This interview is part of a series. We took our theme, “House on the Rock”, and spoke to three different people about listening and hearing the Word, for it is with hearing that Jesus starts this parable: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice…” (Matthew 7:24a)

I began by asking Usha how she would like to introduce herself. Instead of just giving her name, title and profession, Usha told me part of her story. In her words, that is part of who we are—“People’s stories and memories are all that they can carry. That is not material, it is not like I can give you a scarf or something. But it is part of who they are, and when they share that part of who they are with you, it is voluntarily connecting their life to yours and yours to theirs – that is quite a gift.”

Usha Reifsnider is British by birth, a 2nd generation migrant, whose parents came from India. Raised in a Hindu home, Usha learnt English only when she went to school. At the age of 10, for the first time, she saw people that weren’t white, standing up and teaching others, and she thought “how wonderful, that’s what I want to do when I grow up.” Those people she saw were missionaries, and that was when she decided to become one herself. With her husband, they have served in full-time cross-cultural mission for 35 years, working mostly with migrants and refugees in restricted access countries.

Thinking of our Communications theme this year, “House on the Rock”, how do you read Jesus’ parable? What is your take on this theme we have chosen?

When you hear this in a Western context, your image is a person building a house. Remember those buckets that were shaped like a castle, and you packed the sand in, at the beach, and you tip it upside down? The idea is that this house is built by an individual, for an individual. If you look at it that way, it is far easier to build it on the sand! It doesn’t take much in the way of expertise or interdependence. But when you are working with rock, it is really hard stuff. And you can flatten sand – but what are you going to do with that rock? To flatten it you are going to need a lot more help and expertise.

When Jesus says, “those who hear”, we are thinking of each individual that hears, instead of, wow, this is a collective hearing the same thing all together, in a particular space in time, in a particular geographical location, with a particular context in mind. Every time that parable is shared, there may be a different geographical location, a different audience, a different age group. So those that are hearing, in the immediate, how are they interpreting it?

What could the image of the house mean, what would your house be like?

A house is a long-term project. And a house does a lot of things: keeps people in, keeps people out, offers protection, offers the feeling of family, offers a sense of belonging, or not belonging. So it is not just the structure of the house. It is the structure of the house with a particular purpose in mind. The purpose of my house would be that as many people that came, there would always be space. Very much like a TARDIS. And that the places to eat and the places to be together are always full and warm, and welcoming. It is a place of holding people – not containing people -, but in a way that we hold something that we care about.

Do you think our listening to Jesus is inseparable from our listening capacities in general? How do you think we are at listening to others?

We’re vibrant and violent in the way that we look at our task of being an evangelical Christian. But the longer I live, the more I think that the value of the person is the image of God that they are created in. They are not a task. They are not a notch on the belt. They are not one more person that has come to faith. They are not facts on our newsletters. The value in the person itself is the fact that they are a living, breathing human being, and therefore connected to you and connected to the universe. Now, that does not mean I don’t believe in evangelism. But valuing their life by listening and spending time, to me, makes the Gospel far more meaningful.

So we have got all the reasons to listen – why is it hard to listen?

Perhaps because the person who is talking has the power. And we want the power. We prefer to make our presence known, whether it is audibly or physically or whatever. We like to feel our presence known, because it makes us feel more real. Sometimes evangelicals are scared of listening to unchristian things. Or, for example, when I listen to a Muslim person’s pain at decisions that have been made by our governments to bomb their homes. Immediately, I want to defend myself and say, yes that was terrible, but it wasn’t me. But they weren’t even actually saying it was you. They are just saying it happened. Right? You don’t have to be placed in every story that someone else is telling you. You can just listen, without thinking of yourself as the hero or the victim or the perpetrator, or whatever. We can just listen, and hold loosely what somebody is saying. Just hold their words, because usually when someone is telling us a story, they are telling themselves, because it still hurts, or it still brings them joy. It has an impact on them – the telling. So for us to hear their stories is a real act of vulnerability on our part. I mean, it is vulnerable to do the telling, but it is an act of vulnerability on our part as well. To, if you like, house that – to hold those words.

Have you felt it hard to listen in your own research? Moments when you look back and thought, oh, I should have just listened… How to read situations like that?

Actually, in the beginning it is very hard… I am supervising some students at the moment, as they are preparing to do their interviews. And I had to tell them, we are not mining for information. So you don’t need to dig and excavate people’s lives. As they share, they are like trees blossoming fruit, so let the fruit fall. Initially, when I did interviews, I was a sort of talk-show host, you know? And then I realised, I just need to ask one question, and then let them speak, it doesn’t matter how long they speak. Especially if you are talking to someone who is not a Christian, and they are angry with Christians, I don’t need to justify myself and say, Oh, well I would never have done that. Even when they say things like, “well you Christians have done this, and you Christians have done that”, which I’ve had when I’ve spoken to families, and somebody in the family has converted, and the rest of the family has been devastated by the conversion… Even when it gets accusatory, I have to let it be, I have to just hold it, and it will be OK.

Has this been an area of challenge for you? You like talking, but God has led you into very interesting research, where you have to listen!

Yes! It has been, it has been a challenge to listen, but I find that the times where I listen the most, I actually get the most rich detail. And I build closer relationships.

In thinking of listening to others – how much does it help if we have learnt to listen to ourselves? Have you had to go through that process, of learning to listen to yourself?

You know, as a majority world convert, and as a woman, listening to myself is probably hardest. Which is why I express myself with a lot of anger, so often. Because I am so angry that it took me ‘till I was in my 50s in order for it to be OK to listen to myself. Because my voice has always been contained in a context. I’m sure it is for other people too. But if you think of women in ministry – that is the easiest one we can connect to. Your mum’s generation, for sure, is that we wouldn’t dare to listen to ourselves, because it came from a voice that was interpreted for us, from a text written in black and white. We heard the Bible in a man’s voice. How many Bible reading programs, where you hear the Bible heard read out loud, is it in a woman’s voice?

What is your own story of coming to terms with being contained? Because it is so easy to become bitter. I see it with many movements today getting vindictive, saying, look, we were oppressed, now it is our turn.

Yes, that is very dangerous thinking, it is very reactionary, which is not good. We dare not get bitter, because, at the end of the day, we believed what people thought of us, we saw ourselves that way. So it’s not bitterness, it wasn’t until I became older that I became bitter about it.

Why did you become bitter about it, then?

Because I wanted to blame people, including myself. So now the victims’ voice is coming out. But it is so strong that even perpetrators now want to be victims. Even perpetrators are like, oh, poor old me, I used to get listened to, now I don’t, because everybody wants to be a victim now, because when you are a victim, you can be reactionary, you can be selfish. And there may be a moment of that that you need to do, but you can’t live there. And I have to tell myself that everyday, because I get very angry.

In these polarised debates, many times, we push things into binaries, when reality is so much more complex, and we are more complex. Our own identity isn’t just one location, one ethnicity, we are a story…

Yes, exactly. So, you know, it is just something to bear in mind. Something to think about. The difference between listening so that we can affirm and prove ourselves, or listening so that we can hold something and be vulnerable – as vulnerable as the person that’s telling.

And how can we learn to do the latter?

I think, once we have somebody that listens to us unconditionally… once we have experienced that with somebody, and we’ve had that experience, we can more easily give it to others. But on the other hand, when we give it to others, it then turns out that people can give us that space too.

Follow these links for the other interviews from this series, with Mike McDonald (Bible Project) and with Manuel Rainho (GBU, the Portuguese IFES movement).