Listening for the Voice of Jesus

  

Listening for the Voice of Jesus

Reflections on John 10.11-18

 

RCL Easter 4B

25 April 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Stop that music!

            When most of us hear someone mention a hymn, we tend to hear the tune first and then perhaps to recollect the words.  Despite the best efforts of musicians and seminary professors over the decades, this tendency to confuse ‘hymn’, the text, with ‘tune’, the music to which the words are sung, persists.

            I have a vivid memory of an ordination I attended in 1980.  When the time came to sing Veni Sancte Spiritus, the ancient hymn invoking the Holy Spirit that has become a fixed element of Anglican ordination rites, the organist began to play the ‘other’ tune for the hymn rather than the tune usually played.  The ordaining bishop whose nickname among us seminarians was ‘Wild Bill’ looked up, glared at the organist and shouted, ‘Stop that music!’

            After a seemingly endless period of silence, ‘Wild Bill’ began the ordination prayer with his hands stretched out over a very shaken ordinand.  For months afterwards we teased this poor fellow by telling him that he really hadn’t been ordained because we never sang the Veni Sancte Spiritus as the rite required.  I do feel a little guilty about this because years later he left the Episcopal Church to become a monk on Mount Athos in Greece!

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say.

            One of my favourite hymn is ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, Hymn #508 in Common Praise, our current Anglican hymn book.  I’m sure that many of you know it as well, but what tune is used to sing these words can evoke different reactions to the text.

            Since 1938 at least, Canadian Anglicans have sung the hymn to ‘Kingsfold’, a lovely English folk tune popularized by Ralph Vaughan Williams and set in the key of G major.

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Come unto me and rest;

lay down, thou weary one,

lay down thy head upon my breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

so weary, worn and sad;

I found in him a resting place,

and he has made me glad.

 

It’s a hopeful tune, set in a bright key, almost spring-like in its effect on the singer.

 

            Since 1940 at least, those of us who grew up in Anglicanism south of the border sang the hymn to a more somber tune by Thomas Tallis, one also beloved of Ralph Vaughan Williams, called ‘The Third Tune’ (Common Praise #191) and set in the key of C major.

 

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

“Behold, I freely give

the living water; thirsty one,

stoop down and drink and live.”

I came to Jesus and I drank

of that live-giving stream;

my thirst was quenched,

my soul revived,

and now I live in him.

 

It’s more meditative, almost autumn-like in its character.

            Same words, different tunes.  Same voice, different emotions.  But one common goal:  listening for the voice of Jesus.

 

Listening for Jesus in the Elevator of Our Lives

            We long to hear the voice of the good Shepherd who will lead us into our long-hoped-for united humanity, into those pastures green where all the flock are well-fed and watered.  But listening for the voice of the Shepherd in a world of different, sometimes clashing, tunes feels like being in a vast elevator that never stops at our floor and that we cannot escape as we are besieged with an endless loop of banality and deception.

            Advertisers fill every nook of the media with pitches for their products.  Political parties test clever but meaningless slogans on focus groups.  Demagogues use all the words that trigger our fears and anxieties, while they ridicule our ‘better angels’ as naïve and unachievable.  How do we listen for the voice of the good Shepherd in such a cacophony?

            The apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians suggests the ‘tunes’ we should listening for, if we want to hear the good Shepherd (Galatians 5.16-26).

 

• If we hear a hymn being sung to the tune of self-giving love, joy and peace, then it’s quite likely the Shepherd is singing to us.
• If we hear a hymn being sung to a tune that fills us with a longing for patience, kindness and generosity, it may well be the Shepherd serenading us.
• If we hear a hymn calling us to faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, let’s mark the tune and embrace the Singer, for it’s very likely Jesus who is calling to us.

 

In all times and in all place, the Shepherd is singing such hymns to us, in many and varied tunes, in the hopes of catching us aware and attentive.

 

Training the ear.

            Listening for the voice of Jesus takes practice and a commitment to the life-long training of the ear of the soul and the will of the heart.  That’s why we gather week after week, whether on-site or on-line, to hear the Word and to break the bread of life and to pour the wine of compassion.  We’re learning how to listen for the Voice that brings us home and that sets us free to be fully alive in the one flock of the living God.

Not Seeing Yet Believing: Reflections on John 20.30-31 (The 2nd Sunday of Easter, 11 April 2021)

            Early in the pandemic, as many of us were beginning to learn the new art of working from home and using social technology to connect with others, behavioural experts were advising us to develop and maintain routines.  Without the structure provided by regular activities and rhythms of the day, we easily become prone to be tossed and turned by the seas of pandemic life.

            It has only been in the last few months that I have begun to find a rhythm that works and that seems, to the best of my knowledge, to serve the Parish, my family and myself relatively well.  Our dog and cats are earlier risers, so by 5.00 they’ve been fed and I’ve said morning prayer.  Then back to bed until 7.30 or so.  Then I’m up for the work day to begin.

            I admit to being a news junkie.  On my iPad I have applications for BBC, CBC and the Guardian.  Over a cup of coffee and my breakfast I digest the news that the editors decided I needed to know as the day begins.  Then it’s off to Holy Trinity Cathedral or, if the day is filled with on-line meetings, into my study to connect with my colleagues and others.

            Recently I’ve been drawn in my morning reading to stories, articles and features about the natural sciences, especially astronomy, astrophysics and physics.  Now, before you ask, I have no advanced expertise in any of these fields.  I am a truly curious amateur reader with enough scientific education to understand most of the jargon and to realize how exciting these fields are.  For example, this Wednesday NASA plans to fly the first extra-terrestrial drone on Mars.  I can hardly wait to see what happens!  Often the scientists speak of their work in the same tone as religious leaders speak of ours.  

            This early morning reading has led me in the week leading up to this Sunday’s reading from the Gospel according to John, especially the final two verses.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.  (John 20.30-31)

 

How do we know something?  Why do we believe something?

            Some things we believe in because we can see their direct effect upon us and upon our environment.  For example, we have never ‘seen’ gravity.  Yet we know its effects all too well.  As I preach this morning, I do not need to fear that at some point I will float up to the rafters.  We can measure the force of gravity and anyone who has ridden in a car or flown in a plane has experienced the sensation of being pressed into one’s seat upon acceleration or a sharp turn.

            None of us has ever ‘seen’ the wind, but few doubt its effect on us.  Living as I do near a forested park with many tall conifers, every wind storm creates a debris up and down our street for my neighbours and me to clear up.  Then there is the beauty of wind ruffling the fur of my Sheltie, something I never tire of watching.

            Then there are things we believe in because their existence explain broader theories about how our universe ‘works’.  We have never directly ‘seen’ a black hole, only glimpsed what we believe to be their ‘event horizons’, but their existence helps to explain galactic expansion and contraction.

            Most of us grew up with Pluto as the ninth planet of our solar system.  Then poor Pluto was demoted and joined a class of sub-planetary objects on the edges of the sun’s reach.  But the movement of some of these objects seems to defy current models of astronomical mechanics.  This has led some astronomers to posit a ‘Planet X’, ‘X’ for ten not ‘mysterious’, somewhere on the fringe, to explain the as-yet unexplained movement of Pluto’s neighbours.

            More than once in my life I have been asked to ‘prove’ that the resurrection really happened.  Perhaps you have been asked a similar question at some point in your lives.  My simple answer has been and remains that I cannot ‘prove’ the resurrection to the satisfaction of anyone who seeks a proof similar to an algebraic equation:  ‘X + Y = 4; X = 1; therefore Y =3.  As it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever.  Amen.’  What I can do in ways similar to my certainty about gravity and the wind and to my relative confidence about black holes and to my intrigued imagination about the possibility of a ‘Planet X’ is to point to the undeniable effects of the resurrection of Jesus upon human history.

            In this I am not alone.  Repeatedly in the Gospel of John Jesus is challenged to ‘prove’ that he is who he says he is.  And time and time again, Jesus says, ‘If you don’t believe my words, then look around and see what I am doing.  Believe the works.’  (cf. John 10.25, 37, 38; 14.10, 11)

            Out of a group of the least usual suspects – women and men, literate and illiterate, rich and poor, slave and free – from the least likely region of the Roman Empire came a movement that has spread throughout the world and shaped our shared human history.  This movement is responsible for both acts of transforming love and compassion as well as acts of hate and injustice.  But its proclamation of the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has always let us 

. . . (to persevere) in resisting evil and, whenever (we) fall into sin, (to repent) and return to the Lord (and)

. . . (to strive) for justice and peace among all people (and to respect) the dignity of every human being.  (The Book of Alternative Services 159)

I have seen this happening and I continue to see it happening when a nun kneels before armed police to plead for children and young people and when people work tirelessly for reconciliation between settler, immigrant and Aboriginal communities.  I see this and I know that the Lord is risen.

            When people give sacrificially of their financial resources, their time and their skills to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to reach out to those held in physical, emotional and spiritual bonds, whether these selfless people are Christians or not, I see and know that the Lord is risen.

            In these and so many other ways, we see the effects of the resurrection, the ripples from the dramatic events of that week in Jerusalem two thousand years upon untold numbers of women and men, communities throughout the known world, century upon century of transformation.  Christ has died.  This we know.  Christ is risen.  This we believe.  Christ will come again.  This we hope.

            And so we see and come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we – and all creation – may have life in his name, full and abundant life, eternal life.