They Know His Voice

(preached on May 15, 2011)

Psalm 23

John 10:1-10

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and peace

…he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

This past week the choir had the opportunity to join our voices together in the concert.  Singing doesn’t begin with the mouth.  It begins with the ears, with listening.  Listening to the piano.  Listening to the director’s instructions.  Listening to the other singers and to how our voices are blending.  (Or not…)  Good singing is a product of good listening.

Listening takes practice.  Sitting with someone in a hospital waiting room, listening to their concerns about what is going on in surgery; sitting down over coffee and listening to the joys and pains that someone is experiencing; listening to families tell stories of their beloved who has died so that we can plan a funeral service: it takes practice to listen for what is said and for what is not.  It also takes a certain amount of getting out of the way.

           

There are other kinds of listening.  The first few times the fire pager went off, I would listen to the call, and the address, and head out to the call, and then have to play it back a dozen or so times until I finally was able to remember both the number and the street that I was headed to.  I took a while to get all the lingo down.  And it took a while before the adrenaline didn’t shut off my ability to listen clearly.  Listening requires a certain level of calmness.

           

I have been told that when I walk into the room and my daughter hears my voice she turns her head to see where I am.  The Mrs. said that Wednesday night during the concert, when I sang my solo, her head whipped around.  As if to say, “you can’t fool me, I know that voice!”  She has heard me talking to her since before she was born.  She heard me singing to her the night she was born.  I was crazy enough to try and sing “I Was There To Hear Your Borning Cry.”  Yeah, I got about a half measure in before I was blubbering.  But she knows my voice.

           

And I know hers.  If I am outside a roomful of children and one is crying, I can tell if it is her or another child.  And most of the time I can tell if she is hungry or sleepy or just plain fussy by her cry.

           

This is not some mystical super-daddy power.  It is practice.  It is attention. 

           

This morning’s Gospel is about Jesus calling his own, and their following.  They will know his voice.  We who seek to follow Jesus, we need to know his voice.

           

Like all listening, this requires attention.  It requires a certain amount of calmness, and a certain amount of getting out of the way.  It requires practice. 

           

Where then is the shepherd speaking?  In scripture, in worship, in nature, in prayer.  In the still, small voice that speaks amidst the shoutings and rantings of the world.  In the gut feeling that tells us something is so true, or that something else is wrong.

           

But even in scripture, we can cut off the voice of the shepherd.  “Yeah, I’ve read the 23^rd Psalm before; sure, I know what it means.”  (We’ve all heard it a little too often lately, haven’t we?)  But what if, instead of skimming it yet again and moving on, we sit with it and listen to each phrase.

            The Lord is my shepherd.

            The LORD is my shepherd.

            The Lord IS my shepherd.

            The Lord is my SHEPHERD.

            The Lord is MY shepherd.

            …

            I shall not want.

            I have all that I need.

            With God, there is nothing that I lack.

            …

           

John Robinson told the Pilgrims as they left Plymouth England:

I Charge you before God and his blessed angels that you follow me no further than you have seen me follow Christ.  If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as you were to receive any truth from my ministry, for I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word.     

Here was a leader telling people to keep listening, even beyond his own teaching, because it is God we are all listening to.  This became a famous phrase within the Congregationalist churches:  “the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word.”  It was chiseled into the stone by the entrance of Chicago Theological Seminary.  It underlies the United Church of Christ’s “God is Still Speaking Campaign.”

And it reminds us that whatever good we may do, whether it is singing, or giving, or helping, or shouldering a burden or lightening a load, or feeding, or teaching, or anything else, it begins with listening.

May we, like the prophets of old, begin with the words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

And then let us listen, that we would know the Shepherd’s voice.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.