WARNING: This is a rant against myself and maybe against you. Read at your own discretion. I will not be held responsible for any feelings of conviction that ensue.

Listen

Lord, that one little word keeps coming up again and again: listen.

I encountered it in Jeremiah today as for the umpteenth time, he obeys You and prophesies tragedy on Israel. You gave the Israelites the chance to repent so many times. You spelled out all the horror that would fall on them if they didn’t.

But the king would not listen.

As I’ve read books and tuned in to podcasts and soaked up a little of the frenzy going on in the US and the world, it seems the lament is simply this: Listen.

Let our brothers and sisters of color tell their stories without we white believers defending ourselves or sharing our trite and unhelpful two cents to the discussion.

Just listen.

I feel like this is especially what we evangelicals need to hear from You now.

Listen to our black brothers and sisters, yes! And listen to the thousands of gay Christians who are begging to be heard. Listen to their stories. Listen well, before we answer, “Sin! Sin! Sin!” Listen to their suffering even as we listen to the slave stories of old and of right now.

We think we know so well what the Bible says on these issues when so often Jesus was silent about such. Or rather, he didn’t explain things in a neat little tract about how to be saved.

I find Jesus hanging out with all the people we condemn. Oh, we say we aren’t condemning them. But instead of going to eat with gays and gals who have had abortions and militant blacks, we scream at them “Sinner! Sinner! Sinner! Come to church and let us fix you!”

I’ve said it for 30+ years, Lord. I feel like I’m standing in France and looking across the vast ocean to the huge island of America which is slowly sinking, sinking, sinking beneath the waters. I wonder if another Civil War is on the horizon?

And what breaks my heart is that evangelicals are often the culprits. We’re known for our hate not our love. We scream and protest and congeal together about one or two hot-button issues instead of going about our business of caring, loving one another, reaching out to the poor and marginalized not as a project to fix, but as an equally important human being to love.

I confess, Lord, that it feels like despair. And yet…

I see glimmers of hope all across the country and across my heart. I’m reading books by black authors and by millennials who have left the evangelical church over gender issues. I’m watching movies about slavery and injustice. I’m listening to podcasts about racial reconciliation as I cook dinner.

I am being stirred deep in my soul even as I stir my pot of soup.

Earlier in the chapter, the Lord has said, “Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning to bring on them, each one of them will turn from his evil way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

But they did not listen.

I have a feeling that we as white evangelicals are still a lot like those Israelites of old. We are smug in our doctrine and cold in our hearts. We are screaming at the splinters in the eyes of all the sinners and absolutely refusing to look at the logs in our own eyes. Can’t we repent and beg You, Lord, to change us? Change me?

I just feel it in my bones, and I’ve seen it in my own life. When I really go about the business of confession and repentance and then I ask You what I am to do next, well, it becomes pretty clear. And it’s not to cast stones. It’s to smile across the hedge and, through simple acts of kindness, love my neighbor, really care about her, with all her indifference and rebellion.

It’s to listen with one ear attuned to my neighbor and one ear to You, dear Lord.

How can you listen today?

ELIZABETH MUSSER writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at www.elizabethmusser.com and on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and her blog. + +