Listen to the ‘deep cry’ of ‘off-pitch’ people

Posted: 4/13/06

Listen to the ‘deep cry’ of ‘off-pitch’ people

By Marv Knox

Editor

SAN ANTONIO—The same God who hears the perfect-pitch songs of blue whales expects Christians to hear the “deep cry” of hurting people, Bill Leonard reminded participants at the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission’s annual state-wide conference.

Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University’s divinity school, described how blue whales sing in perfect pitch and can communicate with each other through many hundreds of miles of open sea. It’s a sound humans can’t hear and only discovered with sophisticated technology.

“If they should vanish, would God long for them in the silence of the deep?” he asked. “If they are silenced, God will hold us accountable.”

Turning his attention from the oceans to America’s communities, Leonard questioned: “Can we—dare we—hear the low, slow sounds others will miss? … Jesus listened to the living and heard things others miss.”

Faithful Christians ought to listen to “the off-pitch people who became the heroes of so many of Jesus’ stories,” he said.

These include “sounds of hope inside a 3-year-old war; racial profiling; the cries of street children, refugees and poverty,” he explained.

“Christ’s passion is for all the sinners that hurt and bleed in our world. … Can we offer a song of reconciliation for those so far apart” from God?

“What are we to do?” he asked. “Jesus says it clear and plain: Be ready for action. (In Scripture) when Christ shows up, he asks, ‘What have you been doing?’

“We must hear deep. We must confront the world’s toil and sorrow.”