Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks for your presence in our lives. Today and everyday, help us listen for your voice – the voice that guides, comforts, protects, and sustains. Through Christ, we pray together. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our youth mission trip this summer, my work crew was assigned to do some minor home improvements to Fran’s house, located on the shores of Lake Michigan. At lunchtime, while doing our devotions, we would go down to the beach and put our feet in the water. It’s a really rough job, and one day we were sitting on the beach listening to Fran share her life stories. We suddenly realized we had spent almost the entire day at the beach and had not accomplished any of the projects for the day. Our crew started to become concerned that we weren’t going to finish. When Fran went inside, we started to talk with one another, and we asked, “What could be more important than listening to Fran share her stories?”

 

On the final afternoon of the mission trip, while sitting on the front porch and feeling the cool breeze, Fran shared with us how much she had enjoyed the week and had appreciated our work. With tears in her eyes, Fran shared her amazement that teenagers were willing to devote a week of their time serving others. Then Fran handed me a gift and asked that I take it back to my congregation. Today, I am here to present this gift to each of you. It is a prayer shawl knitted by Fran and other members of her congregation. The card attached to the shawl reads:

 

Truly, this shawl is a gift, not to me or to the youth on the mission trip, but to each of us.

 

Thank you. Thank you for your support for creating us and allowing us to develop these relationships with people from across the nation.

 

Several weeks after the mission trip, along with Cinda Eichler and another adult sponsor, Laurie, from Olivet Christian Church, Paulette and I had the opportunity to take eight youth to Colorado for a weeklong, backpacking trip. Hiking with eight youth in the wilderness for a week can be quite an experience. For an entire week, we gazed at the beauty of the mountains, enjoyed these really tasty freeze-dried meals (which, by the way, are a guaranteed way to lose weight – they are so good), climbed high mountain peaks, drank ice-cold mountain stream water, listened to the pounding thunder storms in our tents, shared each others’ joys and concerns while forming a community.

 

The final night we gathered in a circle for our closing devotions. I asked each of the youth to share what their highlight of the week was. One individual’s response particularly struck me. Shannon, a 13-year-old, said her highlight was listening to God in the wilderness. When I hear answers such as this, I feel such a sense of gratitude that, at such a young and tender age, our youth are beginning to develop a sense of spiritual development and recognition of God’s voice in their lives.

 

This morning, I believe we can build on Shannon’s observations. Here at Broadway, we seek to hear the voice of God. As you heard from the skit this morning, many of you have already signed up, beginning September 9, to enter into our 40 Days of Prayer. These 40 days will be a time to pray and listen to the voice of God. However, in a competitive world, in a world where we attempt to multi-task and accomplish as many goals as possible, how do we listen for the voice of God?

 

Our text this morning – a text you may not hear too often on a Sunday morning – provides answers to some of these questions. Let me share it with you briefly once again. It reads:

 

 

 

For some passages from the Bible, such as Psalm 23, there are literally thousands of commentaries and interpretations. For others, such as our text this morning, there are not. I think this may be because these verses appear and sound apocalyptic. 

 

Often we are not very comfortable discussing the end of time, death, and people rising from their graves. So, in an effort to avoid talking about death and rebirth, most scholars claim that the importance of this passage is found in the words “very truly.” They are used three times, emphasizing that God and Christ do the same work. 

 

I think that, while these observations are no doubt significant, there exists another theme at the same time. That is the theme of “hearing.” I believe this passage from John claims that when we listen to the voice of one another, and listen to the voice of God, nothing – not even death – can separate us from God. After all, John clearly says, “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

 

Often we are so busy living life that we forget to slow down and listen to what takes place around us. We lose our priorities. We are so busy trying to force events in our life that we forget what it means to truly live.

 

What would happen if we started seeing each day as a gift from God? What would happen at the end of each day, if instead of scratching items off your to-do list, you thought about the experiences of the day? What if you thought about when did you or did you not see God? My guess is that when you take the time to slow down and view each and every day as a gift from God, your priorities in life will change. But how? How do we slow down?

 

I believe the first step is to appreciate and recover the gift of silence. Thomas Merton, a famous monk who wrote the book, Seven Storey Mountain, once said, “The ears with which one hears the message of the gospel are hidden in the heart, and these ears do not hear anything unless they are favored with a certain interior solitude in silence.”

 

I really appreciate the observation that the “ears do not hear anything unless they are favored with a certain interior solitude of silence.” I have to admit that for me, complete and utter silence is almost impossible to obtain. Perhaps it is the same for you. I need to have or to be in conversation with others, listening with others and immersed in community. But I think Merton would agree that you could still be in conversation with others, immersed in a community, and at the same time obtain inner solitude and silence. Interior solitude and silence is a recognition that you are listening to the voice of God in your life.

 

This is the voice that says to us, as we have read in the Old Testament:

 

 

Two weeks ago, gathered in this sanctuary, we worshipped with over 220 youth representing over 34 different churches. Our message for the evening focused on listening to the voice of God. I reminded the youth that during the school year, we hear competing voices: the voices of friends, the voices of teachers, the voices of parents. 

 

But in reality, it is not just the youth who hear competing voices. It is all of us. We all hear voices telling us to work a little harder, put in a little more effort, succeed, or fail. But above all of these competing voices there is one voice that speaks to us everyday – a voice that comforts us, challenges us, moves us, holds us, loves us. It is the voice of God. In Psalm 46:10, the psalmist reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God.”

 

This morning, I encourage each of us to recognize that listening for that still, small voice is a whole new way of being, seeing, listening, and acting. It is a way that seeks to be aware of God’s presence each moment. Our text this morning tells us that God is around us, within us, and between us. When we learn to live in such recognition of God’s presence, there is a fading of anxiety. We have a welcoming of peace and reassurance.

 

Later this afternoon, at a Presbyterian church in California, there will likely be seven adults sitting around a Christ candle at the Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church. For ten minutes, there is no laughing, no talking. The only noise is the sound of their breathing. These volunteer youth workers are using an ancient practice developed by Ignatius of Loyola called the “Awareness Examine.” The examine is simple. As you lie in bed at night, or any time during the day, ask yourself two questions. “For what moment and I most grateful?” “For what moment am I least grateful?”

 

Mark Yaconelli notes in his book, Growing Souls, these two questions, immersed in prayer, help us identify moments of consolation and desolation. 

 

Consolation is a classical term used over the centuries by praying Christians to identify moments when we are more open to God, others, and ourselves. These are the moments of connection, moments when we feel more alive, more transparent to God, more loving toward other people.

 

Desolation refers to the opposite experience: disconnection, depletion, alienation, and a sense of being blocked from the presence of God, or ourselves.

 

I share this exercise with you as part of a personal testimony that Awareness Examine has made a difference in my life. Reflecting on the events of the day and being mindful where I heard and sensed God’s presence has changed the way in which I approach life. It is a simple and easy practice that may be done at any time during the day.

 

I have one final story, also taken from Mark’s book. It is told by a woman who served as an Episcopal priest in Chicago. This story reflects our text of the morning.

 

Recalling her experience as a young priest, she said, “The church I served was in a very poor area. The junior high ministry was one of the few programs for young teenagers in the neighborhood. Every Sunday night, the church would fill with about 50 kids from the surrounding tenement buildings. In those days, the junior high ministry consisted of a short worship service designed for junior high students. There were lots of prayers, readings, and responses the kids were supposed to do.

 

“The problem was most of the kids couldn’t read. This fact, combined, with the young people’s excitement of being together, made the junior high worship service pure bedlam. The kids would wrestle and giggle in the pews. They would run and hide in the pipes of the organ, or they would put on choir robes and chase each other.”

 

(Surely this only happens to her youth ministry.)

 

“I was fresh out of seminary and had a very different idea of being a priest. I wanted to be this prim and holy priest. Instead, I spent most of these youth services chasing, disciplining, and shouting at kids to be quiet. 

 

“In those days, the service ended with a blessing. The kids would line up in front of me, and one-by-one, they would come forward. It took a long time.

 

“After six months, I couldn’t take it any more. I felt completely inadequate and unprepared for those kids. I quit. On my last night, the kids were as unruly as they were on my first. When we came to the end of the service, I lined them up the best I could and gave them their little blessing and sent them out the door.

 

“Half way through, however, a young girl interrupted me and asked, ‘Who gives you a blessing, pastor? Who gives you a blessing?’

 

“Exasperated, I told her something quickly, but then she got this idea and lit up.  ‘Hey, pastor, can we give you a blessing?’

 

“This idea spread like wildfire. Soon the whole gang of them rushed forward, crowded around me, and started clamoring, ‘I want to give you a blessing.’

 

“Finally, I gave in. I told them that if they promised to go quietly from the church and back to their homes, I would let them give me a blessing. They hesitated, not knowing what to do, and then one of them started to recite the blessing. Others, from memory, joined in.”

 

At this point in the story, 30 years later, the priest turns to Mark, and she begins to cry and cry. She said, “I just realized that the whole time they were trying to bless me, I was thinking about how I was going to get those kids home. I was thinking about locking up the church building. I was thinking about how glad I was to be quitting my job. I didn’t notice until just now what a miracle that was. Fifty or sixty kids had memorized a blessing I gave them, and they were eager to return the blessing to me. And I missed it. I was too busy worrying about what was going wrong and what I was going to do next.”

 

I think we can all relate to this story. We are in such a hurry to move on to what is next that we miss the glory and the grace of the moment. 

 

I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to take the time to listen. Take the time to contemplate. Take the time to recognize that God is truly within us and among us.

 

Through Christ, we pray together… “Amen.”

 

 

 

Ever-Present God, thank you for being our constant companion. Help us to be fully aware of your presence. Help us to listen: opening our eyes to see you, opening our ears to hear you, opening our hearts to know you. Amen.