 |
|
Coral Infantil Sementes da Esperança (http://www.alagoas24horas.com.br/conteudo/?vCod=77856)
|
Some time ago, Lau
and I were invited to participate at a youth conference and for the first time
I was listed as speaker. Usually my articulate,
immersed-in-the-wisdom-of-the-Bible husband, was keynote preacher and I accompanied
him for support and maybe a question-answers session for women, but I was never
a spokesperson. This time was different: both of us would be speaking to the entire group at different sessions, and
I must say I loved the idea. The week before the event, my doctor pronounced a
verdict on my intermittent sore throat: we’ve got to operate, or the infections
will escalate to unbearable heights. So I had a tonsillectomy and was forbidden
to speak. I went to camp with Lau and the young people of the church, but was
not only mute for public speaking
but also for singing praises. All I could do was play the recorder – and I was
never a great instrumentalist –when they sang in congregation. I wrote
expressing my frustration:
Lord, I want to be a mouth,
shout from mountaintops, proclaim through great reads
-- but today you make me silent,
and to a mute voice you whisper, “Just be still
and remember that I Am.
I give and take what plans you make
to work out well all one can say
of mercy and sheer grace.”
I wanted
to proclaim, I confess it now,
for it made me sound important
and
the sound of my enamored voice seemed
clearer
than the message I was to communicate.
“Dumb speaker, talk with your life,
shout with your being and love with your seeing,
be a hearer, be a doer – but stay quiet,
listen humbly, learn intensely, share my infinite gentleness!”
When our children were young and my mother was visiting, she once
exclaimed, “They are so loud! Why
can’t they be more quiet and polite like so-and-so’s kids?” I confess that I
was never a good teacher of politeness or quietude. At the dinner table we
always seemed to have wild discussions about everything under the sun –
sometimes three or four simultaneously. Ideas, dreams, frustrations, spiritual
struggles and temporal victories were all on the table, spilled over, hoarded while
shared, communicating thought and hope with words, not always of wisdom, but
always wielding authenticity. Sometimes our words rose from the flesh, but we
always looked toward the Word who became flesh, and tried to flesh out faith in
action. All of us, became, become and are becoming speakers, though the sound
of music runs from rhythmic rap to symphonic praise to the simple do re mi of pain.
When I consider that one of the only
permanent aftershocks of my cerebral vascular accident is losing my voice I
must concede that God was generous to me. (He is always generous and good and
would still have been good if I had lost everything, even my life – but a proud
and strong-willed loudmouth can learn a lot when she is not the soloist and
can’t even carry a tune in the choir – if she learns to listen well). So losing
one’s voice is an opportunity for learning to hear – even when one perceives that
physically my hearing impairment is increasing.
Jesus’ brother may have had similar
issues before he wrote: My dear brothers, take note
of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become
angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires
(James 1.19NIV). Quick to listen, slow to speak,
slow to anger! My tendency is the opposite: quick indignation, quick and easy
talking , hard of hearing and harder
still to listen well, so James’s admonition is counterpoint to what comes
naturally. And we not only must listen well, but do what we heard from God.
Jesus said that what distinguishes his sheep from others is: My sheep listen to my voice; I know them,
and they follow me (John 10.27). Christ knows those who listen to him, and
those who hear his voice follow him. Doers and not just hearers or sayers (I
must concede that some Sayers, like
Dorothy, are real doers with their
stories – but you get the point).
One of the aspects of writing, for me, is
communicating truth in a way that is lovely and loving. Paul says it well: “speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow
up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” and “put off falsehood and speak
truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” Ephesians 4:15,
25). The result of truthful communication in love is growing in all things in
Christ, and the reason we do so is that we are all members of the same body.
We see progression: good listening yields
true speech, which results in growing as participants in one body. When Charles
Wesley expressed the desire for a thousand tongues to speak the praise of our
Redeemer, he was not just talking
about multiple languages. We believe there are people out of every tribe and
nation who have heard and are practicing the written Word by the living Word
incarnate – so more than a thousand tongues are talking ,
and talking well. But each singular
Christian has the opportunity to express what has been expressed in: “the
honors of thy name”. One Word made flesh and dwelt among us – this “charms our
fears, bids our sorrows cease, breaks the power of cancelled sin, sets the
prisoner free, ‘tis music in the sinner’s ears, ‘tis life and health and peace”[1].
Wesley’s wording is laden with awesome!
Isaiah saw the incredibly awesome throne
of the Lord, encircled by six-winged seraphs singing the holiness of the God
who fills the earth with his glory. The prophet’s exclamation was not of having
reached a personal pinnacle of spiritual success – on the contrary, he had to
say “Woe to me! I am a man of unclean lips, and live with people of unclean
lips, and my eyes have seen the king ,
the Lord Almighty!” Isaiah’s mouth was touched and his guilt removed, and he
was commissioned to tell God’s wayward people “Until the cities lie ruined and
without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined
and ravaged, until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly
forsaken” (Isaiah 6.7-12). A prophet sent by God must communicate the truth
even under the threat of total ruin. In an utterly forsaken land, arises a
voice crying in the wilderness – predicted by prophets, fulfilled by the last
prophet of the old covenant: John the Baptist (Isaiah 40:3; 43:19; Matthew
3:3). Even the advent of the locust and honey-eating prophet was preceded by his
father Zechariah’s being stricken with... muteness (Luke 1.5-20). And John was
called to preach in the middle of nowhere – in the desert of Judea
Awesome were the scenes witnessed while
shepherds watched their flocks and angels sang one unforgettable night, and the
uncultured sheep-watchers were commissioned to spread the word concerning Jesus
(Luke 2:8-18). The same John (not the Baptist, but the old apostle who had
walked with Jesus since early in his lifetime) who spoke about the Word made
flesh (John 1.1-14) wrote to complete the joy of every believer with “the Word
of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim
to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We
proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have
fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete!”(1 John 1:1-5). Nearly a
hundred years later, John heard the voice of angels and fell down to worship at
the feet of the angel who had been showing the vision of the eternal city, when
the messenger intervened: “But he said to me, Do not do it! I am a fellow
servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the
words of this book. Worship God!" (Revelation 22:8).
The entire Bible is laden with the dance
of hearing, understanding, and being silent and acknowledging our woe before we
can communicate life-giving speech. Listening to the voice of the Wind that
blows when and where he wishes (John 3:8-12) we are born anew. It is in a
gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11, 12) that the Lord speaks to us after letting
loose earth-shattering thunder and fire. Likewise, he expects our powerful
speech, whether through multimedia at full volume or written books shared by
word of mouth in plain English or Portuguese (in our case), or Chinese, or
International Sign Language, Swahili or any other language in this world, to be
simple, understandable truth spoken in love, with the whisper of the Spirit
that resounds throughout the earth.
This Christmastide, I wish I become known
for listening well – not just music that I love, but God’s forever music, the sound of a mighty rush of wind and a gentle
breeze that touches one’s life to leave it never the same. I wish my friends to
hear the Voice – not voices of idols or babble of incoherent speech, but the
voice we are admonished to listen to without hardening arteries or heart. May
we develop learnable hearts and minds, so we acknowledge the God who gives “knowledge
and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning” (Daniel 1:17).
I remember my Jewish friends who
celebrate the feast of lights, Hanukkah, a lesser festival in their calendar,
and the words of the prophet who was displaced from his land and served
faithfully through several international[2]
dynasties:
Praise be
to the name of God for ever and ever;
wisdom and
power are his.
He changes
times and seasons;
he sets up king s and deposes them.
He gives
wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals
deep and hidden things;
he knows
what lies in darkness,
and light
dwells with him.
I thank and
praise you, O God of my fathers:
You have
given me wisdom and power,
you have
made known to me what we asked of you,
you have
made known to us the dream of the king.
This song is reminiscent of Paul in his
letter to the ex-pagan Corinthians:
For God,
who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"
made his
light shine in our hearts
to give us
the light of the knowledge
of the
glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have
this treasure in jars of clay
to show
that this all-surpassing power
is from God
and not from us (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).
May Faith communicate the truth of a
brilliantly happy Christmas to you and yours, with glories that are not our
own, and treasures multiplied throughout the earth in every tongue, for every
nation!
Elizabeth
Gomes
No comments:
Post a Comment