Hard of listening
Provocateuse Ann Coulter's noisy visit to Canada and the unholy rabble of protesters who hounded (and amplified) her strident barbs are a telling example of the dialogue of the deaf that so characterizes our times. She is only one amongst a host of public figures eager to set gentle speech aside, opting instead for harsh words that stir up anger. She stands high in a field of bloggers, talk show hosts, lobbyists, activists, politicians, pundits and partisans of all sorts seeking audiences and influence.
Each in their own way is screaming to be noticed, and notoriety is their prize. The substance of their speech is rarely worth the spleen of its delivery and those who pay attention do everyone a disservice. Not only do we live among a people of unclean lips, but our ears are attuned to sirens and shut to voices of wisdom. We are hard of listening.
Yet somehow we think that ratcheting up the oratory and increasing the volume is the way to earn a hearing. Not so! Why hand the microphone to those who aim simply to disturb and divide? Why stage gladiatorial contests with unworthy champions? Polemics agitate without healing. On rare occasions they crystallize issues and catalyze action, but they are much better at hardening attitudes than they are at changing minds.
Still we hearken to them. We are a society of aging rock stars gone tone deaf, no longer able to distinguish melody from cacophony, harmony from dissonance. The denizens of talk radio, demagogues of special interests and all manner of sellers of half-truths have so blistered our eardrums and distracted our attentions we are largely incapable of distinguishing what is truly gratifying from the merely gratuitous. Yet we flock to the loudspeakers like children to the monkey bars. We forsake circles of quiet and crowd the hallways of discord.
Champions of a different sort
We need champions of a different sort, ambassadors of reconciliation amidst the din of inflamed rhetoric. We need a new generation of messengers issuing clarion calls to listen, to learn, to discern and to care. We need warriors prepared to wield spears against intransigence; to shoot arrows that pierce our narcissism; to fire bullets against belligerence. We need ears to hear.
These are days like those of Elijah. False prophets may be defeated in public display, yet the people of God are on the run—fearful, depressed and feeling abandoned. It's easy for our ambassadors to be more focused on the confrontation than on the power and the purpose behind it.
Still, an all powerful and loving God is much closer than we realize. A gentle God is waiting to cut through fatigue and anxiety with consolation and solidarity. Consider how He revealed Himself to Elijah. He came with sustenance and comfort. Yet He did not show Himself in a thundering great wind; or in an earthquake; or even in a fire. Rather, God's presence appeared in "a sound of sheer silence" (1 Kings 19:12). And Elijah was sent forth with a renewed sense of calling.
Oh that the noise of our times would be stifled in the sounds of sheer silence, and that the people of God will be animated with a fresh call to the ministry of reconciliation. Shattered shalom may be the reality of our world but we should never get used to it. Our job is to pursue a vision of a better way, to see God's will done on Earth as it is in heaven—to tune out the noise and work mightily against the forces of injustice and unrighteousness.
We should be striving for that day Isaiah so compelling described, a time when the peoples of the Earth "will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks" (4:2), an age when "the Earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (11:9). And in that day, no doubt, the megaphones that now dominate public discourse will be turned into ear trumpets.
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