John 10:1-10 (The Message)
April 13, 2008
Rev. Rick Haverly
So Very Familiar
The power of sound is amazing. When you hear a particular piece of music it can transport you. Suddenly you are picturing a moment in your past. You are seeing where you were when you first heard this music. Or you may be picturing a person you war with at a special time when this song was playing. The music triggers the memories and brings a special recognition.
So I want to play a little “Name That Tune” with you. I want to see if you can identify this recording. Play the clip of Dr. Gordon Ellis speaking the words of assurance. Who was that? How did you know? For those of you that may be new to the congregation that was the voice of the last settled Senior Minister here, Dr. Gordon Ellis. He was here for 17 years and gave those words of assurance after confession whenever he was leading worship. The voice and the words become so familiar over time, hearing them again and again, that the recording brings quick recognition.
The challenge in today’s scripture is to become so familiar with the voice of the shepherd that we can distinguish it from all the other voices, and obviously the shepherd is a portrayal of Jesus. So we are to become so familiar with Jesus’ voice that we will recognize its call to us. And with so many voices and so much noise coming at us today it becomes that much harder to pick it out.
Are you able to pick out familiar voices? When someone calls on the phone and doesn’t tell you who it is, can you identify the caller? Obviously, caller ID takes a lot of the guess work out of it these days but there are times when you try to identify who you are talking to simply by the voice. If you are calling a family maybe you try to identify which family member answers by the sound of their voice and greet them as you identify yourself. What enables you to do that? Isn’t it your past conversations with the persons that give you the clues of the tone of their voice or the phrases they tend to use?
I think it is the repetition of hearing the voice that allows us to make those distinctions. For us as Christians then, I think we can identify the voice of Jesus by repetition as well. We can read the Bible so we recognize the way God has acted throughout history, know the life of Jesus and how he talked, taught and acted with others. We can come to worship regularly to again hear the scriptures but also see the drama of Jesus and God’s people played out as we move through the church year. We can take regular time for prayer and meditation where we remove many of the other voices calling for our attention and intentionally try to listen for God speaking to us.
So we become familiar with the ways of Jesus so we can recognize him when we come across them in our own lives. For instance we see throughout the Bible that God commanded people to welcome the stranger in their midst and show them hospitality and that Jesus ate and ministered to all sorts of people many of them outcasts and marginalized in their societies. So when the youth the travelled to Mexico and received this incredible hospitality from the church there.
They can recognize it as signs of God’s presence there. They had women from the church cooking 3 meals a day for them. The youth of the church were coming to the church after school to spend time with them and enjoy activities with them.
As we experience hospitality like that we recognize Jesus in it and we begin to understand when we practice it we offer Christ to others. And we know it from our own personal search for a church home too. We are looking for a church that makes us feel welcome. So when we visit a church and no one greets or speaks to us, we feel it is not a place where we find Christ. As Carolyn Mansolf and Barb Stubbs organize our ministry of welcoming it is a way of helping newcomers hear Jesus voice in their time with us.
And it takes practice and repetition to understand that voice. You can now buy voice recognition software for your computer that will convert your speech to text. When you first get it though you have to speak certain phrases to it and correct it when it makes mistakes as a way for it to recognize your speech patterns. I see it watching closed captioned TV when you know the word it places on the screen doesn’t fit what they are saying so you have to ask what sounds like that that does fit. We practice voice recognition with Jesus, listening again and again to recognize it more and more.
So we know that Jesus told us whenever we help the least of them we are helping Jesus.
So as we take tome to help others we come to find that they are just not pitiful creatures that are desperate for our help. They are wonderful gifts in whom we can experience the presence of Christ and the love of God. Knowing the teaching and voice of Jesus helps us recognize that in our experience.
We hear Jesus’ voice in the suffering and sacrifice of Holy Week so that we can discover in the midst of brokenness is the possibility for resurrection.
So delivering this quilt from our Sunday School to a boy who had already gone through several abdominal and heart reconstructive surgeries and was awaiting another, you could still see the delight of life in his expression and again hear the voice of Jesus.
I hope these slides of Mexico have peaked you r interest and that you will come hear the youth presentation of it on April 23rd. The youth really had a great time.
The benefits of recognizing Jesus voice is the guidance of the shepherd that comes from the familiar 23rd Psalm. Recognizing and being guided by Christ’s voice we will be led to green pastures where we will be nourished. We will receive the protection of the shepherd that will ward off dangers we can’t overcome and stand by is in the midst of overwhelming circumstances.
The other voices that seek to lead us will only use us and abuse us. It is the voice of God in Christ that will lead us to health.
Recognizing this voice of Jesus is essential to experience the presence of the risen Christ in the world. It is especially important as we understand from the UCC expression that God is Still Speaking.
To hear the continuing voice of God in Christ it will be consistent with Christ’s ways and teachings of the past. So when the church encountered slavery. We know that Jesus sought our liberation and was continually among the marginalized and outcast and could recognize the call for abolition as Jesus’ continued work in this world.
For similar reasons we become an Open and Affirming congregation because we understand that Jesus not only associated with the outcast but called them into ministry with himself. To hear God Still Speaking it must not be arbitrary. It must be the recognition of a voice that is familiar to us and consistent with the voice of Jesus in the past.
Our goal is to be so familiar with the way Jesus speaks to us that we can recognize the leading and presence of Christ. When we do that we will be led to green pastures where we are fed, and receive Christ’s protection.
The false voices lead only to our abuse and destruction.