I remember hearing a story about two
men walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City. One, a Native
American, stopped and listened for a few moments and his companion
asked him what he was listening to. He responded that he had just
heard a certain song bird call. The friend was amazed and asked
how could he hear the call of a song bird in the midst of all the
noise and traffic of a busy New York City street? He responded by
saying that we hear what we are listening to. He reaches into his
pocket, finds a quarter and tosses it in the air. As the coin
bounces on the pavement, dozens of heads turn to see where the
coin may have landed! What are our ears tuned to hear?
Was going to title this message,
"Can you hear me now?" but did not want to get caught up in any
copy infringement issues. There are so many voices/noises
competing for our attention today, who are we listening to? We may
cry that it was simpler in Jesus' day. There were not so many
competing voices. After all, we have the World Wide Web and we are
bombarded with so much information that we are often in overload.
We have more information at our finger tips today than at any other
time in history. More television news channels they we can even
watch with a good clicker finger!
I did a quick internet google
(imagine ten years ago most of us would not know what a "google"
was! In less than ¼ of a second I had over 100,000 possible
responses. Where do we begin in such an information overloaded
society? Take a quick look at recent medical news and we begin to
shake our heads. This week the bad food for us is any food that is
cooked on a hot grill. We are better off stewing our t-bones than
grilling them. Can you imagine someone placing a nice stewed t-bone
steak in front of you? Yesterday coffee and eggs were bad for us,
today they are okay! Who do we believe? Who are we listening to?
The list could go on and on and on and on…
Now I am not sure if it was simpler
in Jesus' day. There may not have been so many competing voices
but for the time there were many. There were the Pharisees, those
who wanted to keep the Law of Moses. Now, today, we often give them
bad press, but in reality they wanted to be obedient and faithful
to the call of God on their lives. They were willing to sacrifice
in order to fulfill their ideals of the Law. The problem was, like
with many today, that some of them carried this to the extreme.
Barclay talks about the "blind and bruised" Pharisees. These were
so named because they felt that they should not look at a woman
lest they be tempted. Thus when they saw a woman coming at them
they would close their eyes – with eyes closed they would continue
on their journey bumping into, falling over things – the "blind and
bruised" Pharisees.
Then there were the Sadducees who had
another interpretation of the Law. And with the occupation of
Palestine by the Romans there was the introduction of all the Roman
deities. Who should they be listening to? I mean after all, the
Romans had conquered them. Does this mean that their god(s) are
better than Yahweh?
Add to this mix the revolutionaries.
Those who claimed to have "the Word of their Lord." Listen again to
the words of Gamaliel in Acts 5:34ff "But a Pharisee in the
council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the
people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short
time. Then he said to them, 'Fellow Israelites, consider carefully
what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose
up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men about four hundred
joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were
dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at
the time of the census…'" There were many conflicting voices.
How did they know who had the right word? How do we know?
Our Scripture today in John has Jesus
telling us that his sheep hear and know his voice. We have a friend
who lived for many years in the Middle East - not in the city but
in the countryside. He tells how it always amazed him when he would
visit a community and would stop at the local well. About
mid-afternoon shepherds and sheep would converge on the well from
all directions. The shepherds would water the sheep and then would
gather for a time of socializing. The hundreds of sheep would
mingle together. After about an hour it would be time to leave and
he wondered how would they ever separate the sheep to the right
shepherd. He tells that each shepherd would stand and simply call
out to his sheep and the sheep would follow the shepherd by the
sound of his voice.
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What a wonderful illustration of what
Jesus is speaking about. Now, when was the last time you saw a
sheep, let alone a flock of sheep? I mean, when was the last time
you saw a cow? We live in an urban, not rural, section of the
country, and images of shepherds and sheep are not images that are
familiar to us. However, everyone listening to Jesus would
immediately know what he was referring to – how the sheep knew the
voice of their shepherd.
Do we know the voice of our shepherd?
Or, how can we know the voice of our shepherd? First, we have to
listen – read, study the Word given to us. It is interesting that
the Bible is the best-selling and least-read book in this nation.
The Bible is still a number one seller and yet we are Biblically
illiterate people. (Amazed at how God works. Sent the list of
Scripture and sermon themes up to some of you about six weeks ago.
On Friday I found the most recent issue of Response, the quarterly
magazine of Seattle Pacific University. The entire issue is asking
the question, "Are we Biblically Illiterate?") Do we know the
Sacred text?
A good question to start with is one
that has been around for a while, "What would Jesus do?" Do you
know how Jesus would act in specific situations? I am confident
that God is not telling us to do anything contrary to God's word or
to what Jesus did when he was living in our midst. Would Jesus
forgive or seek revenge? Would he condemn or give grace? The
Gospels abound with illustrations of grace, hope and love. Do we
abound with the qualities?
A good friend and mentor has changed
this just a bit. He asks, "What is Jesus doing today?" Then he
suggests that we go and work in those places where God's Spirit is
already at work. Of course, this requires that we listen and
discover where God is working.
Who are we listening to? Have a whole
shelf of church growth books all claiming to have the right formula
for church growth. Whenever I look at these I think of a
congregation that I know in Scotland. Having spent a summer there
on Sabbatical a few years ago I got to know the congregation quite
well. They are a downtown congregation and they have two parking
spaces. There are other public lots nearby that compete with
shoppers but they only have control of two spaces. Now, many church
growth gurus say that we need so many acres of parking for each 100
people in attendance in worship. However, with two parking spaces
they now have three Sunday morning and one Sunday evening worship
service. They are growing in outreach and ministry. I asked the
pastor how and he responded that they decided to ignore much of the
church growth material and do what God was calling them to do.
I served a congregation in Maine, in
Hallowell. The city had five churches. Now I have noticed that
Mountlake Terrace must have about 20+ - in having just five
churches most of us knew all in the other congregations. There was
one frail woman in the Congregational Church that intrigued me. She
had tea every afternoon. At 3 p.m. she would have her table set
with her finest linen and china. She would have a pot of tea
brewed, would take the telephone off the hook, lock the door and
enjoy her pot of tea. Of course, the table was always set for two.
For about the first half hour she would share her day, her joys,
her sorrows, her aches and her pains. For the next half hour she
would listen to her guest. Most days Jesus said nothing and all
she heard was the sound of her cup sitting down on the saucer
between sips. But she was prepared should he have something to
say. She sat and listened.
Who are we listening to? Kathy
Henning has an editorial in Response. She concludes it with these
words: "Why read the Bible? Because you will come to know God's
voice, and when you know his voice, you will be able to follow him
wherever he leads you: 'He calls his own sheep by name, and
leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes
before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his
voice.'"
Whose voice are we listening to?
Scripture from New Revised Standard Version
Kathy Henning, Undone by the Word, Response, Seattle Pacific University, Spring 2007
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