In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

This morning we continue our journey on “the Way”- a way of life not only taught by Jesus the Christ but embodied in him. I begin by drawing your attention to some new stories that were in the London Free press three weeks ago. The first story speaks of hundreds of Turkish troops entering northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. The second story tells of cyclone striking the coast of Oman destroying homes and shutting down oil installations. The third story is centred a little closer home and it involves a jewellery store robbery in Exeter where the staff was assaulted and robbed by three males.

So did the Turkish troops leave northern Iraq? Does anyone know. What about the cyclone story, are the homes being rebuilt? Was there anyone injured or killed? How about the jewellery store robbery, were the three suspects ever caught? Our inability to answer any of these questions seems to offer us a lesson – that we shouldn’t get too attached to the news. There will be more stories tomorrow just as compelling. The word is transitory and cheap.

And yet this lesson is not limited to print media. Each day the words keep coming at us through an ever expanding variety of media. So many words that some days it sounds as if we live our lives against a wall of constant noise. And yet the torrent of words come not just from the media. They come from our children, spouses, co-workers, neighbours. They come from people supporting causes and from committees seeking members.
Each day our ears are assaulted by an avalanche of words. Conversation is treated like a combat sport where the first one to take a breath is considered to be the listener.

And the most unfortunate side-effect of all that noise is that many of us have become hard of hearing. We learn to filter out words that are not necessary to lives the same way we learn to sleep in a house that is close to an airport or railroad track. Our brains protect us from the daily barrage of words by increasing our resistance to them and over time the art or discipline of listening is lost or at least diminished to a large degree.

Part of the reason for this is how we are hardwired. Most of us speak at a rate of 120 to 150 words a minute but our brains can process more than five hundred words a minute which makes it hard for us to stay tuned in for any length of time. We tend to use the lag time to compose our own responses which makes us even poorer listeners.

And yet James writes that for those of us on “the Way” should be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” This command involves not just our human relationships but also our relationship with God. The art of listening  and being slow to speak is a discipline that needs to be cultivated and nurtured for we seem to be losing the art altogether and no longer know what it means.
There is a story told of two Americans who were travelling in God’s country –Nova Scotia and they began to argue about how to pronounce some the place names – Stewiacke, Keji etc. And finally when they came to Shubenackidie their arguing really increased so they stopped at a restaurant for a coffee. After they had given their order they asked to waitress, “Could you pronounce where we are and speak slowly?” So the waitress leaned in real close and said, “Tim Horton’s” Now I don’t think that is what James meant.

That is part of the reason that we gather here as a community of faith each week, so that we can cultivate the discipline of listening in a world where there are too many words. There is interplay of word/listening and speech/silence. For silence and speech define each other. One is inhale and the other is exhale. They perfect each other.  

And it is in the listening to the words of scriptures being read and in the times of silence that make ourselves ready to hear the “Word of the Lord.” And the Word comes in that still small voice that targets not our ears but our hearts. The word comes, “You are my beloved child, you are accepted, or feed my sheep. It is in the silence so deep that we can hear our breathing and the beating of our hearts, God speaks.

It is here together that cultivate the discipline of listening but the discipline can be practiced at home, in the midst of God’s creation, in conversation with a friend or spouse. But the art of listening is only half of the equation. James writes, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” For the word provides wisdom for the way, for our journey with Christ but it only becomes real when it is put into practice in the ordinary moments of our lives.

And we find this true religion, :the way”, demonstrated in our Gospel reading from Luke. It’s a story that happens out on the fringes of our polite, ordered society. And yet Jesus the Christ wades out into this vortex of raw human need and pain. He does not remain aloof. He listens to the man possessed, he reaches out, touches and heals. Speech/silence, listening and doing. The way is practiced in the healing of the possessed man.

It is the way that each of us are called to walk because God has chose as his own. A way that is not centered on beliefs, creeds and doctrines, a way that is not centred on social status, riches or material goods but on the art of listening for God’s speech/doing for the little ones in our midst. A way that is marked by humility, peace and most certainly love.
I leave with you this morning the words of Martin Luther, “The world does not need a definition of (Christianity) as much as it needs a demonstration.”
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.