Do you believe what you hear?

“Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.”  That line from Ben Franklin, reiterated by Bruce Springsteen,  gives me pause as we approach Pentecost Sunday.  Pentecost is all about hearing.    We who say that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us are linked to the power of speech in deep and abiding ways.  If the church cannot talk, or if its words cannot be believed or trusted it is hard for us to be about the practice of Christianity.

Franklin’s words are timely as we are caught up in the election season –  what seems to me to be a perpetual election season.

The Pentecost story  Acts 2:1-21     is the account of the disciples suddenly speaking in tongues.  The tongues are not the excited and almost incomprehensible speech often described as speaking in tongues.  These tongues are languages, the languages of the people gathered in Jerusalem.  The disciples have the gift of speaking multiple languages.  They can be understood.  It is that capacity to be understood that has intrigued me this year.  The disciples have the gift of speech.  The crowd has the gift of understanding.   

I am still working on how to preach and understand this passage, and will be happy for whatever thoughts and insights people wish to share, but one or two questions interest me at the moment: 

Language is used to shape reality.  “Talking points” are the subject of thought and research.  Folks use them to influence, shape, convert others.  That of course is one of the “jobs” the believers had.  I confess that I am always skeptical when someone who clearly wishes to tell me what to think/how to act begins using words to control my mind.  Is it possible to speak to others in ways that “communicate” or allow us to be understood but leave the listener with room to engage and grow rather than either to immediately  give assent or immediately start to argue?  

As a person committed to dialogue, am I foolish to expect to be able to have conversations that involve sharing among different people?  Are we simply supposed to convince folks that we are correct and call on them to change?

Peter and the others speak boldly and they are heard.  Perhaps I have been wrong in considering the art of listening to be the first step.  I find it easiest to speak directly to people when I have heard them.  I feel the most open to learn and change when others have listened to me first.     More later.