TO LISTEN OR NOT TO LISTEN by Rev. Ken Rickett

One day when I was around 10-12 years old, my brother and I would play under a big apple tree while our grandmother worked in the nearby garden. It was in the month of May, and most of the time my brother and I were in school when Granny was in the garden. But this day was a Saturday, so we began playing under the apple tree. A humming noise caused us to look upward, and there hung a hornet’s nest covered with those buzzing bees. We shouted to our grandmother that there was a hornet’s nest in the tree, and she looked and saw it. “Don’t bother it” she yelled in return.

Temptation hit us anyway. Brashly confident in my ability to run fast, I took a stick and whacked the hornet’s nest. BIG MISTAKE! My speed in running…to an angry swarm of hornets…was a mere snail’s pace.

Needless to say, I had several stings on my face, neck, arms and legs. Although my grandmother quickly headed to the house for ointment to put on the stings, her first words were… (you guessed it!)..”Now what did I tell you? Did I not say, ‘leave it alone?’”

Some advice is pure wisdom born or knowledge and experience, and one would do well to listen…but I did not listen. The problem…I knew that my grandmother was right…” Leave that hornet’s nest alone.” I whacked it because I was overconfident that I could run fast enough to escape the consequences of poking that nest. So, what did I learn?

I learned that it is never wise to put one’s self-talk ahead of reasoned and experienced advice. To listen or not to listen? Perhaps the better question would be “WHO will I listen to?” I could listen to…or not listen to…my boisterous self-talk OR I could listen to my grandmother whom I knew better than to question her very practical advice.

Well, here is the rest of the story. The next day I did NOT have the option of staying home instead of going to Sunday School and worship. With a swollen eyelid and a “pump knot” on the back of my neck, I gladly told folks, “I got stung by hornets.” but if anyone asked, “was there a reason you got stung…?” I fell silent. At the time it was far better that the hornets be at fault than admit that it was me and my stupidity! Our God is gracious and forgiving. To listen or not to listen? When a pastor preached on the Prodigal Son and the Father’s love, he greeted people as they left the church, hearing favorable compliments, one parishioner, however, said, “I would not have given that young whippersnapper a feast” to which the minister said, “What would you have given him?” The reply: “Six years in prison!” Obviously, the parishioner would have preferred to punish the young man for the misdeeds after the prodigal had left home. But the reality remains: God loves us! To listen or not to listen is our prerogative.

The Old Testament story of Jonah is simple. God called him to go to a foreign country and preach, seeking persuade the people there to receive God’s love and redemption, and turn their lives around. But Jonah, with his long-held impressions of these people as “the worst of sinners”, could not believe that God would even entertain the idea of redeeming these “evil” people. To listen or not to listen? Jonah chose to think that these people were “not worthy” of receiving God’s love and discovering redemption. So, Jonah spent some time in the belly of a whale. When Jonah finally decided to listen to God rather than his personal prejudices and opinions, he was spewed out of the whale and went about fulfilling God’s call.

I suspect that being in a whale’s belly happens to all of us at times. It is incredible how much we choose to listen to ourselves and our thoughts. In so doing, we are in the whale’s belly, a place where we are totally alone, in a churning darkness, trapped by our own lies, and no way to escape the harm we do to ourselves. Only when we, like the Prodigal Son, come to our senses”, will we be cast out of the whale’s belly and embark on the path to which we are called.

To listen or not to listen? Choose wisely to whom you listen!