Listening for the Fruit of the Spirit
Texts: John 15:12-17, Matthew 13:31-33
“And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”
Introduction to Listening
This little snippet comes from the John text we heard this morning – which is a continuation of what we heard last week. By now I’ve talked about being a gardener – and I’m a little afraid you’re going to get the idea that I’m great at it or have a big set-up; I don’t. But I have learned a thing or two in the cycles of the season and any gardener will know that at this time of year – the ‘fruit’ that Jesus talks about so easily is a long way off.
Maybe Jesus can talk about vines and fruit so easily because he’s never taken care of a vine! It takes effort and care to get a seed from the planting to the fruitful harvest. Whether it’s a grape vine or a mustard seed. Or even yeast growing the dough. The hard and able work of a gardener or baker’s hands allows the growth and thriving to fruition.
And at the same time – even though we know it’s science and careful tending (or kneading) – the growth? The fruit that emerges? It never ceases to be a beautiful and amazing miracle.
In my sermon today I’m going to talk a little bit about both what some of that effort looks like – that care and tending mentioned – and about how we know when the fruit is ripe. How do you listen for fruit? (As I considered what the title of this sermon would be, I delighted myself with the image of holding a banana or cantaloupe up to my ear to see if it was ready. Very silly.)
Like some of you, I’m sure, I was in choirs all through high school and college. And before that on and off in the children’s choir at my church. Listening is a huge part of singing with other people, of singing in harmony. I have an almost visceral memory of what it feels like in my body when we would be learning a new piece and having to listen so hard to hear the intervals, to align with the other who sang my part and harmonize with the higher and lower voices. To shift in response to what I heard.
Last week I talked about co-conspiring – literally breathing together – and singing is that. When we sing together we match up our breath and I think this is one of the gifts that being a Mennonite who still practices traditional four-part singing has given me. We have not traditionally had a very emotive or emotional practice of faith, but in song and in harmony we could find a connection and expression.
Listening for the spirit is something like listening to one’s fellow singers and responding with your own voice. It’s both active and responsive listening. I’m going to talk about several levels of how we listen when we’re engaged in Spiritual Discernment – how we listen for and are guided by the Spirit.
- Listening to the words
- Listening beyond the words
- Listening to the silence
- Listening for the Spirit
Listening to the words
I expect that many of you have probably done some form of training or practice in active listening. It seems to me this is the kind of thing that would be included in professional development in all kinds of fields – anywhere people work with other people. I expect we all have some skills in this area.
I’m talking about things like not preparing a response or argument while listening to another. About listening for what someone is saying and reflecting back or paraphrasing what I hear. I’m talking about asking clarifying questions. Listening to find connection versus listening for difference. Assume the speaker has noble intent; is not trying to offend or sow discord. I expect that none of those sound very surprising. But that doesn’t mean they don’t take intention and even practice.
The flip side to listening to words is the speaking. Spiritual Discernment requires a willingness to speak and respond with vulnerability and openness and a commitment to speaking with the love and noble intent that listeners are assuming. It can be disagreeable, annoying, frustrating, even painful to listen to each other when we disagree. And equally difficult to speak fully and truthfully when we expect our words may not be well received.
In justice movement communities I’ve sometimes heard this posture or practice called creating ‘brave space.’ We’d like to have communities that provide entirely safe spaces. But we can never guarantee that any space will feel entirely safe. In A Hidden Wholeness Parker Palmer calls this kind of discernment community “soul space.” He talks about how it requires vulnerability and a willingness to show one’s true identity (p45).
Listening Beyond the Words
So that’s the words themselves. But we also need to be listening beyond the content of the words. We humans communicate in all kinds of ways. Active listening trainings (at least the ones I’ve been in) talk about body language – and that’s important – but I’m referring to more than just our physical selves.
Listening beyond the words being spoken includes things like listening to what emotions are being evoked – in myself, in another, in the community. Paying attention to emotional responses can give us important feedback!
Those emotions or gut feelings might draw our attention to what is not being said – which is sometimes as important as what is being said. It’s pretty normal to talk around the thing that’s concerning us the most. To not be direct. To avoid saying the thing that might be painful, annoying or hard. Noticing and then “saying the quiet part out loud” as it’s popularly characterized on the internet – so long as we do so with appropriate care and
My former colleague Melanie Neufeld was great at this – in part because she always framed it in her own experience. She’d say things like, “I’m noticing that the intensity of this conversation is getting a lot higher,” or “I’m really feeling a lot of resistance to that idea,” or “I’m noticing people really reacting to so and so’s comment.”
Listening beyond the words is also about listening for the images or stories or scriptures are being called to mind. Perhaps during a time of discernment a story from the history of the community emerges that illustrates a way forward. Perhaps a scripture becomes centering. Maybe there is an image that emerges out of the listening that opens a way to understanding something in a new way.
Here’s an example from Grounded in God:
Sometimes a common image arises. During a retreat for a board of directors of a church conference center, the members reflected on the board’s role in relationship to the church. As Reflections were shared, a number of people began to express images of water – moving water that turned over and renewed itself, water that moved outward like the concentric waves created by a pebble dropped into a lake.
This water image helped members of the board recognize an historical problem that had plagued the staff and leadership. The rural location of the facility and its distance from the center of the church activities in the state, both literally and figuratively, often created a sense of isolation and separateness. The board and staff often spoke of “them and us.” The water images helped the board see its role as always moving out, reshaping and extending its ministry. These image continued to come up in discussions as the board worked to renew the conference center and its relationships. (p 22-23)
Listening to the Silence
But what about when there are no words? Silence is not just important to Spiritual Discernment. It is essential.
It’s also really awkward! I can remember being in a meeting when silence fell and a person expressed some frustration, saying something like, “We’re supposed to be listening to each other, but how can we get anywhere if no one speaks?!”
But actually, it was impressive that no one had jumped in just to fill the silence. It is So. Hard. to let silence be silence. But just like in that empty space in the middle of the Vent diagram: that space is where and when we can let the Spirit move and we can listen to the Spirit moving within ourselves and through the community. It’s the space where sometimes those ideas or images or connections emerge, which can’t when we fill up every space with words.
Quakers really have this down. I have appreciated this about our Quaker kindred for a long time but since I happen to be listening to a novel with a Quaker character I will quote that! In Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen, the character DJ Quakes sums up their practice, explaining the difference between Quaker meetings and other Christian services.
He says, “For starters we all face each other…But we don’t just sit around and talk to each other. One at a time, when the Spirit moves you, when you feel the light inside of you stir, you stand up and you can address the room.” He talks about there being something of God within each person, so each person has equal access to the Spirit. Equal ability to sense the Spirit at work within.
Listening for the Fruit of the Spirit
Which leads me to – finally – listening for the fruit of the Spirit. As a consensus based congregation, we already know what it means to build consensus or (literally) sensing/perceiving together. Maybe you’ve already had a taste of what it’s like to begin to get a sense of when the Spirit is really cooking. When everyone is getting a taste. When everyone – together – just knows that this is it!
You will know that that Spirit has produced fruit when the yeast starts to work. Those very mixed metaphors that actually sound like we’re making wine, are trying to express that sense of bubbling up that happens when the sense of the meeting (again – a quaker term) is coming to a consensus. Joy and excitement begin to build. Maybe there is an idea that won’t go away, that doesn’t stop, that persists among us.
Ruth Hayley Barton reminds us that the word enthusiasm has the roots en theos or “in God.” She also echos Jesus when he talks about loving each other in the same way that Jesus loved and bearing fruit that looks like love. Hayley Barton says that you will know true discernment because “It will always tend toward concrete expressions of love with real people rather than theoretical conversations about theology and philosophy.” (p23)
Practice Listening
Now I’m going to offer a concrete expression of love by telling you that I’m done preaching! All that hard listening (thank you!) we’ve been doing is over and we can shake off the tension from being so intent and doing something that engages our bodies a little bit more.
What I am going to invite us to do all together is a sort of combination of something from back in my choir days and something that same colleague, Melanie Neufeld, would do with our staff sometimes when it was her turn to lead a spiritual practice.
The exercise itself:
- I’ll sing some notes or a phrase – repeat it a few times
- Listening to me also also listening to your neighbors
- you can listen and sing with me; with those around you – same notes – try to match what others are doing
- you can also improvise – respond with different notes or adding words
- Intentionally sing something dissonant? Intentionally offbeat or syncopated
- Sing the same note over and over and over
- Groan or hum or drone or whisper – maybe all you have is the single note we start with
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