Sacred Listening: Creating Space for the Spirit
Two Sundays ago, we began a sermon series on Sacred Listening, a practice that is a part of our theological tradition and is very relevant for the world we live in today. In a culture overwhelmed with noise, opinions, and constant digital engagement, Sacred Listening invites us to pause, to attend, and to connect. It is a countercultural practice that reflects our baptismal promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
At its heart, Sacred Listening requires three things: attention, intent, and connection. These are not small tasks. They ask us to move beyond casual hearing into the kind of listening that creates a holy space. This kind of listening doesn’t simply absorb words, it listens for the Holy Spirit, it listens for the heart of another, and it listens with the hope that something sacred may be revealed. And it often is.
Last week’s sermon reminded us that prayer is not a one-way message we leave in God's inbox. Rather, it is a continuous, living exchange. God listens. God speaks. But more than that, God is always alert to us, attuned to our needs, joys, questions, and confessions. Our challenge is not to get God's attention, but to give God ours. Prayer becomes a practice of Sacred Listening, not just talking to God, but being still enough to hear what is already being whispered into our lives. When we cultivate this attentiveness in prayer, we begin to notice the divine “notifications” that show up in the quiet spaces of our day, nudging us toward wisdom, peace, and transformation.
This week, we turn to another essential aspect of Sacred Listening: connection, with a sermon titled “Loneliness is So Last Season.” The title is playful, but the theme is deeply serious. Many of us, even in busy lives and full households, experience a persistent sense of isolation. Sacred Listening helps us recognize that loneliness is not just a lack of people, it is a lack of being truly heard, truly seen. To listen sacredly to another is to offer them dignity. It is to say: You matter. You are not alone. I will be present with you.
In the scriptures appointed for this week, we find imagery of God’s presence and care.
One passage speaks of God as a nurturing parent, tenderly recalling the early days of guiding and holding a child. Another tells of God satisfying the thirsty and filling the hungry with good things. These are not just metaphors for divine provision; they are windows into God's attentiveness, God's own Sacred Listening to the cries and longings of creation.
Sacred Listening within the Christian community reflects this same pattern. It is an expression of God’s listening love through us. In the Episcopal tradition, our worship services teach us how to listen, not just to words, but to silence, to scripture, to the movements of the heart. The Prayers of the People, the Confession, the Communion itself, all are spaces where we speak, we hear, and we listen together for the Spirit’s work among us.
But Sacred Listening is not limited to the pews on a Sunday morning. It continues at kitchen tables, in hospital rooms, over coffee, in emails, and text messages, in the quiet moments when we choose to be fully present with someone else. When we make time to listen, to God, to each other, to ourselves, we are opening up space for the Spirit of God to work. We are making room for trust, for healing, and for new understanding. We are participating in the divine act of communion.
In a world that often pushes us to speak quickly and listen rarely, Sacred Listening is a holy resistance. It is not a passive act, but a practice of love. It requires attention to what is being said, intention in how we respond, and connection that reaches beyond words. And when we engage in it, we find that something sacred always emerges, sometimes quietly, sometimes unexpectedly, but always with grace.
Kevin+
