Community Church Sermons

Year C

April 25, 2010

The Fourth Sunday of Easter

The Voiceprint of God

John 10:22-30

Rev. Rhonda Abbott Blevins

LISTEN IN!

If you were here last Sunday, you heard Pastor Marty put me and the other pastors on the spot when he asked us if we had “seen Jesus” that morning. We hadn’t. He went on to preach a masterful sermon about recognizing the face of Jesus everywhere we go and through all of life’s circumstances no matter how tragic they might seem. This morning (since he’s not here) I’m going to “one up” him. I may not have seen Jesus last Sunday, but on Monday I was looking at my old seminary diploma, and I noticed something on the back in small print I had never seen. As I looked more closely, it read, “If you’re ever in a bind, call God,” and then it listed God’s phone number! Right there in black and white! Can you believe it?

So I brought a phone this morning to try it out. Let’s see what happens . . .

God: Hello! You have reached the voicemail of God Almighty. Please select one of the following options: For general requests, press 1. If you would like to offer a prayer of thanksgiving, press 2. For complaints, press 3. For healing, press 4. If you would like help with the Internal Revenue Service, press 5. If you would like to know this week’s winning lottery number, press 6. For all other inquiries, press 7. (A moment of silence while Rhonda presses a number.) I’m sorry, but all of the angels are busy helping other customers right now. Please stay on the line. Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received.

Arrrgh! Voicemail! But at least I didn’t get “Chad” in Bombay!

All foolishness aside, isn’t it wonderful that we have a God who is accessible to us whenever we call? That’s not to say prayer comes easily to everyone because it doesn’t. Prayer hasn’t always been a cake walk for me, but despite my struggles with prayer, I’ve almost always been aware of God’s presence with me, and the more I grow in faith the more I can hear God’s voice.

When I was in seminary I spent my summers working at a Christian youth camp. One of the lessons I taught was this morning’s scripture: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” To illustrate the point, I led the teenagers in a game. I blindfolded a kid and placed him on the other side of the room from me. The other kids formed a human obstacle course with their bodies. I’d tell the blindfolded kid that he had to make his way through the obstacle course by listening to my voice, trusting me, and following my instructions. That was always a very simple exercise for the blindfolded kid.

Then we’d repeat the game. Another teenager would wear the blindfold; the others became the human obstacle course. I gave instructions the very same way I had before, except this time, I invited the other teens to distract the blindfolded kid by shouting misleading directions. It was often hard for the kid to hear my voice because of the distractions, but eventually, the course would be completed.

We would run the exercise one more time. But this time I secretly assigned another kid to play the role of shepherd. As the blindfolded kid began the course, all of the kids yelled directions, I remained quiet, and the new shepherd was one voice out of 20. The blindfolded kid had no idea which voice to follow. The exercise would end in frustration with the teenager unable to move. He didn’t know his shepherd’s voice.

This exercise illustrated three important lessons about hearing and responding to the voice of Jesus:

1. When we know the voice of Jesus, following him is easy.

2. Even though we may know the voice of Jesus, sometimes it’s hard to hear him because we have too many distractions in our lives.

3. Following Jesus is impossible when we cannot recognize his voice.

Hearing the Voice of God

So how can we hear the voice of God? That’s simple! We’ve got to clean out the earwax!

I know a physician who went on a medical mission trip to some third world country. Every day he and other medical professionals treated long lines of patients, many of whom had walked several miles in hope of some kind of healing.

He told me that he saw an older man who had been deaf for a number of years. When he inspected his ear canals, he discovered quite a compacted mess of earwax. My physician friend promptly made the wax to wane and the old man got his hearing back!

Now that you’re properly grossed out, the moral of the story is that sometimes we can’t hear the voice of God because we’ve let the wax build up in our ears. When we allow distractions to build up in our lives, hearing the still, small voice of God can become difficult.

Listen to this admonition from Philippians 4:8: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (NRSV)

How’s that going for you? Let this scripture guide you through a little soul searching:

· Do you listen to truth and reject lies, gossip, and hate-mongers?

· Do you contemplate the good things in life and reject the negative things?

· Do you think about fairness for everyone or mainly for yourself and your family?

Probably most of us still have some room to grow in grace, and to rid ourselves of what my psychologist friend calls “stinkin’ thinkin’.” Whatever is worthy of praise, the scriptures say, think on that. Anything else keeps us from hearing the true voice of God.

Recognizing the Voice of God

The second challenge for us today is learning to recognize the voice of God.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking about some truly audible voice. Most of us will never experience God talking to us that way, but we can learn to recognize God’s voice because of its unmistakable quality.

The human voice is unique like a fingerprint or an iris. Your voice is unique to you. No one else who has ever lived has a voice like yours. Technology was invented in the 1940’s to create a voiceprint, an electronically recorded graphic representation of a person’s voice. Voiceprints are used in courts of law and for military intelligence.

What if we could obtain a voiceprint of God’s voice? What would it look like? I think we can find a clue from 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (NRSV)

God’s voice is the one calling you “beloved.” “Love is from God . . . God is love” the scripture tell us.

Just like a human voiceprint, God’s voiceprint is always the same—it’s the voice of love. So if you’re having trouble determining if a voice is the voice of God, simply ask, is this the voice of love? Does this voice point to love? Does this voice prompt love?

If the voice you hear tells you you’re not good enough—that is NOT the voice of God!

If the voice you hear stirs up hatred—that is NOT the voice of God!

On the other hand . . .

If the voice you hear calls you “beloved”—that’s the voice of God!

If the voice you hear calls some other soul “beloved”—that’s the voice of God!

And when you can imagine that God loves someone the world deems unlovable--who has committed the most heinous of crimes—when you can visualize God’s love for the terrorist or the pedophile—then you know you’re on your way to not only recognizing the voice of God, but becoming the voice of God.

Becoming the Voice of God

I love to tell the story from my days as a campus minister about an encounter I had with a devout young man who was a part of our ministry. We had a weekly worship service in which we would usually bring in guest preachers, but occasionally the other campus ministers and I would preach.

It came my turn to bring the message, and I preached my little heart out. Afterwards, the young man came to me and said, “Can I come see you tomorrow?” I said, “Sure!”

The next day, the pensive young man sat down in my office. He said, “Rhonda, I wasn’t happy about you preaching last night, being a woman and all. But I have to admit, you did alright.”

“Well, thanks,” I replied.

“My roommates and I were talking. And you remember the Old Testament story of Balaam’s donkey where the donkey actually talks to Balaam?”

“Sure,” I affirmed.

“We decided that if God can speak through a donkey, God can speak through a woman.”

We both learned that day that God can speak in unusual ways—ways we can’t imagine. So try this on for size: if God can speak through a donkey, and God can speak through a woman, maybe God can even speak through you! You can be the voice of God! You can be the voice of love! Every soul is thirsting for more love. You can be the voice that calls another soul “beloved.”

In high school I worked as a checker at Wal-Mart, trying to save money for school. Most customers were pleasant enough, but one night a customer made her way into my line who was mad at the world and anyone unfortunate enough to encounter her. From the moment I said, “Hi, how are you doing tonight?” she was on my case. She attacked my character. She called me names. I took her abuse—the more vitriolic she became the more polite my response which only made her angrier.

Eventually my supervisor heard the rant and stepped in, dismissing me while she finished the transaction. I walked away literally shaking. I had done nothing to deserve the venom spewed upon me. As I walked away, the tirade continued as the customer found new and creative names to call me.

When Ms. Mt. Saint Helens finally left, my supervisor closed down the register and came over to me. She grabbed me by both shoulders and entreated me to look at her through my now teary eyes. She said, “You did nothing to deserve that. Some customers are just jerks.” She put her arm around me, “You handled yourself with grace and dignity. I’m proud of you. Now go take a break.”

I heard two voices that day. I heard the voice of hatred, and I heard the voice of love. God’s voice came in the form of a Wal-Mart supervisor. And those names I had been called? They just didn’t seem to matter so much now that the voiceprint of God had been breathed into my fragile young soul.

God’s voice is always the voice of love. Follow that voice. Become that voice. Amen.