The Fine Art of Listening
Rev. Michael L. Thompson
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
January 24, 2010 - Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
I Samuel 3: 1-10
There’s nothing quite as unnerving as a phone call at 3 o’clock or 3:30 or 4:00 o’clock in the morning. Nothing wakes us up so quickly and commands our attention as effectively as a 3:00 AM phone call. For parents of teenagers, for physicians on call, for ministers, oh, for all of us, any kind of phone call at that hour of the day is nearly always bad news. Seldom is it good news. Sometimes the phone rings and we leap into action and we fumble to try to find the light switch and then finally we get the receiver up to our ear, only to hear someone say, “Is Ralph there?” And you say, “Not at the moment. Well, matter of fact, he’s never here, Ralph doesn’t live here. You’ve got the wrong number.” So then you go to bed and try to fall back asleep.
That was not the case this morning for me at 3:30 AM. At 3:30 AM my phone rang and on the other end was Officer Jerry Sykes. He said, “You need to come to the church and you need to get here as fast as you can. Something is wrong.”
(…excerpt from podcast)
