Having Ears to Hear
How to Listen t “Don’t preach to me!” That usually means something like,“Don’t lecture me! Don’t tell me what to do! Get out of my face and leave me alone!” Let’s be honest. Listening to a sermon is not one of the more exciting activities in our lives.The apostle Paul called preaching an exercise in foolishness.The Greeks of his day were impressed by rhetoric; his fellow Jews were persuaded by miracles. But preaching a dead and risen Jesus? Foolishness! Don’t shortchange that foolish sermon, however, or that foolish preacher. Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ (Romans 10). So how do we tune those ears to hear on Sunday morning? Here are a few thoughts:
1. Ears to hear are God’s gift. We’re all born deaf to God’s Word.You can thank Adam and Eve for that.The ears screwed onto the sides of your head may work well enough, but they are not naturally inclined to hear God’s Word. Like the deaf mute in the Gospel, Jesus needs to stick His fingers into our ears and speak His ephphatha.“Be opened!” Don’t think you can improve your Gospel hearing with seven easy steps. Ears that hear the voice of Jesus are His baptismal gift to you.They used to stick fingers in the ears of the newly baptized and say,“Ephphatha.” It probably tickled. We don’t do that anymore, but the Lord still tickles our ears with His Word to open them. It is His doing, not ours. Our “doing” is to get out of the way so the Lord can have His way. 2. Recognize that we are culturally hard of hearing.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 10
I don’t mean that ringing in your ears caused by blasting your iPods. I’m talking about what all that screen-staring does to our brains. TV, computers, DVD, Powerpoint, video games, movies—we’re a visually-oriented society. We don’t listen nearly as well as previous generations. Because our brains aren’t tuned to listen, we need to work a little harder to hear. Put away all those distractions— bulletins, books, cell phones, Gameboys. Be sure to get a good night’s sleep. It also helps to read the assigned Scriptures ahead of time. Surprises are for the movies, not sermons.
