Two Kinds of Sermon Listening

I'm thinking, as my own hyper-critical attitude has been brought to my attention as I listen to sermons (or lectures, but especially sermons), that there seem to be two ways to listen to a sermon: external and internal. Critical (yes, yes, beyond the appropriate doctrinally critical eye one must always have turned on) and incarnational.

I tend to be the former. I want to be the latter (which is how I would want people to listen to me!). External listening analyzes, stands over, deconstructs, gauges, judges, and compares. Internal listening submits, sits under, exercises humility, receives, refuses to self-justify, and heeds no matter how incompetent the preacher or how mature the listener. The external listener stands outside the message; the internal listener gets inside it.

If we were all internal, incarnational listeners, the most famed preachers could learn and be edified by the most struggling seminarian, while the struggling seminarian would not despair in the light of, but receive the encouragement of, the famed preachers. Pride and discouragement would both be dealt with in one blow, and all would sit together under God's Word as little children, irrespective of worldly accolades and theological degrees.