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Sunday, November 08, 2009
A Still, Small Voice…
by Shani Jones
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Matthew 3:13 (Good News Version)
13 At that time Jesus arrived from Galilee and came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to make him change his mind. I ought to be baptized by you, John said, and yet you have come to me! 15 But Jesus answered him, Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires. So John agreed.
I’m a student at Iliff School of Theology and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my “call” to service in the church and what that exactly means for me.
I think my call really started with an experience I had as a young girl. I grew up in a small Nebraska town and my job, starting at about age 10, was to deliver the newspaper to all the houses on the North side of town. My twin sister, Schawn, delivered newspapers to all the houses on the South side of town. Those early Nebraska mornings could be brutal in the winter! We looked forward to stopping at each church along the way to warm up.
I was deeply affected by those early morning church visits…my family didn’t go to church. I imagined that churches were like some kind of elite club… scary, judgmental places that were closed to outsiders. But the doors to these churches were always unlocked, every one of them! I could walk right in. I would always go right into the sanctuary. In those days the sanctuaries looked more traditional. There were solid wood pews, ornate altars, gorgeous stained glass windows and beautiful hand carved wooden clocks ticking loudly in the silence. As I sat in those sanctuaries, I felt not only relief from the cold weather, but a peace and comfort that I can still revisit in my mind. It didn’t matter what type of church it was, I felt the same in each sanctuary. I used to pray there at the rail feeling like God was right there listening.
I still remember each one of those churches…Bethel Mennonite….Bellwood Mennonite….St. Mary’s Catholic Church… The Assembly of God Church….then the good old Methodist Church right across from Fred’s grocery on Main Street. My sister had the Lutherans on her side of town and they kept cocoa in their kitchen so she faired a little better. She wasn’t quite as frozen when we rendezvoused at Donna’s Donut Shop.
I’ve always associated a connection with God to the peace and comfort I felt in those church sanctuaries of my early years.
In more recent years, though, I’ve come to believe that connecting with God is also about doing God’s work in the world; that Christianity is more than just soaking in God’s love for us.
But how do we know what God is calling us to do in the world? And, how do we even know when God’s calling?
The Bible has many stories of dramatic calls from God. The prophet Isaiah, for example, writes of kneeling in the temple, and while the room shook and filled with smoke, he heard the voice of the Lord saying, “whom shall I send?” Isaiah answers, “Here I am! Send me!” He goes on to be one of the most famous prophets of the Bible.
Moses, gets a call that is just as obvious. While tending his flock of sheep he hears God calling to him from a burning bush. God tells him, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I know their suffering and I have heard their cry. I will send you to Pharoah to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” Unlike Isaiah, Moses does a fair amount of resisting but he ends up fulfilling the call he was given.
Now, if you hear a loud voice calling from a burning bush that gets your attention! But how about the rest of us, how do we know what God is calling us to do?
I think for most people finding your call in the world is less like hearing a loud, direct voice, and more like a still… small…voice.
Living into that call is less like a dramatic conversion and more like… a gradual change.
Sometimes it’s a nudge…a passing thought to be involved in something and a sudden opportunity to do just that or a spark of interest that flickers inside of us when we hear of a person or project that needs help.
The Bible has other examples of being called in less dramatic ways. The one I like is our scripture reading for this evening, a conversation between Jesus and John the Baptist.
Jesus was saying here that John was necessary to fulfill God’s plan…that although Jesus was a pretty important guy, he couldn’t do this alone. John had a gift that was unique and he was called to share that with the world.
Now that’s more like a call I can relate to! It is less obvious than a burning bush, but just as real.
Last spring I was part of a group that participated in a “Civil Rights Journey of the South.” We spent months reading and learning about the events of the Civil Rights Movement then travelled to many of those places. The thing that struck me most in that experience was how many ordinary people, just like you and me, responded to a call to be involved. They stood up for what was right…for racial equality and justice…or sat DOWN as it were. Ordinary people like Rosa Parks who sat down on that now famous bus in Montgomery, Alabama and refused to move.
Ordinary people like Jo Ann Robinson, who had a telephone call from a friend telling her that a black woman had been arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white person on the bus. Jo Ann sensed a call to be a part of the movement that Rosa Parks had begun, and while Rosa sat in jail, Jo Ann went to the copy room of the local community college where she worked and copied 35,000 flyers asking black bus riders to boycott the buses. In those days copying was by hand crank, so this took her all night. The flyers she copied were distributed throughout the city and thousands of bus commuters refused to ride the bus in the many months that followed. They walked to and from work leaving before dawn and getting home very late. This was a major inconvenience for 13 months but they held strong to their call until the Montgomery bus line was brought to its knees and you know the rest of the story. The busses were fully integrated. Joanne lost her job in the copy room, but her call to be God’s hands in the world made all the difference!
So many young people stood strong in the face of civil rights abuses all over the south. In Birmingham, kids organized themselves to protest the inability of blacks to be served at lunch counters. Without telling their parents, instead of going to school, they met at the 16th street Baptist Church and marched through Birmingham. They were beaten, attacked with water hoses and dogs, and hundreds were arrested…but they were determined to stay the course and it worked!
But answering a call from God doesn’t require bodily harm! I know of a woman in a north metro Denver church who has quietly committed herself to helping immigrants learn English. On Sunday afternoons she donates her time to teaching any immigrant who walks through the church doors. Sometimes the room is full but she never turns anyone away.
Here is one final example. If you care about justice and doing God’s work in the world, you’re in good company with the Methodist Church. John Wesley, who founded the Methodist church, had a commitment to service toward the poor, particularly those in jail. In the 1700’s, prisoners had to pay if they wanted to be fed. If you were a poor prisoner you were a hungry prisoner. John Wesley organized groups to bring food and comfort to these prisoners. He preached in the streets asking people to do all they could for the poor among them. Until just a few nights before he died, he was out going door to door in the snow and cold collecting money for the poor.
So I ask each of us to pay close attention to God’s call in our lives. It’s a call no one else is going to receive. Pay attention to that still, small voice that enters our hearts when we pray, and take that call seriously…then take your call out into the world! AMEN