Voices, Voices, Voices

sermon by Torin Eikler
Psalm 29 Isaiah 42:1-9 Matthew 3:13-17

If I were to tell you that I hear voices, what would your first thought be? Mine too.

Over the week between Christmas and New Years, Carrie and I watched a movie called “Stranger than Fiction” in which the main character heard a voice narrating his life. His first response – and that of the therapist he consulted – was that he was crazy (or schizophrenic to be exact). But the man, Harold was his name, did not feel crazy. So, he continued to search for another explanation.

The voice was able to predict his future with perfect accuracy, but it never spoke directly to Harold. In fact, it spoke of him in the third person, which surprisingly, turned out to be the key to understanding. In consultation with a literary theoretician, he began to track his life in an effort to determine what type of story (real or imagined) he might be part of. In the end he discovered that he was the protagonist of a novel that was being written as he lived it. Sadly, it was a tragedy. He was doomed to die a poetic death, but as Harold came to terms with the story of his life, he found strength and courage in knowing that his life would have power and meaning and that his death would serve the world and bring life to another.

In point of fact, I do not hear voices, and, in some ways, that makes me sad. Not sad because I think that it would be great fun to have other personalities in my head, but sad because I wish that I was open enough or perceptive enough to hear God’s voice speaking to me – though if I’m really honest, I would terrified if I were chosen that way. History speaks volumes about what happens to prophets and most of it is not what I would call “good.”

All the same, I wish that I were “special” enough to have God speak to me directly. Everything would be so much clearer if God would just tell me directly. There would be no more wondering what I’m called to do or be. There would be no more struggling to figure out what to do when confronted with morally ambiguous situations. There would be no more questioning my faith – at least not in the existence of God. But as I have thought about it, I have to wonder if I would recognize the voice of God if I heard it.

There are many people I have known in my years of work in shelters and soup kitchens who heard voices. Some of them have believed that they were prophets or mystics, though I never saw evidence of that in their lives or the messages they shared. I have known a prophet of sorts who heard three voices that she understood to be the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and though I remain a skeptic at heart, the words and visions that she shared were often significant. Even if we throw out everyone who have a valid psychiatric diagnosis to explain their voices, it seems clear that God speaks in different ways to different people. So, maybe I have heard, and I just missed it.


In the hymn we just sang, God’s voice is the still small voice of Elijah. That’s one that we hear about a lot. It speaks quietly into stillness, and Christian teachings (at least in the recent history of Western Christianity) have claimed it quite happily. When we talk about discernment and prayer, we often think of this form of divine expression. We strive to hear it by clearing space around and within us. We quiet our thoughts, our worries, and our obsessions and hold ourselves open and ready in the hopes that our inner ears will hear more acutely or that any whispers fluttering in our spirits will echo and be amplified until they become clear.

Phillip Cary, in his article from the October 5th issue of Christian Century, argues against our infatuation with this still small voice. For him, our reliance on that form of hearing God has drawn us away from what God really wants us to be doing. Micah 6:8 tells us, after all, that God “has told us [what] is good.” God requires of us nothing more or less than to “do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God.” Spending too much time listening and not enough time doing has led us down a false path to complacency.

All the same, I like the still small voice. Many of us do. In my generous moods, I believe that’s because it’s more intimate. It brings us closer to a God that we can relate to more easily and more directly when our commun-ication takes place in the quiet of our hearts and the secret places of our souls. In my cynical moments, I chalk it up to our need to control and compartmentalize God. If God is never in the whirlwind, never in the earthquake or the raging fire but only in the still small voice heard in silence, then we can choose where and when to listen for God simply by choosing where and when we make space for quiet stillness.

And yet, God cannot be limited in that way. God will speak when and how God chooses to speak whether it fits our schedule or not. It’s more than a little scary to come to terms with that truth. The power of God is not easy for us to make peace with, but if we trust the inspiration of those who wrote the scriptures, it is the very stuff of which life is made. In the beginning there was nothing until the voice of God spoke bringing light and substance into being, and imbuing creation with life born on the very breath that carried those words.

The power of God’s voice is something to celebrate even as we stand in awe and fear of what it can do … of what it may mean for us if we hear that voice. The Psalmist understood that truth and celebrated it in the hymn of praise Dave read for our call to worship this morning:
The voice of the Lord is over the waters….
The voice of the Lord is powerful ….
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon ….
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire …
[and] shakes the wilderness ….
And in his temple all say, “Glory!”

That kind of power is intimidating, but it is also reassuring. The God we worship, the Spirit we lean on, the Savior and teacher we follow is more powerful than the strongest trees. They are above and within the raging fire and the flowing waters. God is beyond time and tide, greater even than death. In that reality Job found peace with his trials. In that assurance we can find comfort and peace ourselves.

(pause)

Most of you probably listened to that last bit without really hearing it. I think it begs a question. Why should the cosmic power of God bring comfort and peace to lowly humans? The answer can be found in the words of the prophets and in those spoken to John at Jesus’ baptism.
The words of the prophets, at least the ones we have recorded in scripture, are definitely a mixed bag. There is much condemnation and judgment in them, spoken to the people of Israel when they had turned away from God’s desire for them to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with her. Those words are just as potent for us today given all the ways our society takes advantage of the weak to benefit the strong. We, ourselves, are complicit in that injustice when we benefit from the system even if we don’t give into the temptation to act in similar ways ourselves. And so the pronouncements of the prophets sit on our shoulders as well as those of ancient Israel.

But imbedded in all those oracles of judgment are words of hope and promise. The voice of God speaks to us of new beginnings, of servants bringing justice, of the end of suffering and the dawn of a new reality in which all peoples will come together in peace. Those promises are ours, too, just as surely as the condemnation. There is, though, that pesky little condition that seems to be a favorite of the prophets – we must shuv. That is to say, we must repent – turn back to God.

What that means is different for each of us … is difficult for each of us in its own way. None of us is perfect, and the call to repentance – to righteousness in the face of God must continually be faced for we continually fall away. And into the despair of that knowledge the voice of God speaks again, “This is my beloved Son,” … my beloved son.


My beloved Son … a benediction spoken over the dripping head of Christ. And a benediction spoken over each of us, for we have been invited into it by Christ himself. All who believe in me, he says, will not perish. All who believe in me are my family. All who love me are loved by God as I am loved … as I love.


When I was in high school, I played on an indoor soccer team with several of my friends. We traveled weekly to Fort Wayne, about an hour from our homes to play, and few people ever made the journey to watch us. One evening, though, my father came from his work at the hospital around the corner to cheer us on.

In the midst of the chaos of play, while we were all calling direction and warning to one another, I discovered an interest trick of my upbringing. My father was my first soccer coach and taught me the game during the years of my childhood. More than that, he is my father, and I am attuned to his direction … to his voice.
What I discovered was that no matter how loudly anyone else was yelling, I could hear that one voice cutting through all the noise. I heard his warnings and his encouragements above and beyond all the others around me. For good or ill, he was my coach again during that game, and I instinctively followed his advice.

I don’t remember whether we won that game or not. I do remember that I came out of it with quite a few colorful bruises.

Whether we hear the voice of God crashing over us with power of all the cosmos, or calling us to repent or face the suffering we have brought on ourselves or whispering guidance and direction in the recesses of our souls; that voice is always and forever carrying the same message. You are my beloved children … my beloved children. I love you.


Would that we could hear that voice over all the distracting, misleading tumult of the world.

Would that its thrumming warmth broke through our own willful desires and need for control.

Would that the sound of the crashing waves, the soughing wind, and the crackling fire spoke its true message to our hearts.

If our ears were only so attuned to hear, we would find the comfort and the joy of the beloved resounding in our beings and giving us the courage and assurance – the peace of faith beyond all understanding calling us to a fullness of life equal to all that we might do in the service of our God.