SunJan182009
Scripture: I SAMUEL 3:1-10; JOHN 1:43-51
One day a man sets out to go ice fishing. He decides to cut a hole in the ice when a booming voice from above says, “There are no fish there.” So he moves to another area, and begins to cut another hole in the ice, when he hears the voice again: “There are no fish there.” So he moves again and begins cutting a third hole when once more the voice bellows, “There are no fish there, either.” So the man looks up and says, “Who is this, God?” The voice replies, “No, this is the manager of this ice skating rink.”
It’s not always clear when God is speaking to us, is it? My guess is that there are a number of people here today, maybe even most, in fact, who would say that God had never spoken to them. Who of us hears divine voices? Who of us gets unambiguous messages from the heavens?
Our would-be angler thinks he hears the voice of God and it isn’t. Samuel has the inverted problem: he hears the voice of God, but doesn’t recognize it. He thinks it’s his mentor Eli calling to him in the middle of the night. Three times he hears a voice calling to him, three times he goes in to Eli and asks him what he wants. It’s Eli who finally figures out what’s going on and sends Samuel back to his bed to listen for this voice from beyond.
Perhaps for Samuel it really was a voice. I don’t doubt that the Creator of all that is can communicate in any number of ways, and that for Samuel it may have sounded like a voice. I’m convinced, though, that God also communicates in other ways, and that most of us have given up thinking we have any chance of being addressed by such a presence. We think that, unless we’re crazy, we don’t hear voices. So when the Bible talks of being called, and we don’t hear any audible words, we think God isn’t saying anything to us.
That may be true. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe we’ve stopped listening in the right places. Maybe we’ve stopped listening with our minds and our fingers and our feelings and our consciences and our laughter and our tears. Maybe we’ve forgotten that God’s voice is the voice of the wind, the voice of the hug, the voice of the tender story-teller, the voice of the cyclamen, the voice of Mozart or Eva Cassidy or Taylor Swift. And maybe we’ve forgotten that, in the midst of the franticness and anxiety and fulfillment and wonder and beauty and sadness of our lives, there is a benign and embracing presence available to us if we but stop and say, “Here I am, God.”
After my father died a couple of weeks ago, a woman whose mother is dying asked me, “What advice do you have for me?” I wasn’t sure I had any, but I found myself saying, “Two things. One, if you have the chance, say ‘Good-bye.’ If you have the opportunity—and many, of course, don’t—tell her you love her, and tell her it’s OK to go.” There’s something in that good-bye that rings of the voice of God. “The second thing,” I said, “is, when you cry, remember that you’re not crying alone, that all the while that you weep, you weep in the hands of God.” It changes the tears, it seems to me, when you know that you cry in the presence of the One who gave life to both you and the one you’re losing. You still cry just as hard, maybe harder. But they’re tears of grief rather than hopelessness. They’re tears of sadness rather than despair. You grieve and you’re sad, but at the same time you know there’s something else. The voice of God, then, is the one that cradles you as you turn and weep and open yourself and wait. It may not be the voice we expect, and it certainly may not be the want we want. But it’s the one that comes.
There are two words of God that come to everyone, it seems to me. We may not hear them audibly, but they’re passed on to us in a thousand ways. The first voice is the one we heard last Sunday: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). The great and endless miracle is that the cosmic God who is grander and older than the universe at the same time treasures you and me. We get into petty and sometimes bitter arguments with people, tension and resentment often have their way, we wrestle with others about all sorts of political and personal matters. And the truth is that God loves us, and at the same time loves the ones with whom we contend. The soaring rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech centers on just that conviction, with his concluding vision of “that day when all of God’s children, black . . . and white . . ., Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing” together. Even the ones we dismiss—embarrassing family members, people with different abilities and body types, those who seem politically naïve, the ones afflicted with the “wrong” gender or sexual orientation or color—even these are holy and infinitely valuable children of God. Listen! Do you hear that first voice from God? It’s the voice of acceptance and care and forgiveness and unity.
The other voice that comes to everybody is the one that says, “Follow me.” It’s what Jesus says to Philip near the beginning of John’s gospel. It’s what the risen Christ continues to say to Barb and Jeff and Mariah and Hamilton. It’s the very heart and center of what God asks of all of us: “Follow me.”
Sometimes we forget this. We forget that our whole life is about following this strange and wonderful Jesus. We get caught up in lesser tasks, diverted by secondary matters. In the church we get absorbed by budgets and board and committee tasks and proper procedures; our personal lives get over-run by errands and self-centered diversions. And we forget that the only question that really matters is: Are we following Jesus? Are we living and learning Jesus? Are we immersing ourselves in prayer and scripture? Are we living the deep joys of community, really getting to know each other, and finding delight in our common life? Are we adhering to a way of living centered in generosity and justice-making and sacrifice? Are we being transformed into people who know—who know—our own worth and who can then pass on that incredible sense of security and trust to everyone we meet? That’s following Jesus. That’s what it means to really hear the voice of Jesus calling to us: Follow me.
Christian life is a constant interplay between these two poles: You are beloved and so is everyone else! So spread the news! Absorb the unutterable truth above all truths: the entire creation is being held close to the bosom of God. And take in the mission that goes with that assurance: you and I play an enormous part in conveying that news to people who have never heard it or who have been intentionally excluded from it. When people want to know why the church has to get itself into sticky political and moral matters, this is it. We offer sustenance and solace early on to slaves and later to women and later to people who are gay and lesbian because to follow Jesus means to welcome and include all people. It’s not about political correctness or partisan public policy. It’s about enacting the vision and passion of Jesus. It’s about making room at the table for everyone. It’s about acknowledging and celebrating their dignity and worth. It’s about hearing and heeding that holiest of all voices: Follow me. This is more than a dream. It’s more than a disembodied, distant hope. It’s the brilliance at the center of the universe. And together, by the grace and power of God, it’s ours to put into action.
One of my great hopes for Federated Church—I think it’s fair to say that it’s my central hope—is that more and more we will be a people who are shaped by that voice—that we will relentlessly heed the message of grace and acceptance, and that, in response, we will follow, as closely as possible, in those sublime footsteps. I’d like us to be so full of joy that when we leave here today and everyday we will say, I have been touched by God, and I know—I know—that all shall be well. I know that nothing I could possibly do could take me out of the care of God. I know that serenity is mine.
AND I know that no life is complete that doesn’t seek to follow in that way, that doesn’t forgive and care and serve and make a difference. There’s a confused person within a pew or two of you who could use a hug today. There’s a struggling person or a homebound neighbor who could use flowers or a batch of heavily garliced bruschetta. There’s a Habitat for Humanity house that needs building, a food bank that is down on its stores, a traumatized child who would thrive with some tender care. We are treasures. And so is everyone else. This is the voice of God calling us to follow.
It’s all a matter of a peculiar kind of hearing, really—of hearing that crucial two-fold reality: that there is a holy presence transforming every inch and moment of existence, and of hearing the summons to pass that blessing on, to convey to the world the unutterable affection of God. Three scenes have stood out to me in this regard this week. One is the extensive, deep, moving, and heartfelt care you have given to me after the death of my father. It means the world to me. And I’m convinced that it’s the living out of a people hearing the voice of God.
A second heeding of that holy voice is the scene of the U.S. Airways plane floating in the Hudson River and of the ways of its pilot. Chesley Sullenberger did at least three things that demonstrate the hearing of a kind of graced voice. First, he landed a plane in a way that few have ever done, and he did it brilliantly. That sort of remarkable skill and expertise brought to the service of others is, it seems to me, a kind of heeding of the voice of God. But Sullenberger also did a couple of things that don’t depend on expertise. Once he had landed the plane, he took two trips through the plane to make sure that no one was left on board. And after he got out, he gave his shirt to a man who’d fallen into that icy river. That, to me, is brave and selfless and serving. From our perspective we might say he heard the voice of God and followed.
The last heeding of that voice is a guy named Ken Sparks, a football coach at Tennessee’s Carson-Newman College. Carson-Newman is not a major football power, and Sparks is not at all well-known. But in a recent Sports Illustrated article about how major college football coaches show little loyalty, and jump ship with the latest multi-million dollar offer, Sparks is lifted up as one who gets it. He’s coached at the Division II school for 29 years, and his teams have been tremendously successful. “He, too, could have gone big time,” says the article. “People called. But he stayed in Jefferson City [TN]. He kept his children in the same school. He kept signing his one-year contracts.
“‘Listen, fortune and fame and power and pleasure, all those things appeal to this ol’ boy pretty good,’ he says. ‘But there’s a greater cause beside those things. I’m not one of those guys who thinks God comes around and slaps you on the side of the head or writes a message in the clouds. But best I can figure out, I feel like [God’s] wanted me here.’
He knows that some have to move, that they’re driven by the need to climb, the need to win. But he also believes that there’s something more. “‘I got into this thing to make a difference in kids’ lives,’ [he] says. ‘I think we all did to some degree. But now, I think, we’re giving it lip service. And we’re losing what matters’” (Jan. 19, 2009, p. 17).
What matters, Sparks knows, is making a difference. What matters is teaching, serving, caring, attending. Follow Jesus? That’s it. The voice calls. Together, let’s listen. Together, let’s follow. It’s our privilege. It’s our gift. It’s our calling. Let’s be on the way.