I Heard You…

My mother occasionally told what I know must have been an apocryphal tale about me as a child growing up. It went something like this. She would tell me to do something, and apparently I would not respond with any degree of enthusiasm to do whatever was to be done. She would eventually get a little more direct and ask, “Did you hear what I asked you to do?” (Note here that parents and children may have different connotations to the words “ask” and “tell.”) According to my mother, I would often reply, “I heard you, but not so good.” (Apparently at that point in life, I didn’t understand the difference in “good” and “well” in English sentences.)

I have absolutely no recollection of such a moment. But I do remember how much my mother seemed to enjoy telling the clearly apocryphal memory as though it were real.

“I heard you, but not so good.” 

There is a haunting line in Isaiah 65:12 that says “When I called, you did not answer, when I spoke, you did not listen.” Way back near the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry, God had instructed him to tell Israel, “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking but do not understand.” (6:9) But that all seems to be pre-exile language. By the time we are reading chapter 65, the work of the suffering servant songs has promised lavish forgiveness through the work of the coming Suffering Servant.

But Israel seems to say, “I heard you, but not so good.”

More importantly than anything my mother would ever ask of me, God has called on my life – and yours – “to love God and love neighbor.” In fact, Jesus will give some clarity to that call by suggesting that in those two asks, God has summarized the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:40 and parallels)

All of this becomes even more important when we think about the fact that, at least from Paul’s understanding, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) What kind of “faith” does “I heard you, but not so good” produce in my life or yours?

There is almost no place on the planet you can go without “hearing.” I’m sitting in my office at home as I write this, and I can hear the evening news playing in another room. A car just passed my house headed to a house down the street. A few moments ago, an Amazon delivery truck pulled up in the driveway, and I even heard the box hit the front porch floor as the driver tossed it our way. The heat came on just now, and I can hear the fan blowing warm air around.

I’m thinking it doesn’t really matter whether I hear those kinds of things “so good” or not.

But God lamented through Isaiah, “When I called, you did not answer, when I spoke, you did not listen.” Well, that is a completely different story. God, for example, doesn’t just call us “to love our neighbor,” he tells all sorts of stories in Scripture about what that looks like. The most famous of those stories may be the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), but the most challenging call may be Romans 15:7: “Welcome one another as Christ also welcomed us to the glory of God.” 

How well have we heard that? Maybe “not so good” is the right answer.

In a casual conversation with a lady whose faith I respect greatly, she asked me, “Why are Christians so mean to everyone these days?” We talked  good bit about that question – there was no use in trying to deny it. 

But we ought to keep asking it. We’re living far on the other side of the Suffering Servant’s work to redeem us and restore us to being the kind of people God intended humans to be when He made Adam and Eve. 

It is high time we listen “good” to His call in our lives.