We Listen
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Sermon Notes:
This week, instead of a traditional sermon, we spent some time listening to God together through Scripture. If you’re listening to the audio version of what we did, you may want to pause it numerous times throughout in order to give yourself the space and time you need to fully engage. Alternatively, you may want to read through what we did, which you can do by clicking the link below. You’ll notice that the last step in this exercise is to share with others and together consider what God might be saying to each of you. We do this because following Jesus and knowing God more and more intimately, is not something we’re meant to do in isolation. It’s a journey we’re meant to take with others.
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Scripture: Luke 5:1-11
One day as Jesus was standing by the Sea of Galilee, the people were crowding round him and listening to the word of God. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Saint Benedict was an Italian monk during the last, gasping breath of the Roman Empire. A year before Benedict’s death, Rome was sacked and became a tiny sovereign power ruled by the Church. The years of Benedict’s life were a time of dramatic change as the western world crumbled into the so-called Dark Ages. (Some would say we’re living in a time not so different from Benedict’s time.)
One of the things Benedict is remembered for is forming monastic communities that were intended to be loving communities in which people submitted their entire lives to the will of God. One of the central practices Benedict developed for these communities was the practice of Lectio Divina.
Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God through Scripture. It treats Scripture as a gift to be received rather than as a problem to be solved or dissected. It asserts the importance of reading Scripture slowly so that we can really hear God through it.
Over the last 4 weeks, this is what we’ve been invited to do between Sundays, in a much less formal way. We were invited to recite the opening words of Psalm 42 as a prayer and in that way express our desire (or our lack of desire) to truly know God. This past week we were invited to recite Psalm 130 at some point each day, contemplating the words and listening for what God might be saying to us through the words. I also suggested that toward the end of this week, we connect with someone to share our experience of listening to God through Psalm 130. It would be great if this person has also been listening through Psalm 130 this week.
The thing we haven’t talked much about in terms of listening to God, is the challenge of distinguishing between that which is God speaking and all the other things that colour what we hear – things like our own assumptions, biases, preconceived ideas, cultural heritage, and the like. We have a tendency, in our particular part of the world, to forget that we were never intended to follow Jesus all by ourselves. From the very beginning, Jesus established a community of faith. And it was from within the context of this community that the earliest Christians heard from God, understood Jesus’ teachings more fully, and practiced the way of Jesus as their way of life. As a church, we who are Walmer are a community of faith meant to together hear from God, understand Jesus’ teachings more fully, and practice the way of Jesus as our way of life. One of the ways we do this, is by listening to God through Scripture together.
Alan Roxborough, a Canadian theologian, wrote about listening to God through Scripture, that “it is intended to draw us communally into communion” with God.[1] This is what we’re going to do on Sunday. Together we’re going to read Luke 5:1-11. We’re going to sit with it, reflect and ponder it, and dare to consider that God might be speaking through it. We’re going to share with one another whatever catches our attention in all this sitting, reflecting, and pondering. And as we share, we will, I believe, together reach greater clarity about what God has to say to us than if we did this all by ourselves.
As you prepare for Sunday, it might be helpful to reflect on how the idea of reading Scripture and listening to God communally makes you feel. Are you scared? Are you excited? Sharing what we think God is saying can be one of the most vulnerable things we do. And yet, it is also one of the most powerful things we do. The idea of what’s coming may make you want to stay off your computer Sunday morning. But I’d like to encourage you to take the risk of connecting. Take the risk of communal communion with God.
[1] This is from an as-yet unpublished article titled Dwelling in a Dark Time (Jan. 2022).