You would think musicians would be good listeners. After all, music is all about sound. Hearing subtle nuances, maintaining good pitch – everything musical requires being a good listener.
But musicians are just humans like everyone else. Back in that small church where I used to play, one Sunday I was busy spreading out my music on the piano’s music stand, setting out a few different hymns we had planned to sing back-to-back. The service had already started, and the music minister was talking to the congregation, introducing the music, but I wasn’t paying a bit of attention to the words he was saying. We had already planned things out, and so, I didn’t have to really listen to what he was saying.
Or so I thought. Apparently, due to an earlier portion of the service, the music minister had decided a different hymn should really be sung first, since it was so relevant to the topic at hand. And I missed it. While he was busy telling the congregation that we were going to change the next hymn and do a different one than the bulletin indicated, I was off in my own little world, not hearing a word he said.
So, yes, I started playing the wrong hymn, the music minister had to stop me and tell me (again) which hymn he wanted to do first, and I turned bright red as I fumbled through the hymn book trying to find the right piece. At least it was a small church, I was very young, and everyone still loved me anyway.
I searched for the word ‘listen’ in an online Bible thesaurus, and found over four hundred instances of some form of the word. The phrase “whoever has ears, let them hear” is recorded in the New Testament about fifteen times, spoken by Jesus, usually. Anything repeated this often is probably, maybe, perhaps, pretty important.
This topic doesn’t really need more explanation. Listen, people!
Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Matthew 11:15