“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31

Before the verses above, Jesus was asked which one was the most important of the 600+ commandments in the Torah! I imagine the person asking was curious how Jesus would place one commandment higher than the others. This person’s curiosity drew them to Jesus. At that moment, Jesus paraphrased Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:34. Jesus met this person in their curiosity. The command he quoted starts with the word in Hebrew, Shema, which means to hear or listen. Listening is the foundation of our call to love God and love our neighbor! If we zone in on the word, listen, it is one of the most common words in the Bible! In some form, it appears over 1500 times!  

Jesus reemphasizes the point that to love God and others, we need to listen to God and listen to others actively. We cannot live and love without being in tune with what the Lord calls us to do or what others need! It is impossible to live and love without listening! Listening allows us to be present with the Lord and the person in front of us. Active listening is when the hearer can repeat what the person said.

This skill is something I practiced often in years past. To be a person of presence, one must hear. Hear from the Lord and hear the person you are being present with. If we do the tasks at hand, we miss out on a relationship and conversation we could have. I learned this when I was a case manager for teenage mothers. My supervisor regularly asked me what I learned about one of our residents today in conversation. I never imagined using car drives to learn about someone and be present with them. I started asking better open-ended questions because teens are the queens of one-word answers. My supervisor taught me to use each moment for purposeful conversation. This allowed me to build relationships naturally. Then, when they came to my office for meetings, I had built a bridge of trust and respect from our daily conversations.

Active listening is crucial in building relationships with others. When genuinely listening to the person in front of us, we should not be distracted. Being fully present with someone means we are focused on the person in front of us, not on what I need to make for lunch, what I should say next, or what task I need to accomplish. I need to be able to shut all of those thoughts off! Then, I can truly be fully present and hear what they say.

For me, I ask the Lord to clear my head and be able to hear the person I am going to be present with. I need to make a to-do list before going into a conversation. This helps me clear my head and not think about tasks at hand! I desire to be fully present with others and with God!

What do you need to do before listening?

Lord, please fill our hearts with your love in order to be faithful to your guidance. Push us to listen first and respond second. Listening allows us to hear and to love! Lord, Send the Holy Spirit to quiet our minds and hearts to be fully present with you and others. May we hear in order to love! AMEN.