Jesus
would sometimes interject his teaching with, “if anyone has ears to
hear, let them hear” (Mark 4:23 NIV). In saying this, he
acknowledged that some of his followers would perhaps listen without
really hearing. There is often a vast chasm between a person's
capacity to hear and understand and their actual willingness to
hear and understand. In John 9, Jesus rebuked a group of Pharisees
who, despite their functioning eyes and keen minds, refused to see
what was vividly clear to even a recently-blind man. When an
“expert in the law” asked him “what must I do to inherit
eternal life?” Jesus, true to form, responded with a question:
“What is written in the law?” But it's Jesus' followup question,
“how do you read it?” that I find most intriguing (Luke 10:25-26
NIV). The world's greatest communicator was not only interested in
what was said but also what this man heard. Are we
prone to hear what the Word of God is saying, I wonder, or do we like
many of Jesus' 1st Century friends and foes merely listen for what we
wanted him to say?
Jesus
knows all too well how our selective listening works—our human
propensity toward confirmation bias. And there's times where he's
almost purposely elusive when responding to a disingenuous question.
He seemed to even let some folks walk away with the wrong idea, if
that's what they had already set out to do from the beginning.
Despite what he actually said, for example, some of his listeners
heard the familiar voice of a nationalist messiah who promised to
lead Zion's armies to victory over her Roman oppressors. Others, who
were listening without the rich Jewish history of the long-promised
coming of God's kingdom rooted in their hopes and dreams, might have
heard a Gnostic who was always advocating for some ethereal life in
the glorious hereafter. Even today, many hear in Jesus' teachings a
justification for—or at least a compatibility with—moralism,
Marxism, white nationalism/nativism, consumerism/economic greed (what
we often rebrand as “prosperity” or “trickle-down economics”),
or militarism, as well as a myriad of other “isms” that are
clearly at odds (clearly to anyone who is actually listening,
that is) with the historical Jesus of Nazareth's teachings.
It's not
that Jesus wants to be misunderstood or that he's just careless in
how he conveys his ideas. But maybe he can't, or won't, force people
to understand against their hardened will (not at this particular
juncture anyway). Perhaps this is one of many dignities God bestows
on his image bearers: the ability to stop up our ears, close our
minds, and shut our eyes to our Creator if we so choose (the ability
to “resist” the whispers of his Spirit). Naturally, God will not
bypass human volition as he carries out his sweeping project to
restore our desire and ability to willingly submit to our Creator via
the person and work of the new man, Jesus the Christ. Since Eden, the
ability to choose has always been a noticeable facet of his plan for
humanity. Many of the stories Jesus told about God's kingdom were
crafted in such a way as to leave the hearer with a choice—a choice
to believe or to doubt, to comprehend or to confuse, to seek Truth or
to run from him. I maintain that Jesus' parables are most often
simple and direct. However, the parable format allows lazy or
intellectually dishonest hearers to impose their alternate meanings.
I want to be clear that it's ultimately not Jesus' ambiguity but our
own pride, preferences, preconceptions, and sin-stricken hearts that
lead us astray.
As a
confirmed skeptic (who has now been won over by Jesus and his good
news), I've often wondered why God didn't eliminate any opportunity
for doubt or confusion. Sure we have the
Scriptures, numerous miracles, compelling prophecies, and Jesus' own
resurrection, but the skeptic in me always wants more. How have so
many of his misguided followers managed to become crusaders, inquisitors, slave
holders, advocates for apartheid, and purveyors of the alt-right? How
could they possibly hear approval in the words of Christ and
veer so far off course? Why have others heard nothing at all? How is
it that so many of his friends and foes alike mishear or misrepresent
him? Why couldn't God shout even louder, so to speak, so that
everyone, even those with the hardest hearts, couldn't help but hear
him? Well, one day he will. Jesus promises “there is nothing hidden
that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be
known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17 NIV). “Every knee”
will eventually bow to him (Phil 2:10). But he wants us to be
“hungry” and “thirsty” for him now, and we can't claim to be
listening, as an act of our own volition, when at his return we have
no choice but to hear. Paul explained to the Athenians how God had
orchestrated human history “so that [we] would seek him and perhaps
reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of
us” (Acts 17:27 NIV). Maybe he presently speaks in a “gentle
whisper” so that we will have to stop and truly listen in order to
hear him (1 Kings 19:12 NIV). I like how the New Living Translation
renders Luke 8:18: “...pay attention to how you hear,” says
Jesus. “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will
be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think
they understand will be taken away from them.”
