A Listening Heart and a Tingling Ear
A Listening Heart and a Tingling Ear
By Greg McDonell
January 15, 2012
Reading: 1 Samuel 3:1-20 and John 1:43-51
He was a young lad tending to the needs of Eli the High Priest when a voice from God was heard calling him, “Samuel, Samuel.” Four times God called him.
It is hard to discern God's voice from the many voices we hear. Like Samuel...when God calls us we often have to be called again and again and again...This God of ours is a persistent and relentless God who will not be denied by our deftness and defiance. God had a plan for Samuel but at first he simply did not have a listening heart that was able to hear God's call for him. It often takes, as it did in Samuel's case, someone else to recognize God's call in our lives.
God uses others to help us see what we can not see in ourselves or at the very least to affirm what we think God is calling us to be and do. (Pause)
It is now almost 43 years since I first entertained the thought of Pastoral Ministry...when I began to wonder if it was God's voice calling me to a new vocation in life. There are two key players in this sanctuary today who were instrumental in assisting me in that hearing. (The Rev. Jim Collier and my Dear Wife) But I was stubborn and had neither the listening heart nor the tingling ears to hear God's voice over the din of others. In fact it took God ten years to get through to me. Or to put it another way.....the wisdom of God saw to it that I should grow a bit more before accepting the call to quit the good job I had to tackle an even better one.
So the decision was made some 33 years ago, almost to this day, to tender my resignation, move back to Texas and attend Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
In the midst of that decision I will never forget over hearing a conversation my then small son was having with a friend. He proudly reported to his friend that he was moving to Texas and that his daddy was going to the Cemetery. (Pause)
I assure you that answering God's call is far more life affirming than that!!!!!!
And then we see our Lord strolling along in Galilee finding one named Stephen. He called to him and said, “Follow Me.” Then Philip found Nathaniel and told him of this One of whom Moses and the Prophets had spoken. It is Jesus of Nazareth....the son of Joseph. It appeared Nathaniel must have broken out in uncontrollable laughter trying to visualize anything good ever coming out of such a nothing bump in the road. No-way could anything good come from such a no-where place.
Stephen chose not to enter into an argument with Nathaniel but simply replied, “Come and See.” Come and see for yourself.
The Call to follow! The Call to come and see! I am convinced that everyone in this room has heard a call from God for your lives. Oh, it need not be a call to full-time pastoral ministry but it is a call to full-time living in the light of love offered in Jesus Christ. It is that still small voice.....that divine impression that continues to enter into your consciousness. You know what I am talking about! And when you hear it I beg of you to FOLLOW to COME and SEE what God has in store for you. (PAUSE)
In order to comply with the statutes of full discloser and to adhere to truth-in-labeling laws I must, however, issue a WARNING! To follow this one we call Jesus carries with it – Reward & RISK!
The Boy Samuel had to speak truth to power. Stephen was stoned and Jesus was hung. And we can't forget, especially this week, the fate of Martin Luther King Jr.......in carrying out God's will for his life.
No, we can take the easy way but I have come to believe that to do so is to take the empty way. The easy way is void of purpose and meaning, depth and devotion. The easy way is self-centered, self-focused, and self-indulgent. The easy way silences the heart and closes the ears to our neighbor. (Pause)
On this Sunday known as Race Relations Sunday, I must confess to you that I am no Race Relations Scholar, but those who are tell me that racial inequality remains in the U.S. People of color continue to experience high rates of poverty, significant unemployment, police profiling and repressive incarceration. Even school segregation is a continuing concern among race scholars.
Leonard Pitts reminds us im today Austin American Statesman that the War on Drugs has turned into a War on People of Color. Our prisoners are filled with blacks and Latinos when we know that the most users and sellers of drugs are white.
Gary Orfield in his work, Reviving the Goal of Integrated Society: A Twenty First Century Challenge, reports that schools in the U.S. are currently 44 percent non-white, and people of color are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students.
However, Black and Latino students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights era. Schools are still separate but NOT equal more than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. Orfield's study shows that the most severe segregation in public schools is in the Western States and not in the South as many believe.
I share that with you only to say that as a people we cannot take the easy way and say...but look we have a person of color who holds the highest job in the land. The work of Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others is still there for us to do today.... if we value a society that stands for equal opportunity for all.
The present upheaval in our land will only grow worse if we continue to allow the gap between the rich and the poor to grow even wider.
Today's texts recall the Call of God for folks like you and me to FOLLOW!! You see, a simple definition for a DISCIPLE is someone who decides to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is.
So a budding electrician works alongside of a Master Electrician. An aspiring athlete puts in sweat equity under the tutelage of a pro. An up and coming singer hones her skills under the careful ear of her vocal coach.
And so it is with you and me who call ourselves “Disciples of Christ!” In following this ONE we need to ask the question: What is this Jesus good at? We find the answers to that question in the Gospels. This Jesus we see there is good at Loving, Forgiving, Healing, and Teaching. He was good at speaking truth to power and often found himself standing alongside those others avoided or rejected.
The Apostle Paul said this about Jesus; “You know (speaking to Cornelius) of Jesus, the one from Nazareth. And you know how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about DOING GOOD and CURING all those under oppression, because God was with him.” (Acts 10:38)
And so it is with you and me, my friends. As Disciples of Christ, followers of Christ...WE ARE WITH HIM, by choice and by grace. We are learning from him how to live in the Kingdom of God........That means how to live within the range of God's effective will, Christ's life flowing through us. Another important way of putting it is to say that we are learning from Jesus to live our lives as he would live life within us. We are not learning to do everything he did, but we are learning to do everything we do in the manner in which he did all that he did.
So whatever it is that you are being called to do...do it in a manner that others might see in you CHRIST! Then like Philip you will be able to say to the skeptical Nathaniel's of your life.........COME and SEE! COME and SEE for YOURSELF.