"Listening and Following"

First Presbyterian Church
April 29, 2007
Peter S. Buehler
John 10:22-30

My sheep hear my voice.
I know them, and they follow me.

The human voice is an amazing instrument. We all have a voice; the mechanics are the same: we move air out of our lungs, it flows through our vocal tract and vibrates over our larynx -- or vocal cord -- the sounds are shaped by the muscles of our face and released out of our mouth.

But while the mechanics of our voices are the same, each of our voices is different, unique. Our vocal tract measures about a foot in length, but the top six inches, our oral cavity, produce what others recognize as our voice. We don't think about it, we just speak -- and we sound like ourselves, like no one else.

We don't think about it, but we also quickly learn the sound of others' voices. I remember being at a large gathering, with thousands of people; a friend of mine was seated clear at the other end of the room, but when the speaker happened to pause, and my friend cleared his throat, I instantly thought to myself, I'll be darned; Dan's here. I knew his voice. We could all do that with the people we know. Calling friends on the phone we hardly have to introduce ourselves; most people already know who we are by the sound of our voice. The mechanics of our hearing are as sophisticated as those of our speaking. The psalmist is right: we are fearfully and wonderfully made (139:14).

So when we hear Jesus say, My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me, our ears pick up. What does it mean to hear Jesus' voice? What does his voice sound like? Amid all the other voices we hear, how do we recognize his? And what is the connection between hearing Jesus, being known by him, and following him? Given that some people choose not to follow, and not believe, and not hear, what does it mean, as Jesus puts it, to be his sheep?

What does it mean to hear the voice of Jesus? If his were one voice in a crowd, would we pick it out?

The New Testament has an answer to this question: Yes, absolutely; we would know his voice. We do know it -- we're familiar with it, as we are with the voice of friend. His is the voice we trust implicitly -- we have grown to trust him because he knows us. As we are known, so are we loved and protected. Faith teaches this.
Interestingly, Jesus does not say My sheep hear my voice. They know me, and follow me, but rather My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. Which fits with what we know about shepherds. To the untrained eye, to those who have no investment in the sheep, they all look the same, but to the shepherd each one is of great value; he cares about each one. One can't be a shepherd, a good one, unless he can know his own by sight. What a blessing to be known that well! Because he knows his sheep, they hear his voice. We are known by him before we know him. We are loved by him before we love him. We are claimed as Christ's own before we choose to follow him. We are the sheep of his pasture before we learn to say the Lord is my shepherd.

Theologians call it prevenient grace: that God always takes the first step; God's initiative is God's grace, and it is always undeserved. As early as the 5th century, the church rejected the heresies of Pelagianism and Semi-pelagianism: the notion that human beings can achieve salvation by their own powers, that God only gives grace when a sinner takes the first step, when we meet God half-way. Which seems perfectly logical! It's usually the way we approach things in our human relationships.

But God is God and thankfully God's ways are not our ways! Prevenient grace is God taking first step, God anticipating our deepest need, God's desire for us to be safe and well. This grace makes possible our faith, our trust and belief.

We all know the first verse of the 23rd Psalm, but it's the next four verses that explain the grace. It's all verbs; it's all God taking initiative. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

When do we read the 23rd Psalm? When does it speak most powerfully? Often we read the 23rd Psalm when things are going poorly, when we're hurting or grieving, when we're stressed out, or tired out, or feeling empty. The Psalm is a familiar friend and its words restore us; it gives us a sense of hope and peace that we're being looked after and watched over.

But I wonder if it's a Psalm we should read and recite when things are going well -- when the storm has passed, when we sense calm. I wonder if we don't grow in grace by recognizing after the fact, that it was the Lord's voice we heard guiding us through the dark valleys, the times when the voice of our doubt and fear was loudest.

Gerald May, psychiatrist and writer, speaks of "gentle victories" in our lives -- times when we've gotten over something or through something that seemed scary and impossible. He speaks of addictions -- the obvious ones such as addictions to alcohol, or drugs, or sex, or work. We may have our own that are different -- ways we deal with unresolved pain in our lives. May writes of a woman who had always been hard-driving and over-achieving, who was promoted to the head of her office, who found herself energized like never before, but also stressed like never before. She had trouble sleeping, her mind was always racing. She lost her ability to be attentive to her family; her friends were worried and told her to slow down. She agreed. She exercised and felt better, but realized she was even more fatigued. Nothing interested her; she began to believe that there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing was working. Nothing she was doing was making her a better person. Out of this realization she found herself saying, finally, "I quit." She didn't quit working, or quit her family, or quit striving, or quit trying to relax. She just let go. In her words, I don't know what I quit, I just quit. Whatever she needed to do next she just did, not as some kind of a personal resolution, but as a sense of permission. Gerald May writes: "Her hectic pace continued for some time, and her mind continued to race. But beneath it, she felt peace. And, over time, as she just did the next thing she needed to do, she slowed down." (Quoted from Addiction and Grace, pages 158-159)

Sometimes it's after we quit trying to be earners of grace that we hear most clearly the gentle voice of God. Sometimes it's only after we let go of the way we've always done things, or the way we've always thought about things -- or thought about ourselves -- that we recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd, the one who leads us beside still waters, restoring our soul.

But neither must we wait. We can actively listen for the voice of the Shepherd and grow in our trust of him. Being Christian, after all, is more than a statement of belief, though making that statement in a personal, sincere, serious and joyous way is saying Yes to our role in the body of Christ, that we're not alone but part of Jesus flock. Being Christian is more than a set of ethics, living our lives by saying Yes to some things and No to others, though living with the justice and gentleness of Jesus is a clear way to let our light shine.

Yet being Christian is also a way of listening. It is a way of being attentive to the one voice among the many voices. Christians aren't just readers of scripture, we're listeners of scripture.

When God spoke to the disciples from the cloud, God was succinct: AThis is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!" (Luke 9:35) When we do, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out -- when we listen as scripture is read in worship, when we listen as the Bible is read in our classes and small groups, when we listen to the passages we use in our personal devotions -- we make space for the Lord in our hearts. As one person put it, We… let him dethrone us from being God in our own hearts… We can then let him give us to ourselves (Simon Tugwell, Prayer).

We listen and discover that the Shepherd is leading us back to our selves -- the selves he has known and loved and watched over. Often he needs but a few words to get our attention; we recognize his voice: You are the light of the world.  Let your light shine.
Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.
Pray then like this, >forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors..'
Every one who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the wise man who built his house on rock...
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart...
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...
I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you...@
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you..

Followers of Jesus listen to him. We listen because we trust his voice -- always true, always gracious, often quiet, often surprising, always gentle, correcting us without punishing us, bringing us back to ourselves while leading us into service to others.

Followers of Jesus are confident it is he who is leading us, individually and as a congregation, and that whatever the destination -- even if it is beyond the horizon we an see -- we trust it is where we need to be going.

We have a special challenge today. Not just to recognize Jesus' voice and listen to his words -- which take energy and focus, given all the other voices clamoring to be heard -- our challenge is also to listen to one another. To listen to our neighbors. To just listen.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words to the German church over 60 years ago still ring true. Christians, he writes, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.  (Life Together, p. 97)

I wonder if listening -- not thinking about what we have to say next:  our opinion, our advice, our personal experience with just that situation and that very problem -- I wonder if not preferring our words, but opening ourselves entirely to the person we are with, if that might be one way to show who our Shepherd is, perhaps the best way to show his kindness, patience, and love.

After all, one of the reasons we love him, and listen to him, and trust him is that he listens to us. May God give us the kindness and stillness we need to listen well to one another.