“THE VOICE”
The Psalm: Psalm 23
The Gospel: John 10: 1-10
Dr. Matthew Brown
The great mathematician Blaise Pascal once wrote that the state of man consisted of inconstancy, boredom, and anxiety. And O what a happy fellow Blaise was. Actually, he was an individual of profound faith, but he realized that in spite of the hope and promise of faith, life is fraught with stress.
Such honest reflection is also seen in the words of the poet Sir William Gilbert who wrote, ‘When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is tabooed by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety’.
A large majority of us would testify to the fact that even the insignificant issues have an impact on your psycho/physiological makeup leading you to choose caustic curse words to direct at the bedside clock that offers the constant news that you are not sleeping well. It doesn’t take much to throw us off the path of peace.
“Bill, I need to talk with you about last month’s sales
figures.”
Why is it that those words, “I need to talk with you,” so
seldom are attached to good news? You
hear those words offered with an expression the poker players call a “tell” and
you can just feel your face becoming flush.
Forget about a good night’s sleep tonight. You know you’ll be staring at the ceiling
searching for all the things you should have said.
So many things throw us off that path of peace. You reach for your cell phone to see if you
have any messages only to discover that there isn’t any phone. You think you just have enough time to make
it to that appointment, and then you turn a corner and suddenly stop behind a
ribbon of traffic that stretches much farther than your eyesight.
The doctor enters the room where you are trying to retain
some dignity while wearing one of those lovely paper pullovers “I’ve been
practicing medicine 35 years and I’ve never seen these symptoms before.”
Your child wants to go play with that friend, wants to date
that guy, wants to go to that concert.
No, no, and no you say, but the stress does not necessarily go away.
Issues large and small can increase our worries, can rob us
of sleep, can familiarize us with an entire shelf of products at the
neighborhood pharmacy.
It does seem that in these fast-paced days of job transiencey,
constant communication access, and hyper-parenting we talk a lot about stress
and ways to deal with it.
Not too long ago, I came across one of those self-help
pamphlets that offered 101 ways to relieve your stress.
Stand up and stretch.
Count to ten - or 1000 - before exploding. Watch a really good movie. Call up an old friend. Hug a tree... Yeah, right! Read a good
book. Build a model ship/Play a round of
golf... I thought these were supposed to reduce stress. Eat an orange slowly, segment by
segment. Go to work a different way...
How about by way of
And the list goes on and on offering a plethora of
attractive and sometimes strange suggestions like “Take an herb tea
break.” What kind of herbs are they
talking about there? Yet as I read
through the entire list I never saw the word prayer; I never saw the word
worship; I never discerned any hints of God or Jesus.
OK, I thought, it was from a secular agency, it has to be
accessible to a variety of people, but I couldn’t help wondering how eating an
orange segment slowly could equate with prayerful conversation with the Prince
of peace. Reading that exhaustive list
with no mention of God or prayer or faith, illumined for me the way we, in our exhausting
pursuit of peace, of wholeness, of abundant life, we busy ourselves with so
many things, we buy ourselves so many things while almost totally ignoring the
only things that can possibly fill our deepest needs.
My frustration was only multiplied when I went to a very
well organized, and in many ways helpful, clergy workshop. We were there to gain resources that would
aid us as we sought to fulfill our role in the church. And we discussed and learned many positive,
constructive things, common sense things that would help the work of the church
progress more smoothly and reduce the tension of its leaders. And yet, as I read through the handouts and
exercises, not once was the name Jesus mentioned.
O there was that exercise in the section on coaching (Those
of you in business know that coaching is the big buzz word in management today,
much like quality control was a decade ago.)
In an outline of strategies for self-coaching, the exercise called for
you to: “Gather a pillow to represent
each member of your staff team. (Well, some of you might guess that they lost
me right there.) Anyway, gather a pillow
to represent each member of your staff team.
Talk to them as yourself. Then
pretend you are God: what would God say
to them?” I immediately thought that a
lot of preachers already think they are God so that’s not much of a stretch.
But apart from that dubious exercise, God, Jesus, the Spirit
were seldom included in a workshop designed to make me a better pastor. I don’t want to seem cynical. These were faithful people, prayerful people
gathered to discern ways to be better shepherds. We talked about many good things, but we
forgot to focus on the essential thing.
Admit it, we all do it.
It happens in church committee meetings.
It happens in your home. It
happens at your place of work or in your school. On Sunday mornings we stand and say what we
believe about the Lord of life, the same Lord whose name fails to come up from
day to day as we pursue abundant life.
And so often, in our quest to discover abundant life, all we seem to
find is abundant stress.
You know, we’ve got to get the kids to that umpteenth
scheduled activity of the day, because that’s going to give them abundant
life. But is it, really? Please tell me how learning to tie a square
knot, or mastering the scissor kick, or hitting the cut-off man, or selling
cookies is going to open the door to abundant life more so than soaking in the
power of Jesus’ parables or learning the discipline of the regular practice of
prayer?
It’s not that those other activities aren’t great,
wonderful. But in chasing so many good
things, we so often neglect the essential thing. And you know, if we neglect Jesus enough, we
will possibly forget the sound of his voice.
Do you remember the movie Sleepless in
We claim to know Jesus, we sing “What a friend we have in
Jesus”, but if we just give lip service to that relationship, will we forget
his voice?
Jesus said the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice. “He calls his own sheep by name and leads
them out. When he has brought out all
his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his
voice. A stranger they will not follow,
but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
“...And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” Would you know his voice? Do you know who you are following? In this passage Jesus says, “I am the
door.” A little later he says, “I am the
good shepherd.” A little later he says,
“I am the way.” It’s almost as though
Jesus is saying, “How many pictures do you need me to draw?”
So how do we learn to hear Jesus’ voice? Practice.
Practice. What does the right
voice sound like? Think about it. We know the voice. “Love your enemies.” “Pray for those who persecute you.” “If you have two cloaks and your neighbor has
none, give one to him.” We can learn to
recognize the voice. In John’s
resurrection story, a grieving Mary thinks she has come upon a gardener until
she hears his voice. She had learned to
know his voice. She recognized it when
she heard it.
One of the great pillars of the southern Presbyterian Church
was a pastor and professor by the name of Wellford Hobbie. When he was a young man, late in high school
or early in college, he was out with a group of guys carousing. And they got on this elevator and there was a
woman there, but his friends kept on with the crudity, the vulgarity, and the
rudeness. Hobbie stood there somewhat
embarrassed and quiet.
When the woman got off the elevator, she turned to Hobbie,
looked him in the eyes and said, “You don’t belong with them.” He said it was the voice that sparked the
beginning of his sense of call to ministry.
Would you know, would you recognize the voice of Christ?
There are many voices out there offering any number of clues
about how to make your way in this life but they cannot offer abundant
life. They may offer you 101 ways to
relieve stress or try to replace the loving voice of Christ with their own
political agenda. I grow so weary of
those who want to talk about the need for biblical values but seem to know
nothing about the character of Jesus (his compassion for the poor, his love for
those society judges, his willingness to laugh with those the religious leaders
scorned, his power to heal broken spirits).
Stop thinking so much about what’s wrong with your neighbor and start
considering the unbelievably wide umbrella of God’s love.
There is a voice that can offer peace. There is a voice that will grant us a new understanding of what constitutes abundant life. Jesus said, “He goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. . . I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” O at some level, I think we know the voice, but are we listening for it?
Amen.
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