Let us pray… Amen.
Faith
is about hearing. That does not mean that thoughts, emotions, sight, smell,
taste, and touch aren’t involved, but faith is primarily about hearing. When it
comes to God’s self-disclosure to us, God is lovingly loquacious. God has a lot
to say, meaning we have a lot to hear. And, to be clear, I’m not restricting this
to auditory hearing. Those who are dealing with hearing loss or deafness can,
without question, be people of faith who still very much hear the voice of God.
Faith is about a word that is spoken from the beautiful and infinite love of
God directed towards us.
It’s no accident that when God has something to say, we are sent prophets with a message. When God chose to come among it, John describes it as the “Word becoming flesh.” The story of Jesus is called a “Gospel,” which translates to “Good News.” The story of Jesus is news to hear about. And as St. Paul puts it in one of his letters, “faith comes by hearing.” What this means for us is that, as people of faith who are seeking to be in tune with God, the Christian life is a life of listening.
So
often we are told that Christianity is about what we are supposed to do, or not
do, as the case may be. That’s called moral theology or ethics, and it has a
place. But the first step, before we do or refrain from doing is to listen. Being
a person of devotion is about putting ourselves in situations and states of mind
where we can be attentive to God, where we can reflect on how the Spirit is
moving in our lives, where we can seek to be in resonance or harmony with God.
We might say that the Christian is someone who has heard the call of God and
know the claim that voice has on their life.
This
understanding of faith as something heard is essential for us to bear in mind
as we hear today’s Scripture readings. We begin with Psalm 139, which the
Collect for Purity which we use most Sundays is derived from. “Lord, you have searched me out and known
me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from
afar.” Telepathy, being able to read minds, seems like a pretty neat superpower,
until you actually think about it. For one, I think most of us would be
disappointed to know how infrequently people actually think about us. And when
they do, I’m not so sure we really want to know what others think about us.
Imagine if you didn’t have to let anything slip past your lips for the argument
to start – you just have to think it. No, I don’t think we want to be telepathic.
And we certainly don’t want our inner thoughts and emotions to be an open book
to others.
Psalm
139 though says that we are fully seen and known by the God who created us. And
while it can be overwhelming to have someone know us even better than we know
ourselves, it’s quite a liberating truth. For one, it reinforces the message of
grace. God knows us – our unspoken thoughts, the yearnings of our hearts, even
the things that would take decades of therapy to pull out of our subconscious; to
God all hearts are open, all desires known, and no secrets are hid. And yet,
yet, despite the fact that God knows our doubts, our flaws, our mistakes, our
imperfections, God chooses us before we ask to be chosen, forgives us before we
apologize, and loves us before we’ve taken our first breath.
The
one who calls to you both deeply and intimately knows and loves you. And this
means that how God speaks to each of us is going to be a bit different. God
knows how you need to be spoken to versus how I need to be. Which means God
might tell your neighbor something that God hasn’t told you. God might tell you
to “slow down” whereas your friend might be told to “get to it.” And there are
two points to make here. One is that, because God speaks to us all with a
slightly different accent, it means that we would do well to share what God is
saying to us. When we share what we’re hearing from God, we have a fuller and
larger picture of what God is up to in our beloved community. Sharing what we
hear God say also allows us to make sure that what we heard is really from God,
and not a subliminal message from advertisers, influencers, or our own sinful
thinking and desiring.
And
secondly, because God speaks to us all a bit differently, it means that you don’t
need to worry that your sense of spirituality, which is just another way of
saying your attunement to God, is different than someone else’s. Think of it in
terms of a radio frequency. Maybe you are in tune with God best at 89.9 and
someone else is tuned into 88.5. The temptation is to think that something is
wrong with us. Yes, there are certain frequencies that God has given to us where
the reception is always clear: Scripture, Eucharist, beauty, serving those in
need, but just because some people find a walk in the woods to be a spiritual
experience, if you never seem to encounter more than sprained ankles and cobwebs
in the face, that’s okay. Their spirituality does not have to be yours. So a
part of learning how to listen to God is learning how, uniquely, God speaks to you.
And that might take some practice, some trial and error, even learning something
new. Maybe God speaks to you in a way or language that you don’t yet know how
to speak. But, I can assure you, God is speaking and has something glorious and
wonderful to say.
As
we heard in the reading from First Samuel, one thing that really ought to get
our attention is repetition. The Lord
called to Samuel three times before Eli helped him to recognize that it was God
speaking. You might remember that classic movie from 1999, The Matrix,
in which the characters interact in computer simulated world. When one of the
characters has an experience of déjà vu, they are warned “be careful, that
means something in the simulation has been changed.” Not only does God have a lot
to say, but God isn’t afraid to repeat something over and over again until our
attention is caught. So when you keep running into the same passage of
Scripture, or feel the same nudging, or hear the same thing in sermons – take that
as a sign that God is working to get your attention.
And
when it comes to hearing God’s voice, don’t be surprised when it comes from a
place you don’t expect. It’s what one person has called the Nazareth Principle,
which we heard in the reading from John. Upon hearing that the Messiah, Jesus, is
from Nazareth, Nathanael asks Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
In those days, Nazareth was an off the radar sort of town; not really known for
anything. Everyone expected the Messiah would come from Jerusalem. Or, at the
birth of Jesus, they found a prophecy from Micah that suggests that the Messiah
might come from Bethlehem. But Nazareth? No, that small and forgotten little
town wouldn’t produce anything of greatness, certainly not the Messiah of
Cosmos.
But
the fact of the matter is that God’s voice can be heard over table conversations
at Cracker Barrel, between the bomb blasts and rubble in Gaza, around the circle
at a meeting of the anonymous, on the locked dementia wing at Trinity Oaks, in
the therapist’s office, or from a Jewish peasant who hung on a Roman cross. God’s
voice doesn’t always come through the eloquent words of a preacher, from an
angelic visitor, in a verse of Scripture that leaps off the page. Often, the
voice of God comes from the most unlikely of places. It’s why Jesus comes from
Nazareth, why the Savior of the World was Jewish and not Roman, why he was born
not to the royal family but an unwed teenager, why his followers aren’t perfect
people but rather are flawed, unqualified, and uncertain characters like you
and me. When God speaks, prepare to be surprised.
And
not just surprised, but God’s voice is exciting. When the Lord began to speak to Samuel, the
message is “I am about to do something that will make both ears of anyone who
hears it tingle.” The voice of God gives us goosebumps, it makes our hair stand
on edge, it summons us to be on full alert. When God speaks, it is a tingling
experience, an electric sort of encounter with new possibilities. And when we
encounter those tingles, we ought to celebrate it.
I’ve
been telling you all over past several months that I have a sense God is up to something
at St. Luke’s. I can’t paint you a picture of what exactly the Spirit has in
mind for us, as it’s still coming into focus. But I can point to signs of the
Spirit at St. Luke’s, to things that make my ears tingle. I’ll confess that my
imagination was captive to the stories of decline and struggle facing many
churches. To be clear, we’re not where we were before the pandemic. On the average
Sunday going into 2020, we had about 160 people in worship. Now, that number is
about 120. There are times when it’s easier for me to hear my own pessimism and
fear than the tingling voice of God.
But
today I’m celebrating that in this pledge campaign for 2024, we have 14 households
who made a pledge that didn’t in 2023 – that’s a sign of both growth and
deepening commitment. And the total dollar amount pledged is up 8% over 2023 –
it’s the largest stewardship response in this Parish’s history and the average
pledge increased more than $300 since last year. It’s a sign of our Parish’s
vitality and vibrancy, a sign that you all are hearing and responding to the
voice of God. There’s plenty more listening and growing to do, but it is also
good to celebrate good news.
As
far as what God is saying to us, it will continue to come into focus as we
listen. But we know what the direction is. It’s the same as the direction that
Jesus gives to Philip “Follow me.” Jesus is on the move in our Parish and our
community and the voice of God will tell us to “come with me.” Rarely does God
tell us “Just stay put, nothing needs to change.” Part of hearing the voice of
God is being transformed and changed in response to it. Our Foundation spent a
good part of 2022 and 2023 in a period of discernment, intentionally listening
for God’s voice in terms of how we participate in mission and evangelism. And
we responded with some changes. When we heard the voice to help more people “come
and see,” we started the occasional liturgy known as Sacred Space, which we held
last night. The icons we added to the space are the result of following Jesus
in beloved community. Part of listening for the voice of God is and openness to
going to the places where Jesus is leading us.
This
is central to what it means to be a person of faith, as someone who listens for
God. We are not called to be a people of nostalgia, but rather a people of
hope. We can be proud of the past and celebrate those accomplishments. But the
Church is not a museum, it is not a historical society. No, we are a vessel
being propelled by the Spirit into God’s future of abundant grace and beloved community.
Because
while it is gracious and wonderful that God spoke to Samuel and that Jesus
called Philip and Nathanael, what is truly glorious is that God is still speaking.
Christianity does not rest on the foundation of what God said, but rather what God
is saying. In every generation, including ours, God has a word to speak. The
story of the Church is the story of people who have heard the call of God. This
is what our nation is celebrating this weekend – that Martin Luther King listened
and responded to the call of God.
It
was January 27, 1956 when King received a late night phone call at home. He had
received plenty of threats before, but this one seemed more real. The person
was threatening to kill him and his family – and there was a bomb detonated at
his house just three days later, so his intuition was correct. But that night
of the threat, King recalled sitting down at his kitchen table and praying as
his young family was asleep. “God, I thought you called me here to Montgomery.
I thought I heard you tell me to help lead this bus boycott. But now it seems
like my family is at risk and I’m not sure if I should be here.”
It’s
an experience many struggle with – not hearing God’s voice in response to our
pleas and wondering where God is in our suffering. I wish I had an answer for
why sometimes it seems that God is silent. As we heard in First Samuel, “the
lamp of God had not gone out,” and though there are times when it seems dim,
God’s light is always with us. If you need help listening, let me know and we’ll
try to listen together.
King
says that though he had struggled to hear anything up to that point, that night
he did hear a reply just as surely as God spoke to Samuel and Jesus to Philip.
God told him “When there is no way, I will make a way.” And, indeed, God made a
way through the prejudice and racism to get the Civil Rights Act passed as King
became a prophet for beloved community, a prophet that we at St. Luke’s are guided
by.
And
just as certainly as God had a word for Samuel, for Philip, and for King, the
God who knows us and loves us has a word for each of us and for all of us
together. Speak, Lord, for your servants
are listening.
