Listening

 

A number of years ago I read Harold Bell Wright's book The Shepherd of the Hills. It was read in preparation for our trip to the Branson area where they put on a pageant depicting the story of the book. I still have the book and should read it again. Most of his books are out of print but Kindle has some of them in digital format for download. So I just finished reading The Calling of Dan Matthews. The storyline deal with a young man of strong character and faith who in his first call to pastor a church has to deal with church leadership entrenched in "we've always done it this way and it is how we are going to continue to do it." Dan sees the hypocrisy of the leadership and seeks to help the church truly live out the moral and social teachings of Jesus. Dan is also challenged in his thinking by a young lady who is a nurse and understands the failings of such a church, its lack of love and thus rejects participation in such a group as well as one who want to lead such a group. (Yes, they do fall in love, etc.) Dan is also helped along the way by a wise old doctor who perceives the intricacies and fallacies of the church and its leadership. There are other characters and events in the story which add to the meaning to be discovered in it. A few quotes from the book to stimulate your thinking:

"There is no hatred so bitter as that hatred born of a religious love; no falsehood so vile as the lie spoken in defense of truth; no wrong so harmful as the wrong committed in the name of righteousness; no injustice so terrible as the injustice of those who condemn in the name of the Savior of the world."

"Because it is their religion to worship an institution, not a God; to serve a system, not the race. Every reformation begins with the persecution of the reformer and ends with the followers of that reformer persecuting those who would lead them another step toward freedom. Misguided religious people have always crucified their saviors and always will!"

"Don't you understand what this has done for me? It's not the false charges. It's not that! It's -- it's the thing whatever it is, that has made this action of the church possible. I am forced to doubt, not alone the church, but everything -- the people, myself, God, Christ, Christianity, life itself; everything! How can I go on with a work, in which I cannot say to myself with truth that I believe?" (I can only say that, yes Dan I understand your struggle and pain, as well as doubt and unbelief. I survived 38 years of ministry in the church, probably not all that different from Dan's, only by the grace and mercy of God. I will not tell you the conclusion of the story, just to say Dan's wholeness and peace was not to be found in this church.)

"For while, theoretically, the strength of the church is in its fidelity to the things in which it professes to believe; practically and actually the strength of the church of today is in its tacit acceptance of its unbeliefs. Strange things would befall us if we should ever get the habit of insisting that our practices square with our preaching; if churches would make this the test of fellowship -- that men must live their doctrines, rather than teach them-- that they must live their beliefs rather than confess them-- that they must live their faiths, rather than profess them."

Looking Inwardly With Courage (Oswald Chambers, d. 1917)

"Jesus doesn't take us aside and explain things to us all the time. He explains things to us as sre are able to understand them. It is slow work -- so slow that it takes God all of time and eternity to make a man or woman conform to His purpose. We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves! We don't even recognize the envy, laziness, or pride within us when we see it. But Jesus will reveal to us everything we have held within ourselves before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to looked inwardly with courage?"

What do you hear? 

WHEN A MINISTER reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out of ten the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to hear read. And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it—there is no telling what you might hear.  (Fredrick Buechner)

Also from Buechner

He Who Seeks, Finds

IN LUKE, JESUS tells a strange story. At midnight an unexpected guest arrives. He is hungry, but you have nothing to feed him. So you go to the house of a friend to borrow some food. "Don't bother me," the friend says. "The door's locked. The children are all asleep. I can't give you anything now. Go home." But you keep on pestering him. You are so persistent that he finally gets up and gives you what you want. Then Jesus adds, "For every one who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened." And his point seems to be that the secret of prayer is persistence. Keep at it, keep speaking into the darkness, and even if nothing comes, speak again and then again. And finally the answer is given.   It may not be the kind of answer that we want—the kind of stopgap peace, the kind of easy security, the kind of end to loneliness that we are apt to pray for. Christ never promises peace in the sense of no more struggle and suffering. Instead, he helps us to struggle and suffer as he did, in love, for one another. Christ does not give us security in the sense of something in this world, some cause, some principle, some value, which is forever. Instead, he tells us that there is nothing in this world that is forever, all flesh is grass. He does not promise us unlonely lives. His own life speaks loud of how, in a world where there is little love, love is always lonely. Instead of all these, the answer that he gives, I think, is himself. If we go to him for anything else, he may send us away empty or he may not. But if we go to him for himself, I believe that we go away always with this deepest of all our hungers filled.