One of the Flock
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Preached at St. Gabriel’s, Marion, Massachusetts
May 12, 2019
My cousin Nanne is a sheep farmer in Washington, Maine. She is amazing. She is a few years older than I am and she was the kind of cousin I was in awe of as a child – she was a killer field hockey player, my parents adored her, and she walked barefoot everywhere – even all over Europe. Nanne was recently featured in a documentary on PBS called American Spring Live, hosted by Juju Chang. It is an hour-long television program about the miraculous awakening of life that happens in the Spring. And the segment featuring my cousin Nanne was about sheep farming during lambing season.
In one part of the story they asked the question – why is a barn full of sheep and lambs so noisy? The sheep expert they were talking to explained that the back and forth bleeting of ewes and newborn lambs during the early days that they are in the barn, affectionately known as the “lamb nursery” has a very important purpose. The purpose of this call and response, like an Ovine game of Marco Polo, is twofold – one is bonding between the Momma Sheep and the Baby Lambs, but the second is protection. That is, when the ewes and lambs are released into the fields, the babies are only a bleat away from their mother’s care. The commentator said “it is vitally important at this stage for them to listen to each other’s voices.”
And this comment reminded me of our gospel lesson for this morning and in particularly this verse:
My sheep hear my voice. I know them,
and they follow me.
Gospel of John 10:38
So I know that the analogy is not perfect – we are not baby lambs and Jesus is our Ewe, rather we are the sheep and Jesus is our shepherd – but there are some striking parallels.
I think one of the hardest things in our journey of faith is for us is to hear Jesus’s voice in our lives. If you think of our reading from Acts of the Apostles last week, Paul had the extraordinary experience of hearing Jesus’ voice loud and clear – “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Then Saul is blinded, and then he is healed by Ananias. And then last week Peter has a conversation with the Risen Christ about his mission to feed and tend the flock.
Very few of us are blessed to have experiences such as this.
So, if Jesus is our shepherd, and we are his sheep, how do we know his voice? How do we hear his voice in our own lives? After all, isn’t what we just read in Psalm 23 a promise we want to cash in on? We shall not want? He makes us lie down in green pastures? Revives our soul? Fearing no evil? Comfort? That’s the kind of shepherd we want to maintain radio contact with all the time.
But we know how hard it is to hear the voice of God. We know from the First Book of Kings (18:20-40, 19:12) – that the great Prophet Elijah hears God’s voice not in the mighty wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire, but in the still small voice – or said another way – in the gentle whisper of God.
This view of the voice of God was confirmed to me in a story my friend Lucy told me about her daughter. One night Lucy and her daughter Hannah were saying good-night prayers, and her daughter said to Lucy, “The problem with Jesus is that he speaks in a little tiny voice.”
So how do we hear this little tiny voice of God?
I think the answer is in the story of the Ewe and the Lamb. We need to familiarize ourselves with Jesus’ voice. And that starts with drowning out the voices that are not Jesus’.
First of all – the voice of Jesus is not the insecure chatter in our heads that tells us we are not enough, we don’t do enough, and we don’t have enough. It is not the voice of God that wakes you up in the middle of the night that lashes you with feelings of guilt, shame or anxiety. It is not your friends or family who discourage you or make you second guess yourself. The voice of Jesus does not put you down and does not make barbed jokes about you. Jesus says things like “You are the salt of the earth!” “You are the light of the world!” “You are a child of God!”
The other thing to remember is that the voice of God is particularly hard to hear when you are distracted and busy. A physical therapist told me once that one of the reasons we feel pain more at night is because of the nature of our pain neural pathways which are slow – and that during the day we are distracted by all sorts of stimulus that draws our attention away from aches and pains, and it is only in the quiet of the night that we are aware of how we are really feeling in our body. And in the same way, when we are busy and distracted we cannot hear the tiny voice of God. Did you know that on average Americans check their phone 80 times a day – that means we’re checking our phones once every 12 minutes. Can you imagine what would happen if we deliberately and mindfully checked in with God that many times a day?
So now that we know what the voice of God is not, and why it’s hard to hear, let’s turn to the question of “how do we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice in our lives?”
The answer to this question is like that clichéd joke “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice”. It takes discipline and intentional practice to hear the voice of God.
So, getting back to our Sheep Barn analogy – that practice and discipline includes tuning our ears to the Voice of Jesus. It means familiarizing ourselves with the kinds of things that Jesus says. One of the best ways to do that is to read the Bible. If you don’t already have a Bible – you might want to consider buying one – one that you would not for a second hesitate writing in, and also one that has red letters for the words of Jesus. Try committing to reading the Gospels for 5 minutes a day. Underline what speaks to you. Put question marks in the margins and find someone like your deacon Cathy Harper or your rector, or someone else in the congregation that you can talk with about your questions. Maybe join a bible study. Maybe host a bible study? According to recent research in the Episcopal Church – those who grow most spiritually and develop a personal relationship with God are those who engage with scripture daily.[1] Reading the Bible matters.
And then the other way to tune your spiritual ears to Jesus is to spend a few minutes of quiet each day. In stillness and in aloneness. Talk to Jesus, or the person of the Trinity you feel most comfortable with, – for just few minutes to begin. Give thanks for what you want to give thanks for, pray for those on your heart and mind, and ask for guidance. I use Post-it notes to remind me of who I want to remember in my prayers. After that, spend a few minutes in silence. Set a timer – try two minutes, and then three minutes, and increase to 15 minutes if you can.
I may be telling you things you already know and do. And what I am recommending could not be simpler. But you know what? It is also the hardest discipline in the world. So much more challenging than getting 5 fruits and vegetables a day. It is a practice, and hopefully practice turns into habit, and that habit will change your life. And the more you turn to God, and listen to God’s voice, the more you will return to your true self – the precious child of God.
I want to end this morning with a poem my godmother sent me. My godmother, by the way, is the mother of my cousin Nanne the sheep farmer I started off this sermon talking about. This is a poem written by her friend, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth – who was a poet and author. It is a poem which reminds me of this returning to God.
Now in the Stillness and in the aloneness
The blossom returns to the tree
And the bird to the nest
The light returns to the water
The shadow to the boulder
And I return to myself.
My hope for you, as you experience this miraculous awakening this spring, that you experience continual awakening to your life in Christ.
Amen
[1] renewalworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/RenewalWorks-White-Paper.pdf
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