“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
These words are taken from the Epistle of James (1:19) – who may or may not have been Jesus’s brother. Much of the letter feels like a mix between Jesus’s beatitudes and Solomon’s proverbs, making it a treasure trove of wisdom.
Taken on their own, those words sound like pretty good rules for life, don’t they? After all, anything that makes people slow to anger sounds like a good idea. We live in angry times. Rage seems so prevalent I feel almost no need to give evidence for that.
Rage Addiction
As a society, we are addicted to rage. How did Gordon Ramsay become a household name as a famous TV chef? Because he could cook really well? Because he had Michelin-starred restaurants? Because of his footballing career? No. He rose to prominence on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares because he would get really angry. And it was great telly.
How did Greta Thunberg beguile the media? With rage. She berated everyone with three words: “How dare you?”
Social media rewards rage. It gets clicks and followers. An angry shrieking headline will get your attention. Your favourite pundit, columnist or comedian having a good old rant about something is normally very enjoyable.
We Christians might think that our anger, at least on God’s behalf, is entirely justified. But in the very next verse, James issues a warning: “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” In other words, our anger is very rarely justified. It’s mostly wounded pride, or fear, or the result of being challenged.
And The Horse You Rode In On
But if we’re passionate about some cause or idea, how do we respond to criticism of that thing? How do you deal with people opposed to your view or cause? Most people take it personally. We perceive it as an attack on my team, my tribe, my friends, my pride, my intelligence. So we retaliate. We demonise our critics, or turn them into straw men or impugn their motives.
The criticism might be a bad faith attack that’s meant to sting, rather than critique. But maybe this person values something else more highly than you do. But we won’t know unless we listen.
I think that’s the deep insight here. Rage is connected to a failure to listen.
James tells us to be quick to listen. We need to make listening our first response to someone. What are they trying to say? What do they really mean?
We live in a world of subtext, where people don’t actually say what they mean. That’s pretty much the whole basis of scripted comedy. “Are you going out like that?” That’s not a question. It’s a warning. “Don’t go out like that. And if you do, don’t stand next to me.” So we need to listen. Carefully.
Our Second Response
Our first response is to listen. Our second response? Keep listening. Be slow to speak. We can’t listen if we’re talking. The moment you speak, listening is over unless you’re saying things like, ‘Really? What happened then?’ or ‘How did you feel about that?’.
If we truly understand someone, we are less likely to be angry with them, or angry about whatever they’re saying.
‘I got a parking ticket.’
‘What? That’s £80 we can’t afford. Don’t you know what else I could have done with that money? Why can’t you be more careful? You always do this. You never pay attention. It’s like you’re in a dream world.’ And now it’s all very personal and a character assassination.
That’s not a conversation. That’s a rant. What happens if we listen. And are slow to speak, that conversation becomes: How about:
‘I got a parking ticket.’
‘Oh no! How did that happen?’
‘Well, the meter was broken, but you can pay with an app, but I had trouble downloading it. And then my sister called and it completely went out of my head. She’s not well by the way.’
Now you’re talking about the real problem. Not a parking ticket – which is only £40 if you pay it right away.
Questioning Questions
This approach can take the heat out of a religious argument and make it far more fruitful. One of my favourite Christian books of all time is called Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman (not that one). He recommends Jesus’s rabbinic approach which is answering questions with questions.
So if someone asks you ‘Why does God allow suffering in the world?’, which might sound rather accusatory - rather than answering with the eight different theological reasons, or panicking and answering with none – or having an increasingly heated conceptual argument – ask another question to find out more. ‘What kind of suffering are you thinking about?’
You might well find a particular reason – some suffering that is still scarring them. But you’ll only get to that if you are quick to listen and slow to speak. Anger is averted. The conversation has begun.
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
This is an adaptation of part of a sermon that I delivered last Sunday. (Starts 30 mins in) It’s here if you want to have a look.