You talk too much.

How were your holiday parties this year? Mine were excellent.  Both the ones I went to, and the ones I hosted.  And the great thing about holiday parties is getting to spend time with all the nice people you like.  The bad thing about holiday parties is

spending time with the people you don't like.  And let me tell you, the people you don't like end up being like dogs are with me - I don't like them too much, and they seem drawn to me, as though they're going to convince me to like them by spending more time with me.  And the people you don't like, well, they seem to follow you around the parties, don't they? And they sure like to talk.

There's basically nothing worse than being stuck in a conversation with a total know it all, hey?  Isn't that the worst?  I can't stand it, which is why I keep on trying to distance myself from them.  But distancing yourself from someone who wants to talk is hard to do, because they not only want to talk, they want to be heard.  And so they will happily pursue you all over the place, all over the party, making sure you know about all their interesting opinions on things, whether you care or not.  And odds are you don't care, you just want to be part of a conversation that you're actually contributing you, but they won't let you.  They just talk and talk and talk and talk for both of you.

Now, you may say to me that you don't go to that type of party, that when you go to a party, there isn't a know-it-all there, and everyone just happily listens to all your stories, and if that is the case, I have some bad news for you.  You're the guy.  But don't feel bad, that's unavoidable, really.  This is what human beings are like.  We have a desire to be heard, to be listened to, to be the smartest person in the room.  But statistically, you won't be the smartest person in the room (it's really unlikely if I'm in the room too), so what do you do?  You either get smarter, or you pretend that you're already the smartest one there with a ton of bluster. Which would you rather do?  That's why we're all so much fun at parties.

As I've said many times before, the reason that the Bible is such a great book is because it remains eminently relevant even today, two thousand years later on. Part of the reason it remains relevant is because it talks about people as people.   People including King Solomon.  King Solomon is known as being incredibly wise, which is a good thing to be known for, surely. But lest you think that Solomon just won the genetics wisdom lottery, I have news for you.  This week's Old Testament reading tells us that Solomon had the opportunity to ask for whatever he wanted, and he chose to ask for wisdom, which is only so great because it proves for us that he knew he wasn't wise to start with.  And that's such a big deal because it's so rare.  It's not the thing any of us would start by asking for, precisely because we already feel as though we have it.  We feel as though we're the smartest people we know, if other people would just follow our lead, we'd be fine.  We usually feel that we're the smartest people in the room, on the road, in our family, or in our church, and if everyone else would just shaddap and listen to us, then we'd be in great shape.

But that's the problem, isn't it.  The problem is that it isn't true.  We're not as smart as

we think we are, we're not as bright as we'd like to think we are, but we refuse the path that Solomon took.  He knew he wasn't as wise as he needed to be, and so he asked for more wisdom.  We aren't as smart as we ought to be, but we typically just pretend, with talk and bluster.

This talk and bluster continues with our relationship with God, too.  You see, even though God knows all the answers, even though he is the source of all wisdom, we seem to think it's a good idea to tell him what's up.  We don't really let him do any of the talking, and even on things that are discussed in the scriptures, we tell him how it's going to be.  If God's word disagrees with us, odds are we don't even know, because we're too busy talking, to Him and each other.  All bluster and know it all talk, not wanting a word from God at all, just as long as we can get our talk on.

Now, we know we should listen to God, of course we should.  We don't but we know we ought to. But here's the thing, as Christians, you don't have to think about God in an abstract sense anymore.  You don't have to imagine an interaction with God as something in a vague fantasy world, but you have, in the New Testament, what interactions with God, in person, were like.  We know because of what Jesus did.

Look at the boy Jesus in the Temple.  The parts of the story that we know are the parts where the boy Jesus gets separated from his family, and they look for him, yet don't know where to find him, and eventually, they track him down in the Temple, where Jesus tells his parents that he would be in his Father's house, about his Father's business.  That's the part we all know and remember from that exchange, but here's something else we ought to bear in mind, which is what he was doing with the people who were there.  If Jesus was to be holding court in the temple, wouldn't he be lecturing people, letting them know about the truth of God's word.  We would expect him to be letting everyone know about how God's word should be understood, in the same way as he would if he came to your church tomorrow, right?

But he doesn't do that.  He shows up in the temple and he listens.  The scriptures tell us that he showed up, listened, asked quetions, and was genuinely interested in what all those people had to say.  And that's what we forget, part of incarnational

Christianity that we forget, which is that Jesus, though he is fully human like us, wasn't sinful like us.  In an exchange, in a church meeting, he doesn't do what we do, which is to talk and talk until people can't stand it anymore - He listens.  This isn't just a function of his age, either.  He listens to people all the time.  His life is spent in listening, mainly because he wants to hear what we have to say.  In the incarnation, Jesus shows us what a relationship with God is like.  He speaks, we respond, and when we respond, he listens.  We forget about this communication, and knowing that we forget, sometimes Jesus speaks to us without words.

Remember who he is.  John 1 tells you who Jesus is - he is the word of God, the word made flesh.  So that every action he takes, everything he does, is God's word played out for us.  When he heals people, he is telling us of God's care for us.  When he divides loaves and fish, he is telling us of God's love for us.  When he goes to where people are and eats with them, he is telling us of God's interest in us.  When he picks up his cross and marches up to Calvary, he is telling us how much we mean to him - more than life itself.

He knows we're bad at listening.  He designed us with half as many mouths as we have ears, and we still don't have that ratio figured out.  But he still wants us to talk.  He wants us to be able to talk to him, to tell him how we are, who we are, what our lives are like.  He wants to know, and more than that, he wants us to tell him.  Don't feel as though your life isn't important enough or pressing enough for his time.  As the Gospel reading says, he has time to sit and to listen, and he's got way more patience than we do.  But in all your talking, don't forget to listen.  All the wisdom of God is right there for you, and is available for you to take advantage of.  Hear his words, learn his truth, and be comforted by what the word of God does, not just what it says.

PJ.