2 Kings 5:1-14, Galatians 6:7-16, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’” (2 Kings 5:13) Sometimes the complexity of life is rather alluring. We feel productive by managing the many facets of our lives – our families, our careers, our health, our social life, our hobbies and special interests. We place value in the complexity – we work harder, we are more accomplished. And, yet, sometimes that complexity can seem rather overwhelming. Here, Scripture offers us a gift. “All he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean.’” Value also lies in the simplicity of life. I believe one of the greatest gifts offered us are these words: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40) It is that simple….love….perhaps the most essential aspect of our lives is love…loving God, loving our spouses, our parents, our siblings and our children…loving our friends and acquaintances and even strangers. There are many ways to think about love, but today I want to talk about listening…about loving by listening.
There is a wonderful children’s book by Joseph Krumgold called Onion John. This book won the Newbery Medal for most distinguished contribution to literature for children in 1960. This story is about a 12-year old boy named Andy who lives in the small town of Serenity. Andy becomes friends with Onion John, an eccentric man who lives on the outskirts of town and raises onions. I want to read to you a description of Onion John to give you a flavor for this character: “He used to live up on Hessian Hill, Onion John did, in a house he built out of piled up stone and four bathtubs and no running water. Once a month he’d get up in the middle of the night, according to the way the moon was, to cook up a stew with chunks of lead in it and maybe some chipped stone he collected and half a rabbit sometimes and always a little wood alcohol to make a blue flame. It wasn’t a stew for eating. It was to get gold out of the moon, to make his fortune.” (p. 2) Perhaps the key to this story is the fact that Onion John is very difficult to understand – his speech sounds garbled to most people. In fact, no one in the town of Serenity understands Onion John, except the 12-year old boy, Andy. Andy is somehow drawn to Onion John, he wants to be friends with Onion John, and he alone understands him. Andy becomes the interpreter and explains to others what Onion John is saying. Well, the Rotary Club in Serenity, of which Andy’s father is a member, needs a community project and they come up with the grand idea of building a proper home for Onion John, a home with appliances and plumbing and electricity. And, they do….they rally the entire community and build Onion John a new home. But, as you might predict, the new home simply doesn’t work for Onion John. He had a use for each of the four bathtubs in the living room of his old house, none of which were used for taking a bath. In one he kept beets and cabbages, in the second onions and potatoes, in the third dust he gathered from sweeping out churches, and in the fourth newspapers. He used a bucket to take a bath. He had no use for a bathtub situated in a bathroom for the purpose of taking a bath. Andy understands this about Onion John, that Onion John needs to be Onion John, while the rest of the community can’t seem to see past their well-intentioned deed. Andy understands Onion John because he opens his heart to him and in the process he learns an important lesson in life…he learns to be true to himself.
Our Gospel lesson today offers us these words: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Luke 10:16) I believe that relationship is foundational to our existence. In the scheme of that great big question, “Why are we here?,” I believe that relationship is a key to the answer. Perhaps the focus of our lives should not be on us as individuals, but on our relationships. Rather than viewing the world from the perspective of this is my spouse, these are my children, this is my career, these are my parents, these are my siblings, these are my friends, we view life from the perspective of our relationships with other individuals. This is about looking at life from a slightly different perspective, a different emphasis. Here is an example that comes to mind. Are you familiar with the black and white drawing that if viewed from one perspective it looks like a young woman, but viewed from another perspective it looks like an old woman. It is a slight shift of focus. In the drawing, the woman is facing to the side. If you see the young woman, you see a woman who is looking slightly back. If you see the old woman, you see a woman who is looking slightly forward. The young woman’s ear is the eye of the old woman, the young woman’s chin is the nose of the old woman, and the young woman’s neck is the chin of the old woman. If you do a search on the internet on “a drawing of an old woman and a young woman,” you will find this drawing. My point is that with a slight shift of perspective, you see a different picture. And, if we view life slightly differently, with an emphasis on relationships between individuals versus the individuals themselves, I believe we get closer to understanding what life is all about. We need each other to be whole, to complete the picture, to understand the truth of this life. We each carry within us a piece of the puzzle, a piece of the whole. We learn and grow through one another. If we open our hearts, and truly listen to one another, we come to understand life more completely. It is not about all becoming one and the same. It is about honoring and celebrating and learning from our different talents, our different experiences, our different perspectives. Perhaps, in this light, the complexity of life is not overwhelming, but a gift.
I have a friend, Cheryl, who is a hospital chaplain who often takes call overnight and so spends the night at the hospital. One evening at the hospital she spent considerable time with two sisters whose mother was dying. Though Cheryl had completed her visit, later on in the night, she felt a nagging sense that she should return to the mother’s room. When she arrived, the daughters started telling Cheryl how they were regretting that they hadn’t spent more time over the last few months enjoying their mother. Their brother had taken their mom on lots of fun outings. They, on the other hand, had been focused on doctor appointments and medications and health decisions. Their mother was nearing death and they were quite troubled. As they stood at the mother’s bedside, Cheryl asked, “Do you think your mother knows that you love her?” “Yes,” they agreed. And, just then, their mother died. For me, this story is about listening. It is about God’s relationship with the mother, and God’s relationship with the daughters, and God’s relationship with Cheryl. With open heart, Cheryl listened. She listened to these sisters on her visit with them and heard their grief. She loved them – she lived in relationship with them. She listened to her heart and returned to the hospital room and found the words that offered these women peace.
If we are called to live in relationship with one another, if our focus in life is on relationship, then we are rejecting Christ, rejecting God when we don’t listen to one another. This magnificent existence is God’s Creation. We are all children of God. Each of us is a part of Creation, each of us makes up a part of the whole. God offers us the gift of relationship, the ability to learn and grow through one another that we might understand the beauty of the whole, the wonderful complexity of the entirety of Creation. When we listen, we love. When we love one another, we love God. It is that simple. Amen.
