Hearing Voices [Easter 4B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
John 10:11-18
Hearing Voices
Let’s talk about hearing voices. Because at the most basic level, every passage
about Jesus in the role of the Good Shepherd, is really about hearing voices. Jesus himself says earlier in the same
chapter from which today’s Gospel reading comes, “The sheep follow the shepherd
because they know his voice.” And that
is why today, Good Shepherd Sunday, is about hearing voices.
And, by the way, that is true: sheep do learn to recognize
the voice of their shepherd. They
recognize that the voice belongs to the one who feeds them and protects them and
meets their deepest needs. They do not
respond to the voices of strangers. Instead
they have remarkable ability to sort through the noise, to hone in on the one
voice that matters. They are perceptive
enough to know the voice of the shepherd.
And that seems like a nice metaphor to us, I think. I think Christians really like being compared
to sheep; I don’t really know why. But most
Christians, even Christians who have never met a single lamb, enjoy this idyllic
image, feel comforted by icons of Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulder. We are his little lambs; he is our Good
Shepherd. And that works, except for one
thing: sheep can always pick out the voice of their Master and I rarely find it
that easy to distinguish voices.
We give sheep a hard time for their perceived lack of
intelligence, but this is one area in which I must admit the sheep are far superior.
I can’t even tell the difference between
the voices of my two boys over the phone.
People call me and do that thing where they don’t say their name but
jump right into the conversation, and I have to pretend I know who they are
until they eventually give me some clue.
And if it is that difficult to identify an audible voice,
what makes Jesus think it will be easy for us to identify his voice – which most
often is silent and filtered through soul and spirit? Now, of course, I want to believe that I know
his voice, that I can pick his voice out of the crowd – like the good sheep of
the Good Shepherd can – but, let’s be honest, most of the time I am just making
an educated guess, the best attempt of a distracted listener. And based on what other people think Jesus is
telling them to think, say, do, I don’t think I’m the only one guessing.
We are surrounded by a din of
demanding voices: Selling. Recruiting.
Seducing. Coercing.[1] And when we grow weary of the siege of the voices outside, we
turn up the volume on the echo chamber of voices that reinforce our biases and
opinions. And then we collapse into bed
at the end of the day and are kept from sleep by the voices in our heads. Until finally, we screen them out in order to maintain our sanity, to secure our
rest. 24/7: voices coming at
us. And somewhere, amidst the noise,
presumably, the voice of Jesus is calling out, trying to get our attention.
But [the divine voice] is on first
hearing not distinctive. Moses is asking for a name at the
burning bush. Samuel is running into Eli’s
bedroom wondering why he keeps waking him up.
Saul, later Paul, is lying on the road crying out: “Lord, who are you?”
We confuse [the heavenly] voice with
that of an old friend or a deep hope or a powerful fear or an ancient bias. We do so because those voices fill our heads
and our hearts too. And sometimes those
competing voices call us back into comfortable patterns, allow us to protect
our precious hatreds. Those voices
reinforce what we already know. And we
like that. Because at the same time the
voice of Jesus might just be calling us into the valley of the shadow of death,
or calling us to the foot of the cross, or calling us to love our enemies. Hard stuff.
And so of course we are drawn to the voice that sounds the most like our
own voice – not the one calling us to conversion or discomfort.
It is often the case that the voice of Jesus is not the one
voicing our favorite message. Sometimes the
voice of Jesus is the one telling us to drop our nets and pick up our
cross. So sometimes is not simply a lack
of clarity but also lack of courage or a lack of motivation that obscures the
Shepherd’s voice. We hear, but we do not listen – jolted, bewildered, resistant.
Jonah is running in the opposite direction. Moses is providing sensible
alternatives. Peter sees the vision but
still refuses to kill and eat. Sometimes
the voice of the Good Shepherd is difficult to pick out, but sometimes it is
disappointingly clear.
And then sometimes…occasionally…boldly…we
answer: “Speak, I am listening.” Then we
say, “Here am I.” And then listen only to discover the voice comes not in
the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in the sound of sheer silence. We are listening, straining, to hear a
mystery.
This voice, at times obscure, at times obvious but unwanted,
at times unexpected: this is the voice calling to us. You see being a pair of ears in the flock is
not easy. In fact, it is hard work. We have to train our ears to hear the right
voice. We have to learn to block out the
static. We have to come to terms with
the reality that there will be times when we don’t really want to hear what Jesus
is saying to us. Sure sometimes the Good
Shepherd puts a little lamb on his shoulder, but usually we’re hoofing it,
trudging through the lonesome valleys of life – trying to follow a still, small
voice, praying we don’t lose it.
But we need that voice.
It is this voice, only this voice, that has the words of life. Only the voice of Jesus has the power to wake
us from our complacency, to wake us from the distraction of a million daydreams,
to wake us from our anxious nightmares. It
is only this voice that speaks hope into our despair. It is only this voice that speaks new life
into our barren places. We are sheep and
without the voice of the shepherd we are lost.
And so how can we be sure that our ears are tuned to the right
voice, to the voice of the Good Shepherd?
Well, I think, to know the voice you must first know the source of that
voice. And the source is love. The voice of Jesus echoes through the
chambers of a heart of love. Not some
sentimental, greeting card kind of love but true love: costly, merciful, sometimes
discomforting, but always extravagant love. The kind of love that stands before wolves and
gets wrapped up in thorns – for the sheep, for us. For no other reason but love, true love. If you want to know the Shepherd, the one who
feeds you and protects you and meets your deepest needs, you need to look
closely at that cost love. Because if
you do, you will understand that the call of Jesus is a call to give your life
for true love. The Shepherd feeds the
sheep with his body and his blood. The Shepherd
protects the sheep by placing his passion, cross, and death between his
judgement and our souls. The Shepherd
takes care of our deepest need by loving us with an unconditional love from
which nothing in all of creation can separate us. Nothing can tear us from his arms.
We are always hearing voices – a din of voices assaulting us
from every direction. One of those
voices is the voice of Jesus. Listen for
his voice. Listen for the voice that
speaks the language of true love. Listen
for the voice of the Good Shepherd.
[1] Italic portions from Walter
Brueggemann’s prayer “Jolted by Address,” Prayers
for a Privileged People.
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