In 2002, Chris Irwin came out with a book called Horse’s Don’t Lie. In the book, he teaches us to “think like a horse” in order to learn to communicate compassionately and intuitively with these beautiful, strong animals. Irwin is a “horse whisperer,” a practitioner dedicated to developing relationships with horses based in deep empathy, patience, and non-verbal communication.
Many of the horses Irwin and others who practice this brand of equine training have come from traumatic backgrounds. Some have been mistreated. Others come from the wild, never having had contact with humans before. Some simply have difficult or finicky personalities. But no matter what the circumstances of a horse’s background, a horse whisperer perseveres patiently in cultivating a harmonious relationship with the horse, developing a deep trust, mutual respect, understanding, and empathy. In so doing, the horse develops loyalty to that human and will willingly follow the guidance of his or her human guide in any situation.
Those who have relationships with animals all know the beauty of those kinds of unique relationships, mostly non-verbal. It’s a true and heart-touching gift when an animal trusts you and knows you to be a compassionate and beautiful soul.
Like all valuable things in our lives, developing this kind of relationship takes time, patience, and commitment. But when we invest in connecting deeply on this kind of level, it can be the most rewarding feeling we will ever experience.
As Irwin also notes in his book about horses, this kind of intuitive communication and compassion does not need to be limited to horses, or animals. But we can learn much from the practice of “horse whispering” that can benefit our human relationships.
In the beloved, feel-good television series coach Ted Lasso has a similar method of communicating with his team. Unfamiliar with soccer, he teaches them with gentle nudging and cultivating, more important lessons: to trust themselves, to embrace compassion, forgiveness, and understanding, and to believe in both themselves and the other members of their team. One particular character, Jamie Tartt, starts off as a fairly obnoxious character, but as we follow the series, we realize that he has been rejected and mistreated in his past. Through non-judgmental patience, compassion, and empathy, despite much of Jamie’s behavior, his character begins to change. He begins to grow. His transformation is heart-warming, as he learns to trust his coach, his teammates, and most of all to value himself.
What we learn from both of these examples is that compassion is a practice. Forgiveness is a practice. Love is a practice. And all of these take an enormous amount of patience, commitment, reservation of judgment, empathy, and understanding. And yet, this is what relationships are all about.
Jesus reminds us, as he did his disciples long ago, that it’s easy to “love” our friends. We already understand them, value them, love them, trust them. It’s a lot harder to work to develop trust relationships with those who are not, with those who appear to oppose us, with those we struggle to understand. And yet that is the true essence of discipleship. I like to call it being a “Soul Whisperer.”
That’s what discipleship is. It’s developing relationships of trust and helping people to accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance in their lives. It’s cultivating faith within someone who has felt perhaps burned in the past. It’s learning to become a “soul whisperer.”
When we look at our scripture for today, I want you to notice something important. Jesus, Son of God, God incarnate in bodily form, has just been baptized in the Jordan by John. He has in a sense inaugurated his role and his ministry as messiah and Lord. God knows how hard this mission will be. He knows what Jesus as a human being is going to have to go through in order to fulfill that mission. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to require the utmost patience, compassion, endurance, support, intuition, empathy, and emotional and spiritual strength. He will be opposed, trashed, defied, threatened. He will be faced with trying to explain the love of God to those who have been trained in the past by rules or harsh treatment or influenced by status and power. He will need to show compassion to those not used to receiving it. He will need to cultivate faith in those who do not trust. What he will have to endure at the end of his time on earth will be heart-wrenching and cruel. Still, he will need to not only endure, but maintain God’s profound love for all humankind, even for those who oppose him. It’s no mistake that on the cross, after all of that persecution, Jesus’ words run shivers down our spines: “Forgive them. They don’t understand what they’re doing.” Jesus is a true “soul whisperer.”
But he has to prepare for that kind of rigor of spirit. Think of those who practice fencing. You don’t send someone out with sword in hand to “give it a shot” in a real stand off! You have them “train” for that endeavor, hard and long, facing all kinds of situations that they might incur.
Jesus must also practice. He must know what to expect when he enters three years of extreme challenge. He must serve as a “soul whisperer” in a ring of a feisty, damaged, wild humanity.
Yet, before the Spirit compels him into his “time in the wild,” look what happens first. God enfolds him with that shimmering Holy Spirit light and whispers in his ear: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
God did not compel Jesus into the practice field without first reassuring him, loving him, and connecting with him on a deep, relational level, so that Jesus knows, no matter how long he takes in practicing for his mission, God is already with him. His identity and his security are rooted firmly in who he is, Son of God, cherished by the Father.
We too as disciples face a difficult mission in taking Jesus’ message of love and hope into a “wild” and “untamed” world, a world filled with distrust, disrespect, and judgmentalism, a world filled with trauma, loss, and illness. We are commissioned by Jesus with the responsibility as disciples of serving as “soul whisperers” to our communities, not merely those people who we know as friends, but to those we don’t know, those we don’t understand, those who may disrespect us, challenge us, or judge us. And we are called to respond with compassion, grace, support, love, and intuitive empathy. We are called to cultivate relationships with the most difficult and unlikely of these. How do we learn to do this?
By developing our “community of practice.” We call it the church. For Jesus, the church was never a place in which “perfect” humans led “perfect lives.” All we need to do is read Paul’s letters to know the kind of patient and loving support the early churches needed in order to be reassured in their faith and their commitment to Christ.
The Church is called to be a “safe space” for all people, a place without judgment when mistakes are made, a place in which all will uphold and reassure one who is experiencing trouble, a place in which when people fall, they are picked back up, dusted off, and restored into the community of faith with prayer and joy. This is the kind of alternative community –unlike the culture and communities of the world –that Jesus wants us to cultivate.
It takes patience, perseverance, connection, and the cultivation of harmonious human relationships. It takes energy and presence and understanding and trust. It will challenge us to our core and frustrate us frequently. And yet, the results will be magnificent, rewarding, heart-felt, and sincere.
Like Jesus’ time in the wilderness, we will always be tempted within our hearts to go the easy route. It’s much easier to judge, to simply eliminate those who don’t fit into our scheme of thinking. Or to simply spend our time only with those inside our walls instead of doing the hard work of cultivating relationships outside those walls. As we all know, walls are more than physical. It’s much easier to take the route of self-righteousness that can make us feel that somehow we are better or make less mistakes than others around us or that somehow we feel justified in proclaiming what others “should” have done instead of trying to understand why they “did did what they did.” As Ted Lasso would say, “be curious, not judgmental.” It’s easier to see the world in terms of “wild beasts” rather than fellow humans who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, beloved by God.
A community of practice cultivates “soul whisperers,” those who learn how to patiently endure the anger, mistrust, and opposition of others and respond with compassion, understanding, empathy, acceptance, and love.
Difficult? You bet! And yet, this is our commission. And the way we learn to grow in our discipleship and in our love of Christ.
These kinds of qualities, these kinds of “fruits of the spirit,” do not usually come as innate abilities for us human beings. They require preparation. They require practice. But they will always result in our growth and in the growth of faith and reassurance in others.
For Love is a practice that defines us.
Forgiveness is a practice that frees us.
Surrender is a practice that heals us.
Faith is a practice that grows us.
May you cultivate within your Christian community a community of practice, and may God bless you in your mission to become “soul whisperers.”