What do people hear?

Sometimes I genuinely wonder what people actually hear when I preach.

Not what I say.

Not what I carefully pray over, study, write, revise, and deliver.

What people hear.

Do they hear one word they don’t like and then mentally check out for the remaining fifteen minutes? Do they grab onto a phrase, assume they know where I’m going, and stop listening before I even get there?

I suspect that happens more often than we’d like to admit.

Last week, I was chatting with a congregation member and mentioned what we’d be talking about the coming Sunday. For context, I’m in the middle of a sermon series on our baptismal covenant—the promises we make and the promises God makes to us. The previous week, we talked about how before we promise anything, God claims us. Names us. Calls us beloved. “You are mine.”

The following Sunday, I said, we would be talking about our promise to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

She replied, “Oh great. Another whole week of sermons about sin.”

I was honestly a little stunned.

“I’m not sure what you heard last week,” I said, “but the sermon was entirely about God calling us and claiming us as God’s own.”

Later, out of curiosity (and maybe mild self-defensiveness), I did a word search of my printed sermon. The word sin appeared six times in a sixteen-minute sermon. Two of those were in the scripture reading itself. Three were contained in other words. I reread the sermon looking for subtle or sneaky references to sin. Nope. Only once did I mention the word sin in my sermon.

It was all about grace. Belonging. God’s deep and unwavering “yes.”

Weird.

But also… not new.

We live in a world where truly listening has become rare. On the national stage, people aren’t asked to listen—they’re asked to react. Adults don’t listen to kids. Abled people don't listen to people with disabilities. White people don’t listen to people of color. We listen just long enough to decide whether we agree, disagree, or feel threatened.

And once we feel anxious, defensive, or judged, our listening shuts down.

Constructive listening asks something harder of us.

It asks us to stay present even when a word makes us uncomfortable.

It asks us to wonder, What is this person actually trying to say?

It asks us to listen without immediately planning our response or bracing for critique. Good listening is not passive. It’s an act of courage.

In worship, in conversations, in community, listening well means trusting that we might not hear the whole truth in one sentence—or even one sermon. It means allowing space for nuance, context, and grace.

Ironically, our baptismal covenant invites exactly this kind of listening. It reminds us that we begin not with judgment, but with belonging. Not with accusation, but with love. Not with fear, but with the assurance that we are already claimed.

Maybe the question isn’t just What did the preacher say?

Maybe the deeper question is, What are we ready—or not ready—to hear?

And what might change if we listened just a little longer?

You can hear the above sermon on Youtube around the 18:44 minute mark.