A pastor was giving a sermon one Sunday, and could both see and hear two teenage girls in the back of the sanctuary giggling and disturbing people.  The pastor interrupted the sermon and announced sternly, "There are two of you here who have not heard a word I've said."  That quieted them down.  When the service was over, the Pastor went to greet people as they departed worship.  Three adults apologized for going to sleep in church, promising it would never happen again.  I suppose preachers take it a bit personally when people are not listening to the sermons they have worked hard to prepare.

Preachers generally like to fancy themselves clever wordsmiths and powerful communicators.  Some of us are drawn to the field because we have the "gift of gab."  When Nancy and I were married an old college roommate showed up for the reception where I overheard him talking with someone else about me.  He said, "We always thought Schnell was going to be a politician, but I guess it doesn’t surprise me that he became a preacher instead.  I figured he’d make a living with that mouth of his one way or the other."

Ironically, being good at talking may be the very reason we are not good at communicating.  Let me explain.  My Dad came from Amish/Mennonite stock.  He was a man of exceedingly few words.  Imagine such a man having a son like me.  Sometimes I think my nonstop talking must have got on his nerves.  I remember a time or two during my adolescent years when my Dad finally got a few words in edgewise.  He said, "You talk a lot, but you don’t say anything."

Later, when I had young children of my own and was in the thick of life, my Dad and I would go on overnight road trips together.  I was usually too tired from parental responsibilities to talk much, so my Dad would fill the void with thought-provoking questions and keen observations.  For once, I had the ears to hear them.  For once, my Dad had a listening ear to evoke them.  Listening is fully half of all communication.  Indeed, as the title of our message puts it, it may be "The Better Half of Communication."

So people like me who are good at talking may, for that very reason, be challenged at listening and therefore challenged when it comes to the process of communication.  I can just feel my wife wanting to shout "amen!", but I might point out that she is a pretty prolific talker herself.  Indeed, the two of us are fully capable of carrying on two completely separate conversations at the same time—especially when I don’t want to hear about putting the shower door back up and she doesn’t want to hear about my next motorcycle adventure.

But when we do want to hear something, or need to hear something, we need to know how to listen—which means knowing how and when to not talk.  No wonder that James, the author of our text, links improved listening with less talking.  My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak… (Verse 19).  When we are quick to speak, we are slow to listen and our ears are closed to hearing things we may need to hear.

I think James, the author of our text, may be imparting a lesson he learned the hard way.  James is the biological brother of Jesus or, more correctly, the half-brother of Jesus when you consider that Jesus was conceived by his mother, Mary, and the Holy Spirit of God.  Having said that, a biblical case may be made for Mary and Joseph being the parents of James, not to mention several other siblings (and here I must part company with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary).

For example, when Jesus was making a big splash in his hometown, some of the bystanders were heard to say: Isn't this the carpenter's son?  Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James (the author of our text), Joseph (named after his daddy), Simon and Judas (not of disciples fame)?  Aren't all his sisters (note the plural) with us?  (Matthew 13:55-56).  According to this text Mary and Joseph had no fewer than 7 children, and maybe more if that plural "sisters" was composed of more than two.  Direct references to Jesus’ siblings may be found in all four Gospels as well as the writings of Paul.

James was one of them, and he was to become the pastor of the mother church in Jerusalem and the author of our text.  But before James was an exemplar of faith in the early church, he was a younger brother to Jesus.  If you think it was annoying living with a gregarious know-it-all kid like me, imagine living with a brother who fancied himself the Son of God.  All of your mischievous, ornery antics would be met with a sermon about honoring your mother and father, blah, blah, blah.  I suspect a kid would get pretty good at shutting his ears to a preachy brother like that.

And so it was that James and his brothers learned to shut their ears to Jesus even after they had grown up.  Jesus tried to tell his brothers about God’s plan for him—that he should preach the truth even though the world would a) not want to hear it, and b) permanently silence him in the end.  But Jesus’ brothers would hear nothing of it.  They had other plans for their gifted brother.  He was going to be a star among the public figures of his day.

As it is written in the Gospel of John, After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life.  But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do.  No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret.  Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world."  For even his own brothers did not believe in him (John 7:1-5).

His own brothers did not understand God’s plan of salvation for Jesus.  He was not going to be a star in the public’s eyes; he was going to be a criminal condemned to capital punishment.  On multiple occasions Jesus is recorded in scriptures as foretelling what was to come, but his brothers did not want to believe such things and so they shut their ears to what he had to say.  It was only after all these things came to pass that they remembered Jesus’ words and realized, among other things, the importance of listening well.

That is why James begins our text with these words: Take note of this.  He is speaking from the voice of experience—he is imparting an important lesson.  Take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak….  Otherwise you may miss something you need to hear—you may miss "The Better Half of Communication."  That is one unfortunate consequence.  And, of course, the other is that you may in haste and rashness say some things that you could later come to regret.

James speaks to that a little further on in his letter when he writes: …the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.  Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.  It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.  All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers, this should not be (3:5-10).

As a pastor, James is now well aware of how much trouble the slip of a tongue can be in the church.  A very small issue gets blown all out of proportion resulting in a needless overreaction that stalls the church’s programming.  A little rumor gets started which spreads like wildfire through the church and, by the time it is put out, leaves hurt feelings and maybe a fractured fellowship in its wake.  What God has brought together in the body of Christ, we separate by saying in so many words, "The body of Christ doesn’t need you.  You are too new, your ideas are too strange, and your approach is not like mine."  All of which diminishes the body of Christ to the extent that its many and varied parts are not allowed to function as intended by God.

Yes, Pastor James, now on the receiving end of dealing with those who are quick to speak and slow to listen, goes so far as to say in our text: If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless (Verse 26).  In other words, it doesn’t matter how much I praise God or liberally use religious lingo or witness to my obvious spiritual advancement beyond the realm of mere mortals; if I am using the same mouth to gossip, distort the truth or to otherwise curse those made in God’s image, my religion is worthless.

And so we find two very good reasons for being slow to speak and quick to listen: 1) we do not want to shut our ears to something we need to hear, and 2) we do not want to defile ourselves in God’s sight by what we say.  Being slow to speak and quick to listen both require one thing: restraining our tongues.  Now there are probably some out there thinking to themselves, "This would be a good time for the preacher to restrain his tongue, conclude the sermon and be quiet.  But before I do, I want to propose a little assignment.

It is a two-part assignment I intend to keep, even though it will be hard for a talker like me and I expect to slip up now and then.  But I am going to do my best.  First, I am going to try restraining my tongue.  Instead of just popping off with whatever comes into my mind at the time, I am going to give myself the benefit of thinking things through before I speak.  Instead of feeling compelled to give an answer every time someone asks me a question, I may say, "I need some time to think about that."  I am reminded here of a quotation attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

The second part of the assignment is to be quicker to listen.  There is some evidence mounting that sharpening our congregation’s focus on community outreach is bearing good fruit in terms of certain quantifiables relating to church growth (more information about that will be forthcoming soon).  As a result, the church may soon be forming an ad hoc Community Outreach Committee which will further our commitment in this direction—a committee with which I will be closely associated.

I am now doing some reading, research and coordination with a peer mentor in developing a project which will help in listening to the collective voice of this congregation.  While the details are yet to be hammered out, the gist is this: you will be asked to provide the following input to the Community Outreach Committee: What needs to you see in our local community and surrounding areas which The Church in Aurora is uniquely suited to address with the resources at its disposal?

The desired outcome will be a list of ideas, events and programs which can be given to the Community Outreach Committee to inform its initial work; while perhaps encouraging greater congregational ownership and partnership in this new emphasis for our collective ministry.  Maybe the process will spawn other ways your pastor, staff and leadership may be quicker to listen to God as he speaks through the voice of his people.

Those are some ways I intend to keep the assignment and embody "The Better Half of Communication."  How about you?  Where in your life do you intend to be quick to listen?  Where slow to speak?  Let us examine ourselves with these timeless questions as we come to this timeless table—a table to which James came together with the mother church in Jerusalem and all churches everywhere that bear the name of the Lord.  And let us come with open ears so that the Lord may teach us his ways.