We started the discussion of what it means to change the world by saying we are sent into the world where we are and… we need to begin in prayer.
Once you have accepted where you are and are praying… the next task is to listen and learn…
We never encounter people neutrally. We arrive with assumptions already in place—about what matters, what is broken, what should change, and how quickly it should happen. These assumptions are not usually malicious. They are formed. They come from culture, experience, fear, habit, and responsibility. Over time, they begin to feel obvious. Sensible. Even faithful.
Jesus calls us beyond our assumptions and towards genuine relationship
Matthew 9:9-11
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
It must be noted here that table fellowship in that culture was regarded as a very important symbol of the closeness, indeed the oneness, of those participating. This is one reason, for example, that Jews were not allowed to sit at the same table with Gentiles. For Jesus and his disciples to be at the same table with tax collectors and sinners implied a full acceptance of them.
Word Biblical Commentary
Jesus developed a reputation for being a friend to tax collectors and Sinners
Matthew 11:19
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
The Pharisees were proud of themselves and their picture of the ideal religious life…
I wonder whether part of the block is that all of us have pictures of what we expect our church to be?
Every human idealized image that is brought into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be broken up so that genuine community can survive. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Life Together
Tax Collectors and Sinners were outcasts. They knew they were not ok.
Matthew 9:12
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
The danger of not knowing we need the doctor is twofold. First, we trust our own way; second, we judge others who don’t think like us.
Foundation
Humility is the first plank of listening…
Romans 7:18-20
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
We are saved not by our ideas but by Jesus’ love
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
As people who recieved God’s mercy, God calls us to be people of Mercy, not people who are focussed on right actions.
Matthew 9:13
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The word ” mercy ” here means “Steadfast Love”
I wonder whether God is inviting us to a new understanding of our faith? A faith based on Mercy and not on Sacrifice? On love and not ideas.
1 Corinthians 8:1-3
We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.
We don’t see the whole truth, but as we live as loving listeners, we will grow as God’s children.
Sacrifice is a one-way transaction. You choose how much to give. You are in control
Mercy requires you to enter the world of another person. You are not completely in control.
Mercy is only possible with a firm foundation. One American pastor wrote about the sin of empathy… Empathy is never sinful… but if you don’t have a firm foundation it can be dangerous because you take on the values of the people you are empathising with…
1 Peter 3:15-16
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
Many of us would say we are struggling to survive ourselves so we keep others at arms length and give the bits of our time and emotional energy we feel able to give. We sacrifice.
Jesus invites us to to enter the worlds of other people in Mercy, and as we do, we discover that our relationship with God also deepens.
Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear.
We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.
So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to “offer” something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.
Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.
But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God.
The death of the spiritual life starts here, and in the end there is nothing left but empty spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words.
Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it.
Those who think their time is too precious to spend listening will never really have time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Life Together
The attitude we are to bring into the places we live, learn, work an play, is as a listener and a learner.
James 1:19
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,
Listening helps another person explore their inner world and discover new things about themselves.
Listening also helps the listener discover their own “mental maps” are limited and every person in your life is different to who you think they are. As you listen, you learn.
‘Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet.’
Charles “Tremendous” Jones
Letting people into your life changes you. Not letting people and other ways of seeing into life means you don’t change.
To truly listen is to allow someone else’s story to challenge our categories. It is to risk discovering that reality is more complex than we imagined, and that our explanations may have been too small. This is why listening feels costly. It unsettles our confidence that we already see clearly.
In this sense, listening is repentance practiced in real time—a repeated turning away from the dominance of my story and toward a posture where another person’s lived reality is allowed to matter.
Matt Garvin – Bless Book
Listening isn’t limited to conversation
Acts 17:1
When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
All built environments reflect the values of their builders… whether it is your desk, your garden, your neighbourhood or your national capital.
Listening through observation helps you understand how your words can be heard.
Acts 17:22-23
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Think of the people in your family, your workplace, your neighbourhood, your church or your sports team.
Who did you really listen to in the last week? Who is God inviting you to listen to?
Small Group Questions:
1.Where do you find it hardest to listen rather than speak — at home, work, church, or elsewhere? What makes listening difficult in that space?
2.When you meet new people, what assumptions do you tend to bring with you about what matters, what is broken, or what needs to change? How have those assumptions been formed?
3.Jesus became known as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners.” What do you think made people who felt “not okay” comfortable around him? What would that look like in our lives?
4.Jesus says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” What is the difference between sacrifice (controlled, manageable giving) and mercy (entering someone else’s world)? Where are you more comfortable?
5.Bonhoeffer suggests that listening is a greater service than speaking. When was the last time someone truly listened to you? How did that affect you? What might change if we practiced that kind of listening?
6.What is one practical step you could take this week to be more of a listener and learner in the places you live, learn, work, or play?