The two stories in today's lectionary readings (1 Samuel 3: 1-10 & John 1: 43-end) are linked by the idea that conversations can surprise us and enlarge our understanding of life.
Samuel is surprised by the voice that he hears in the night. At first he can only think of it in terms of his known frame of reference and therefore he thinks that the voice he is hearing must be that of Eli, the Temple Priest, although Eli assures him that this is not the case. After hearing the voice three times his world is enlarged by the understanding that God can and wants to speak to him. What a revelation! His whole world is changed in a moment and the direction of his life shifts in that moment. He goes on to listen to and talk with God throughout his life and becomes one of the greatest leaders in Israel as a result.
In our gospel reading, Nathaniel has a conversation with Jesus which begins with Nathaniel closing down possibilities – “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” – but ends with him acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. What a transformation brought about through a brief conversation.
Just think for a moment about what happens when we are in conversation with other people. First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.
Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”
Conversation with others can enlarge our understanding of reality, help us come to know ourselves better and make us aware of all that we share with others. It is perhaps because of these possibilities that the Bible is full of conversations and that God appears to want to draw us into conversation with himself. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, I know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as I respond with my whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.
This way of thinking about life as a constant conversation with God, I think, makes sense of St Paul’s statement that we should pray without ceasing. If we talk to God about all that we encounter and feel in our daily lives and if we constantly look to hear from and encounter God in the ordinary, everyday things, people and situations around us, then we will be in a constant conversation with God. Life itself will be a conversation and that enlargement of understanding, increased self-knowledge and awareness of what we share with others will become our reality.
These are particularly valuable reflections for us at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Some measure of unity will only come as we engage in and remain in conversation with each other. Often the issues that divide us seem to push us towards the breaking off of conversation but, if we are serious, about the unity of the Body of Christ and about the importance that the Bible places on conversation then ending conversations should be the last thing that we consider.
So, in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity let us enter into prayer as a lifelong constant conversation with God and let us enter into conversation with others as a means of affirming what we share despite our differences.
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Philip Bailey - Make Us One.
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