) but I am originally from Los Angeles  and have experienced many there. Once as a child I was thrown out of bed during one especially strong quake. My daughter is from El Salvador and experienced many terrible quakes including the one in Santa Tecla (2001) that killed 944 people and damaged 150,000 buildings. There really is something unnerving when that which you think to be solid starts moving and shaking, or rolling like the waves on the ocean!

Jesus’ disciples thought the temple was the most beautiful and stable thing in their world. Yet it had come to be a mockery to its original purpose. When Jesus entered Jerusalem he found that it was not a “house of prayer for all nations” and had to drive out the moneychangers and sacrifice vendors. It was not a place concerned with relieving the burden of the very poor, as we saw in the account of the widows offering and Jesus’ condemnation of the predatory practices of the scribes. The leaders in what was supposed to be “my Father’s house” were like wicked tenants who were plotting to kill “the heir” and would soon complete the act. Jesus was telling his followers that their hope was not in a building—or in any impressive works of man—but the work that Jesus was about to do in dying for their sins. He had already told them about this many times but they really didn’t understand. They just wanted to talk about when the temple would be destroyed. End-times fascination started early I guess.

Model of Robinson's Arch into Temple

There used to be a pedestrian walkway to enter the Temple Compound at ground level and it was supported by what we now call Robinson’s Arch. In 70 a.d. the Romans tore it all down and toppled the stones into the street below where they left a significant crater. See photo of stones below.

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism sponsored a consultation of “Gospel and Culture” which was published as The Willowbank Report. These diverse ministry leaders commented on the shockwaves of our conversion to Christ.

"True conversion to Christ is bound, therefore, to strike at the heart of our cultural inheritance. Jesus Christ insists on dislodging from the center of our world whatever idol previously reigned there, and occupying the throne himself. This is the radical change of allegiance which constitutes conversion, or at least its beginning."[1]

What is the anchor for our soul, the light of our life, the solid rock that we run to when all around us is sinking sand? It had better be Jesus or we are in for a rude awakening! 

Regardless of timetables, charts & graphs, and debates over symbolism...

That which can be shaken will be shaken.

God will judge every idol exalted against him. Kingdoms and buildings alike will fall.

The question is, will we stand in God's grace or will we fall in our own strength.

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[1] Ralph D. Winter, and Steven C. Hawthorne, eds. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2006), 495.