Swift To Hear, Slow To Speak
Perhaps there’s a good reason God gave us two ears but only one mouth. His message there, I think, is that listening to others is twice as important as what we might want to say to them in return. It’s not that speaking is useless. On the contrary, we need to use our gift of speech so that we can comfort the afflicted, counsel the ignorant, chastise the wicked, and a variety of other useful and necessary things. But let’s face it, a lot of the words we use are not only wasted on the people we’re speaking to, but can even be harmful if we choose them badly.
How often do we say things without thinking, speaking spontaneously and without thought of the consequences of our words? We can commit sin in so many ways, but one of the most frequent is with our loose tongues. We tell lies, we boast, we gossip, we spread malicious tales about the behavior and character of our neighbors. We use God’s Name in vain and fill our speech with profanities and inappropriate subject matter. We speak uncharitably and even viciously to others, with anger, spite, hatred, envy and pride. We curse those we don’t like, scandalizing our neighbors by wishing evil on those who do us harm. We return evil for evil, wreaking havoc with our unbridled tongue. Such sins often start as venial offences against God and our neighbor, but so often escalate to the point where they become mortal in their excess.
To avoid such sins, St. James counsels us in today’s Epistle to be “slow to speak”. In other words, he wants us think before we utter aloud what’s in our thoughts. Instead of just blurting out whatever comes into our head, we should think first of the best and most effective way to say it. We should even consider whether we should say it at all. Sometimes, silence is the best path forward. If we take pause, and prudently weigh up what is about to usher forth from our lips, we would probably end up as better Christians, and would certainly be more useful to the salvation of others as well as ourselves.
Meanwhile, our two ears are there for a reason. We should use them not just to hear what’s going on around us, but more importantly, to listen to what others are saying to us. To refuse to listen is a form of pride—“I know better and don’t need your advice,” or “Who are you to tell me how to act?” and so on. The virtue opposed to pride is, of course, humility, and it behooves us to listen humbly when others are speaking to us. We should not dismiss in advance what they have to say as being irrelevant, boring or stupid. We should not automatically prejudge their opinions as erroneous, heretical or immoral, just because they disagree with our own ideas. Rather we should let their words penetrate into our intelligence, where we can dispassionately evaluate them to see if, maybe just maybe, they have a valid point we’d never thought of. Then we can use our mouth to discuss, rather than argue.
“Swift to hear, slow to speak.” It’s good advice from St. James, and we need to listen to it with both ears!