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Homily preached
at Bradford Cathedral
19th October 2008 - Choral Evensong Proverbs 4:1-18 & 1 John 3:16 – 4:6 |
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Listening to Wisdom. ‘If only he had listened, he wouldn’t be in this mess now’. ‘I wish I had listened to her – it would avoided so much heartache.’ ‘I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.’ ‘My wife doesn’t understand me.’ ‘My husband doesn’t listen to me.’ We hear these sort of cries almost every day. We hear it in the public sphere – ‘The government is not listening.’ And we hear it in the private sphere, in every day relationships with family, friends and colleagues. As human beings we hear a lot of words from other human beings, but we listen to a lot less. We are very good at filtering out what we are not keen to hear. Yet the very advice which we screen out may well be what we need to hear most. Listening to an uncomfortable truth may save us from an approaching conflict or a disastrous course of action. Listening to advice from another may rescue a fragile relationship from breakdown. And yet we’re not very good at listening. Why not? Well the Garden of Eden gives us a clue – it was there from the beginning of human history. ‘You may eat from any tree except this one.’ But human pride stepped in. Adam and Eve thought they knew better than their Creator. And so do we. Human pride is alive and well in us all. We might want to say that the young are foolish and think they don’t need advice from those older than them. But the old are proud and think they have life worked out well and are in no need of further advice. And yet, it is not life’s experiences alone which make us wiser, it is knowing how to interpret those experiences – and for that, we may benefit from the perspective of others. It is one of the tragedies of human history that each generation repeats the mistakes of the previous one. So is the writer of Proverbs wasting his time? “Listen, children, to a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight; for I give you good precepts: do not forsake my teaching.” (4:1) Then again in verse 10: “Hear, my child, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.” We might say Amen to that – if only the younger generation could learn from the experience of those who have gone before. In a recent episode of The Archers, script writers offered an ironic example of this to their, presumably, older audience. Pip Archer’s best friend, 16 year old Izzy, was confiding in her about the possibility that she might have fallen pregnant. Pip scolded her for being so stupid and Izzy’s reply had 2 ironies in it. “You wouldn’t understand, Pip, you haven’t been involved with a boy like this – and he loves me.” Izzy’s experience had not made her any wiser than Pip and her blind belief that the boy loved her, even though he had already ended the relationship, must have brought a wry smile to the face of many older listeners. But do we, as the older generation, set an example of listening? Do we deserve to be listened to so that the younger generation may be spared some heartache? Maybe we should ask how willing we are to listen to the younger generation, and so show that we respect them. And how open are we to learning new insights from each other, and from wise writings, such as the Bible? In his first epistle the aging John was offering teaching to a younger generation. He pleads with them to listen, knowing that his advice is born out of a long-standing obedience to Christ and comes from God himself. So it is he can say: “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” May we, like John, always listen to our Creator, and follow our Lord with openness so that we may have something to offer to those whose hearts are open to hearing godly advice and wisdom. Let us pray… |