Nearly a whole week ago we gathered around the table (before gathering around the table in communion during worship!). We prayed. We checked-in. The homework had been to put energy into being quick to listen and slow to speak. While some found they really hadn’t had time to invest in doing that during the week, someone else found they were able to listen immediately — while still at church! And someone else named how in three very different circumstances they found that the opportunity to listen was presented to them.
As the conversation developed with the insights being offered, I will highlight two themes to hold. First, when we were willing to wait it out, to really be quick to listen and slow to speak, people were willing to open up and to share. Their openness in these moments were unexpected gifts, and gifts that led at least one to consider, “What am I missing by talking (too soon)?,” it is a question we might want to ask ourselves…And second, in the listening, really listening, some recognized that they will not know what to say, or an answer for what is being shared. This is true, and often people are not looking for answers in that sense, they are not looking for advise. Yet what we have to offer is so much more than advice, we are invited to witness to how God sees, hears, and loves (them) in the midst of the darkness, chaos, messiness, sorrow, and pain of life. It has been called, a ministry of presence, and it is just that, being present or being with people — where they are. I know, often it sounds like nothing, but isn’t that exactly what we profess is the core of our faith? That God walked with us? Isn’t the entire life of Christ one of a ministry of presence? And, well…turns out that ministry, that #love with flesh on, that Christ changed everything — changed each of us (praise God!)…so maybe there is something powerful, something that we cannot quite grasp that happens when we are open to being present, when we are truly quick to listen and slow to speak.
Thinking of how our listening can communicate the love of God is both powerful and humbling. Isn’t God good to give us simple tasks that we can do? And yet, aren’t we also so grateful for the grace for all those times when we forget to be quick to listen, and slow to speak?
In the shift that happens weekly, the turn to trying to hear God speak to us in listening to scripture, we heard,
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:20-21, English Standard Version)
And we considered Job, we considered blessing God, we considered loss. In a wilderness time (Lent), in the day following the funeral of a beloved member of the church family, we let the words of Job breathe and speak to us. Many I think enjoy the book of Job, find comfort in the book. We noticed how (later in the book) the friends of Job were truly friends, while they kept silent and just sat with him. We wondered if it was worth it — all the trials — to bless God? There was a mention of the humility inherent in these two verses; everything we have is a gift from God — EVERYTHING — and we will take none of the “things” we have when we meet death, and yet, would we be able to understand and to offer that we are naked before God and all that we have is from God?
So what is the homework? It is a reflective exercise. Meditate on these verses, and think if you have been able to really bless God in loss, to bless God after loss. If not — what has been in the way. If yes — how did you get to the space where you could bless God, through tears, through heartache, through it all?
Peace to all in the challenging work of reflection. May the Holy Spirit stir what needs to be stirred in this Lenten moment.
Praying God speaks through the stillness,
~Rev. Sabrina Slater