“Hear O Israel”

by Doug Floyd

(image by Yaniv Ben-Arie; used via Creative Commons permission)

Lately Iʼve been thinking aloud about listening. Iʼve been talking about the different
forms of listening like empathic listening, active listening, ethnographic listening. Along
the way, Iʼve made a bunch of mental notes, and Iʼm having a hard time keeping up with
them.

I remembered a story about listening while I took a shower this morning. It seems I
always remember things while in the shower. Sometimes I wonder if I might find a lost
set of keys by simply taking a shower. Anyway, back to the remembered story.

Shortly after Kelly and I were married, she noticed a peculiar habit of mine (one among
many). I pointed at food during our meals. We would be talking about the dayʼs events
when I would point at the bread. She handed me the bread, and then Iʼd point to the
butter.

At my folks house, she noticed everyone pointed during the meal. After about a month,
she asks me, “Whatʼs with all this pointing during the meal times?” No one had ever
asked me, so I never even thought about it before.

“Well, my dad likes to tell stories, and he doesnʼt like to be interrupted. So in my family,
we just started pointing at food instead of asking someone to pass it.”

I grew up listening to my dadʼs stories. And in many ways, Iʼm a better storylistener than
storyteller. People tell me their stories. And I like to listen.

But listening is not always easy.

I donʼt like the telephone because itʼs too easy for me to get distracted from listening.
Without the person in front of me, my mind wanders so easily. A friend is talking on the
phone. He is trying to remember a mutual acquaintance. “Old so and so. What was his
name?”

As he continues talking, all I can hear is, “old so and so.” Only in my mindʼs eye, I see
the words, “sew and sew.” I see a big pair of scissors opening and closing. Then I see
them up on an old Cas Walker building on Broadway. The neon scissors are opening
and closing as they cut prices. I hear Cas say, “Shop at the sign of the shears.”

Sign of the shears. That sounds funny. What if the big scissors were atop the Sears
building on Central? “Shop at the sign of the Sears.”

Iʼm slipping. I see a flashing neon light over a steakhouse, “At the Sign of the Steers.” I
tumbling down into Aliceʼs Wonderland of Rhyme when suddenly me friendsʼ voice
breaks the fall, “So what do you think?”

Think? Oh great. What was he talking about? I scramble. “Well, what do you think?” he
starts up again. Whew, that was close. I must concentrate. Pay attention.

Like I said, listening can be hard.

Back in Jesusʼ day, the Pharisees were a bit hard of hearing as well. They kept
misunderstanding what he said. When he told the story of Israel and Godʼs purposes for
His people, He told it in a way that sounded different.

“What is he up to?,” some of them queried suspiciously. They didnʼt trust him. Then
again, they didnʼt trust his Father either. Isaiah told Israel as much. He warned that they
would become blind, deaf and lame like the idols they trusted.

One day a Pharisee asks Jesus what is the greatest of the commands. Jesus replies,
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.” He responds by reciting the “Shema.”

Israel recited, prayed and even posted this command in the Mezuzah they placed in
their doorways. Shema comes from the Hebrew word for prayer. First and foremost, the
Israelite must hear.

As Jesus speaks, he is not simply repeating Mosesʼ age old command. He is the Word
Made Flesh. And he is the Son of Man who truly obeys the command. He hears and
obeys.

As Jesus speaks, it is with the same power and authority of God as He spoke at
creation, “Let there be Light.” And there was light. Jesus says, “Hear O Israel.” Even as
he speaks the power of God is present to heal deaf ears and mute tongues. When man
can no longer hear the Word of God, he loses his power to speak as well. His words fall
like powerless chatter.

As we read the story, Jesusʼ word, “Hear O Israel” steps out from the page and breaks
into our heart. He is speaking directly to us. We are the deaf ones. He is restoring our
hearing, and He is engrafting us into Israel. When He says, “Hear O Israel,” we are
included.

His Living Word breaks into upon our deaf ears, giving us ears to hear. For only in
“Hearing” the Word can we believe. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of
God” (Rom 10:17). Now oddly enough, this makes me think of a science fiction movie I
recently watched called, Moon.

In the story, one man lives on a moon station with no other humans. He has been
working there for almost three years and will soon finish his commitment and get to
return to earth. But there is a problem. Everything his believes about his world is wrong.
He is bind and deaf to what is real, and it will take another voice outside himself to
reveal this.

We are like this man working alone on the moon. We have limited knowledge of our
world. At any given moment, our perceptions are limited and distorted by our own
feelings and responses to the events around us. We misunderstand ourselves and the
people around us. We hold grudges; we struggle against bitterness; we remember too
many sorrows and not enough joys. We are incapable loving perfectly.

Jesus calls out, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and
with all your strength. And the second, like it, is this: ʻYou shall love your neighbor as
yourself.ʼ (Mark 12:29-31).

He breaks into our self-contained world with His Word of Truth, His Word of Life. He
says, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” And acknowledging our complete inability to obey
the Father, He answers the command. Jesus, the Son of Man, responds to the call of
God and He Loves the Father with all His heart, soul, mind and strength. He loves his
neighbor as himself (see John 15:12).

So we rest in Him. We live in Him. We love in Him. By His Spirit, He heals our deaf ears,
He anoints our blind eyes, He leads us step by step into a world of truth beyond our
distorted perceptions. Through His healing touch, I learn to listen to people around me. I
learn to hear them as He hears them. I learn to love as He loves.

He keeps speaking through His Word. He keeps transforming me in His Spirit. He keeps
leading me into the love and glory and life of His life in the Father, Son and Spirit.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their
word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they
also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory
that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may
know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that
they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that
you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O
righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these
know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to
make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in
them.” (John 17:20-26)