The Voice of God
Category: Sundays after Pentecost
Speaker: Kristine Johnson
May only your words be spoken, O Lord; may only your words be heard. Amen.
The other night, I was startled awake in the middle of the night by a thunderstorm. You may have had the same experience; the storm was a doozy. I remember first the flashes of light that penetrated the curtains and my eyelids. I kept my eyes shut, hoping to drift back off to sleep. Until the sound of a thousand drumrolls on my roof and the relentless rumble of thunder made it clear I would be awake for a while. I looked out the window and saw the tree limbs flailing wildly, sheets of rain pouring from the sky, and what looked like a hundred flashes going off all at once, all around. I gave thanks for the safety of my home, and prayed for our brothers and sisters who sleep in the open. And listened to the storm rage, then gradually get quieter as it moved on.
Exodus tells of Moses going up Mount Sinai to speak with God: “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder.”
Can you even imagine what that was like? Think about a violent thunderstorm, and then ponder that God spoke to Moses this way. You might wonder why Moses had to convey God’s messages to the people, since everyone could hear – and feel – God speaking. Perhaps thunder is only understandable to a very few; the rest of us are too overwhelmed to be able to hear. Prophets are the people who hear God very clearly, and are called to speak God’s word to us in voices we can hear.
Today we hear God calling another prophet, Ezekiel. Ezekiel was so overwhelmed by the sight of the God’s glory that he had fallen on his face. God told him to get up and listen. “O mortal, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” I am sending you to these rebellious people, and you will tell them what I say. This is not a request. This is a command.
In his book The Prophets, Abraham Joshua Heschel describes prophecy as “a crossing point of God and man.” The life of a prophet is not an easy one. The prophet sees clearly the ways humans are falling short of God’s vision for creation and simply cannot hold that knowledge in; they must speak. They point out our sin, the ways we have turned away from God, and they beg us to repent. “Repent, and return to the Lord.” And because we mortals like to think that we know what we are doing, we don’t like prophets pointing out our shortcomings. So we laugh at them, we disbelieve them, we call them crazy, we try to silence them and sometimes we even kill them.
In today’s Gospel we hear some of this in how Jesus was received in his hometown. After travelling around Galilee teaching and healing, he had returned to Nazareth and was teaching in the synagogue. But instead of welcoming him and cheering his success, the people took offense at him. The hometown boy made good, and they couldn’t believe it. They could not reconcile what they had heard about Jesus’ teachings and healings with what they “knew” about Jesus. “He is no better than we are! He is a carpenter, and we’re not even sure who his father is! Where does he get all this knowledge, and power? Why should we listen to him?”
If we had been in Galilee with Jesus would we have listened? On the one hand, they had heard of Jesus’ healings and miracles, and they had been told Jesus was preaching good news wherever he went. On the other hand, the temple authorities, were telling the people that Jesus was dangerous, crazy, a false prophet. Even his own family was saying he was crazy. Who were they to believe?
We hear a lot of conflicting messages every day, all purporting to be the truth, telling us the way we are supposed to live. How can we open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to pick out God’s voice from among them? Sometimes it is crystal clear, but sometimes it is murkier. We don’t all get the booming thunder God voice telling us what to do, so how do we know which voices to listen to?
We have a pretty good idea of God’s priorities from the stories of the Hebrew prophets and especially the stories of God when he walked among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In the Hebrew scriptures we hear things like “Care for the stranger.” “Don’t harvest to the edge of your field, but leave some for those who need it.” “Thou shalt not kill.” The prophet Micah exhorted the people to “seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” Jesus’ consistent message was one of love, inclusion, relationship, and wholeness. Jesus’ whole life was a love letter. I love you. Love God. Love one another. Love, love, love. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Visit the sick, care for those in prison. Prophets tell us that God created all people in God’s image, and that we should treat them that way. Prophets urge us to stand up for justice for all, even when it is scary. Prophets tell us that now is the time to act, that we have been comfortable for too long. Prophets remind us that God’s vision for creation is wholeness and unity under God’s loving care.
So when we hear messages encouraging hatred, exclusion, and fear, we must beware of the sender. But messages encouraging love, justice, and mercy: these are of God. These are the voices of the prophets among us.
So what are these prophets urging us to do? We see in the second part of today’s Gospel what Jesus told his disciples to do. The hometown crowd wasn’t on board. They could not, or would not, hear what Jesus was saying; they could not, or would not, be healed. Jesus did not wallow in it. He moved on. He went to other villages. And he called the disciples together and sent them out to teach and heal. To do what he, himself, had been doing. It was time to get the party started; he couldn’t change the world all on his own. What I find difficult is that he ordered them to take nothing of their own except a staff and the clothes on their backs. And he gave them two things: one another, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I’m pretty sure if I was there I would have pulled Jesus aside and said something like “Thanks for not sending me out alone, and for the power and all, but just in case people aren’t friendly, or we run into trouble on the way, or it takes longer than expected, I’d like to take a second tunic (at least), closed-toed shoes along with sandals, a tent, some water and food, and maybe a few other things.” I was a Girl Scout, after all. I want to be prepared. I pack more stuff for a picnic than Jesus let the disciples take for their difficult journeys.
I’m guessing that most of you do not want to be sent out empty-handed as the disciples were, but I think it’s a pretty good bet that you are sitting in church this morning because you honestly do want to be sent. Here at Saint George’s I see in so many of you the hunger to do God’s work and the willingness to do it. You are working in the food pantry, or with the HOST program. You are teaching Sunday School, or working with youth. You are a lay caregiver, an intercessor, or an acolyte. You helped staff the booth at the Pride festival. You work for justice, or advocate for civil rights. You tend a garden. You are sitting in the parish hall between services participating in an important conversation around race and reconciliation. You are God’s light in the world wherever you live and work. You are walking together, perhaps feeling ill-prepared and under-provisioned at times, yet forging ahead anyway.
We can take heart from the disciples. Equipped with each other and the Holy Spirit, they continued Jesus’ work. They proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out demons. They healed the sick. Pretty amazing stuff for a band of fishermen and misfits without supplies. We are following in some holy footsteps.
Yesterday, we in the United States celebrated Independence Day. And yet, as Christians, we know it is not independence to which we are called, but to utter dependence – on God, and on one another. We are not to depend on our own power, our own organizational skills or planning abilities. We are not to depend on our educational achievements or the wealth we build up for ourselves. We are to depend on almighty God, and we are to go out, hand in hand, equipped with the mighty power of the Spirit, to do the work God has given us to do.
We may hear God calling to us in the boom of a thunderstorm, in the voice of a prophet, or in the still, small voice inside of us. And then there is that wild moment of abandon, or that quiet leap of faith, where we say “yes” to what God is calling us to, only to realize in the next moment we have no idea where to begin. And it is then that God offers us each other, and the Holy Spirit. And sends us out. Ready or not.