Experiencing God: God Speaks Through The Bible

"Experiencing God:  God Speaks Through The Bible"
Matthew 13:34

I was talking with some kids during the Children's Message time.  I was on an internship year during seminary.  I was living in Spearville and Dodge City, working at the Presbyterian churches in those communities.

So I'm talking with the kids in the Dodge church.  It was just after the first of the year.  I was talking to them about how important it is to read in the Bible each day.  I asked them if their families all had a Bible.  One little guy's hand shot up and said, "We do.  But I think we put it away with the Christmas decorations."  His parents slid, silently under the pew.  They murmured something to me on the way out of church along the lines of, "I can't wait till you have kids and they sit up there."

We all have to deal with the Bible at some point.  We have to decide what it is, this often leather bound book of weird actions of God and people storied inside.  As well as rules and laws, songs and wise sayings, parables and cryptic end times visions.

The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, so there are all kinds of translation problems.  In some cases there is no word-for-word, English word that will work for the Hebrew or Greek word.  For instance, the word in Hebrew that is translated into English as "anger" literally means, "to be of wide nostrils."  But I've never seen an English translation use that phrase.  Usually, just some form of the word anger is used.  So there is no literal, word-for-word translation.  Don't let anyone tell you there is.

Is the Bible dictated by God word-for-word?  Or is it a collection from the hand of men and women who just wrote down the stories that had been orally handed down from centuries?  What do we mean when we call the Bible, the Word of God?

These are just a few of the huge questions people and scholars ask when looking at the question, "What is the Bible?"

I think the more important questions is, "What is the Bible supposed to do?"  What is supposed to happen when a person sits down with and reads the Bible?  What do people expect is going to happen?

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish theologian who died in 1855 once said about the Bible, "...remember to say to yourself incessantly:  'It's talking to me; I am the one it is speaking about.'"

I think that's what we expect is going to happen.  When we sit down with the Bible, we expect it to talk to us.  If not it, God.  It's not that the Bible is some magical book that talks on its own.  But that's part of the answer to one of my previous questions, "Why do we call the Bible the Word of God?"  We call it that because we expect the Bible's words are also God's words, and that somehow God will speak to us through them.

There's no magic to that either.  Just because you open the Bible and start reading doesn't mean that God has to speak to you every time.  God is free to speak whenever, however, to whomever God wishes.  God is free to speak to us through the book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo as much as through the Bible.  But we believe that there is something about the Bible that God has imprinted--so to speak--more of God's self into the Bible than any other book.

So, if we're going to hear God in the Bible, we need to read the Bible.  The thing is, historically, the Bible has been heard much longer than it's been read.  In Jewish worship, the scrolls of the Torah were unrolled and sung by the cantor.  Hebrew is mostly a sung language.  The people in Jewish worship heard the musical intonations and vowels.  The cantor's voice gave personality and interpretation to the text.

In Catholic worship, prior to the Reformation, the scriptures had always been read out loud, albeit in Latin, that only a handful of people knew.

Today, we read scripture out loud in our worship.  We don't say, "OK, everyone get out your Bible and read the scripture silently to yourself, and then we'll have the message."

So, reading scripture has always been more a matter of the ears than the eyes.

Think about the difference between talking with someone vs. reading a book.  When I read a book, the book doesn't know if I'm paying attention or not.  But when I listen to a person, that person knows very well whether I'm paying attention or not.  In reading I open the book and attend to the words.  I can read by myself.  In listening, the speaker is in charge.  In reading, the reader is in charge.

The believers interest in Scripture has never been just about reading the words on the page.  Reading the Bible isn't about analyzing a moral code.  Our interest in Scripture has always been about hearing God speak.

There was a party of explorers who were studying the dense jungles of South America.  They wandered until their food supply dwindled to nothing.  They came upon a clearing teeming with bright red berries.  They ate and satisfied their hunger pains.  After several days, even though the berry supply remained in abundance, the explorers began to die.  When a search party finally arrived, none of the explorers had survived.  The rescuers wondered why they died.  There were plenty of berries to sustain them.  But after analyzing the berries, they found them to be absolutely worthless as a nutritional source.  Though the explorers appetites were satisfied, they actually starved to death.

Maybe that's a little parable about how some people connect to the Bible.  They read the words.  But like eating the berries, just reading the words is not enough.  The nutrition, the value in the words can only come when the voice of God is heard amidst the words.  It's only by hearing God speak through the words that we are sustained and kept alive.  Just as Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

As a boy in Missouri, Mark Twain remembered when the town drunk was dying in the street.  Someone came by, opened a big Bible, and laid it on the drunk's chest.  Which hastened the man's death.

It isn't the words themselves that save us, as if the Bible in its printed form is some kind of magic talisman.  It is in hearing the words, which open up a relationship with God that allows us to hear that God behind the words.

So, what I want to do with the remaining time of this message is to lead you through an ancient Scripture reading practice called Lectio Divina.  Lectio Divina means "divine reading."  It is a practice where by you don't just read scripture, as if you were reading a novel.  It's a way to read scripture and listen more attentively for God's voice to you.  We go through this discipline as a Session, every time we meet.  It is a way of listening to Scripture that helps listen for God when Scripture is read.  It is a practice that involves the ears, not the eyes.

The Benedictine monks go through the discipline of Lectio Divina twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening.  The Lectio can be done individually as well as in a small group.  You can keep a Lectio Divina journal, in which you write down what you hear from God in the three phases of doing the Lectio.

THE ART of lectio divina begins with cultivating the ability to listen deeply, to hear “with the ear of our hearts” as St. Benedict encourages in his Rule. When we read the Scriptures we should try to imitate the prophet Elijah. We should allow ourselves to become women and men who are able to listen for the still, small voice of God (I Kings 19:12); the “faint murmuring sound” which is God's word for us, God's voice touching our hearts. This gentle listening is an “atunement” to the presence of God in that special part of God's revelation of God's self which is the Scriptures.

In order to hear someone speaking softly we must learn to be silent. We must learn to love silence. If we are constantly speaking or if we are surrounded with noise, we cannot hear gentle sounds. The practice of lectio divina, therefore, requires that we first quiet down in order to hear God's word to us.   Allow yourself to become silent.

If you were doing the Lection by yourself you would turn to the text and read it slowly, gently, out loud. Savor each portion of the reading, constantly listening for the "still, small voice" of a word or phrase that somehow says, "I am for you today." Do not expect lightning or ecstasies. In lectio divina, God is teaching us to listen to him, to seek him in silence. He does not reach out and grab us; rather, he gently invites us ever more deeply into his presence.

(Read the Scripture:  Matthew 5:3-10, MSG
3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.)

What word or phrase caught your attention?

With the second reading you are listening for how your current life is crossing paths with the words of Scripture. ONCE WE have found a word or a phrase in the Scriptures that speaks to us in a personal way, we must take it in and “ruminate” on it. The image of an animal quietly chewing its cud is a symbol of the Christian pondering the Word of God.  Ruminating on scripture means allowing it to interact with our thoughts, our hopes, our memories, our desires, our daily actions and activities.

(Have someone read the scripture out loud a second time.)
How is this teaching of Jesus intersecting with what's going on in your daily life?

THE THIRD reading will call us to prayerfully hear what God is nudging us to take care of immediately--not next week, or some time in the future.  In this prayer we allow the word that we have taken in and on which we are pondering to touch and change our deepest selves.  And take us to a deeper level of commitment to our relationship with God.  We allow our real selves to be touched and changed by the word of God.

(Have someone read the scripture a third time.)

I'm not going to ask you to share what you think God is nudging you to take care of.  That is between you and God.

Lectio divina has no other goal than spending time with God through the medium of His word. The amount of time we spend in any aspect of lectio divina, whether it be rumination, commitment, or contemplation depends on God's Spirit, not on us. Lectio divina teaches us to savor and delight in all the different flavors of God's presence, whether they be active or receptive modes of experiencing Him.

Experiencing God: Our Revealing God

"Experiencing God:  Our Revealing God"
Psalm 19:1-10

God was wandering up and down the neighborhoods.  But no one saw it was God.  Some saw a UPS driver.  Others saw a gardner mowing the lawn.  Still others saw a grade school kid riding her bike up and down the street.  They didn’t figure out all of them were God in disguise.

Eventually God ended up where God would usually end up—Floyd’s house.  God never knocked at Floyd’s.  Just walked right in.  “Hi, Floyd,” God said.
“Hey, God,” Floyd responded.  “Out for a walk again, I see,” said Floyd.
“Yup,” God said tersely.  God wasn’t very wordy on this particular day.
“The usual?” Floyd asked.
“Sure,” God said.

Floyd left the room and went into the kitchen.  He pulled the root beer out of the refrigerator and the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and started making two root beer floats.  “The cribbage board and cards are there on the table just where we left them from the last time,” Floyd called out from the kitchen.  “Go ahead and deal, since I kicked your butt last time.”  Floyd heard the cards being shuffled.

“These games with an combination of skill and an element of chance are so frustrating,” said God.  “If they were one or the other, I could beat you.  But I can’t manipulate this game.  It’s aggravating.”

“Poor God,” Floyd said, bringing in the root beer floats.  “Let me get out the world’s smallest violin.”

“Oh, now you’re going to gloat about beating me.  That’s a sin, you know,” God thundered.
“What’s a sin?” Floyd asked.  “Gloating, or beating God at cribbage?”
“Oh, stick your foamy mug in your pie hole and put your two cards in the crib,” God said with a half smile.

After playing for a while, God ahead by 11 points, Floyd asked, “So, why are you here?  Needing some more advice?”
“You’re so cocky,” God said.  “That’s going to get you into trouble one of these days.  You know humility is a virtue.  By the way, just to knock you down a couple of notches, I have fifteen two, fifteen four, and two double runs of eight make 20.  Read ‘em and weep.”
Floyd sat there with his mouth agape, exhaled almost all the breath out of his lungs and said, “Oh brother.”  There was no way he was going to win this game.

After a few more hands had been played, God said, “I’m thinking about changing things up.”
“How so?” Floyd asked.
“I haven’t quite decided,” said God.  “I’ve always tried to reveal myself to people so they can get to know me.  I’ve done this in a few ways.  But people don’t seem to care if they know me or not.  So I’m thinking about going more obscure, even more mysterious.”

“Hmmm,” Floyd said looking at the six cards in his hand.  “There is no shortage of people who say they know what you’re thinking all the time.  Take me for instance.  I sure would like to know which two cards you’re thinking about putting in my crib,” Floyd muttered.
“I’ll tell you right out,” said God.  “They are two great cards.”
“Yeah, right,” said Floyd.  Floyd paused, threw two of his cards in the crib and waited for God to cut the deck for him.  “I suppose,” Floyd said, “it wouldn’t matter how much or how little you reveal of your self.  Some people aren’t going to care.  And others will make too much of it.”
“Exactly,” said God.  “What’s the difference if I’m known or unknown?  People will make whatever of it they want anyway.”

“Well, let’s explore your options,” Floyd said, laying his cards face down on the table.  “You could be barely known.  But that would leave your self up to others wide interpretation.”
“And what’s the difference between that and what’s happening now?” God asked.  “I reveal myself to someone and they take that in a direction I totally didn’t want them to go.”
Floyd shook his head yes.  “For example,” Floyd said, “I’ve always taken the revelation of your cribbage playing as you being a really bad player.”
“Zip it,” said God, “or I’ll glue your lips together, permanently.”
Floyd motioned God to speak on.
“The other side of this is I have created and designed the world in such a way that people can catch a revelation of myself in nature.  It’s a more round about way, but people can still see how I’ve revealed something about myself in the world around them.”
“That’s true,” said Floyd.  After taking a quaff from his root beer float, Floyd went on to say, “It’s just that that kind of revelation takes more work on our part to see you in nature.  People, I’ve found, want to do as little work as possible putting two and two together.  They just want the direct revelation of yourself—just appear, or speak, and get it over with.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” God said.

“So,” said Floyd, “I guess another option would be to be a recluse God and be totally unknown.  Just totally isolate yourself.  Intentionally separate yourself from all the ways one can be known.  That way, nobody will make any misinterpretations of you, because they won’t know you exist.”
“Why be God if no one knows you exist?” God asked.
“Some people don’t think you exist now,” said Floyd.  “So for them it’s not going to make much difference.”
“And they are fools!” God bellowed.  “It’s clear, I am,” God said a little quietly.
“So why would you be considering going dark on the world?  Why would you want to be unknown?” Floyd asked.  “I mean, if you became totally reclusive and never revealed yourself in any way, what’s the difference between the fool who says you don’t exist and the person who doesn’t see any vision of your self-revelation because that’s the way you decided to be?”
“You know,” said God, “besides the root beer floats, that’s why I come here to talk to you.”
“It just seems to me,” said Floyd, “to be totally unknown would be to not exist.  The only way you exist is by being known by someone.”
“You know me, Floyd,” God said.
“So you exist!  Congratulations!” Floyd clapped God on the back.  “As long as I’m alive, you’ll exist then.”
God smiled.

“I went over to the Lutheran Church a couple of Sunday’s ago,” Floyd started out.  “It was after worship.  They were having a baked potato feed as some fund raiser.  I like baked potatoes, so I went.”
God rubbed his chin wondering where Floyd was going with this.
“I walked in.  There was a guy sitting at a card table.  A bucket of money on the table.  I put my check in.  I got in line.  Got my baked potato.  Fixed it all up.  They even had real crumbly bacon bits.”
“Ohhh, I love bacon,” God said.  “Love to smell it frying.”
“Who doesn’t,” Floyd almost drooled.  “Anyway, there weren’t many seats left, so I squeezed into one in the middle section of the long tables.”
“So is this going anywhere,” said God.  “We have cribbage to play.”
“Wow.  You’re so impatient,” Floyd said.  “I thought you liked a good story.”
“I do like a good story,” replied God.  “That’s why I invented people.”
“OK, then; keep your skirt on.  I’m getting to the good part,” Floyd said.  “So I sit down there in the midst of a bunch of people.  They’re all talking.  I don’t know any of them.  But none of them says anything to me!  Not from the time I walk in and put my money in the plastic bucket to the time I finally get up and leave.  Not a ‘Hi,’ or ‘How are you doing?’  Not a thing.  It’s as if I was totally unknown and invisible.  It was awful.”
“And your point is?” asked God.
“I’m a human.  You’re God, for God’s sake.  If I didn’t like being unknown and invisible, you will hate it.”
“Hmmm,” God hummed, clicking the edge of his cards on the table.

“Exactly,” Floyd said.  “You only have one option, it seems to me.  You need to be out there.  You need to be revealing yourself to people.  You need to be known, and visible.  And you need to reveal yourself in every way you can, whether it be through nature, or talking to old guys like me.”
“It is risky,” said God.
“Of course it’s going to be risky,” Floyd said.  “That’s what revealing yourself is all about.  Taking a risk someone might not get it.  And taking the risk that someone just might get it.”
“Most people aren’t going to get it,” said God.  “And everyone will be expecting me to say something directly in their ear.  No one wants to do the work of making sense of the mystery of my self revelation.  They think I’ve got to sit down with all of them and play cards with them, or something, just to prove I’m real.  By the way, do you have any more ice cream—I need another scoop or two in my float.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Floyd grabbing God’s mug.  “You know what I was just thinking,” Floyd called from the kitchen.
“Of course I know; I’m God…duh!”
“Well, pretend you weren’t reading my mind,” said Floyd.
“Not much to read there anyway—about a comic book’s worth,” God muttered.

“I heard that,” Floyd said, coming out of the kitchen with two refreshed root beer floats.  “A little sarcastic today, aren’t we, God?  Anyway, what I was thinking, as you already know, is about imagination.  You gave us imagination.  If you didn’t give us an imagination, we wouldn’t be able to play around with your self-revelations.  We would only take things as they are.  We’d all be boring realists.”
“So,” said God taking a drink of his float.  Floyd made a motion to God pointing to his upper lip.  God got a napkin and wiped the root beer foam mustache off his upper lip.
“So,” said Floyd, “I think you count on us to use our imaginations when you reveal yourself to us so we can see the reality beyond the real.  Our imaginations give us the ability to put two and two together, when we’re looking around at the world, and see your revelation of yourself behind it all.”
“You’re getting too smart for your overalls, Floyd,” God said.
“But there’s more!”  God gave Floyd the eye roll.  “Our imaginations gave us the ability to see your hidden self-revelations when we look at the world, but those imaginations can get us into trouble seeing what’s not there—making you out to be something you aren’t.”  Floyd smiled to himself, thinking he had stumbled upon something very important.

“Listen,” said God.  “I came here to play cribbage.  Have a little fun.  Take a break from all the God-work I’ve got to do all the time.  Are we going to play or what?”
“I’ve been sitting here this whole time waiting for you to put your two cards in the crib,” Floyd said.  “Get on with it so I can make my comeback.”
“Isn’t going to happen,” said God.  “I predestined this win a long, long time ago.”

Experiencing God: God Speaks

"Experiencing God:  God Speaks"
1 Kings 19:8-12
John 4:7-8

I want to try a little experiment this morning.  I'm going to ask you to close your eyes, and keep them closed.  I've asked three people to come forward and I'm going to have them talk, and I want to see if you can recognize their voices.  So close your eyes, and keep them closed, and would those three people come forward now.

(Have the three people talk, each in turn, and have people call out who they think it is.)

I've been thinking this week about voice recognition, and how we can recognize people just by their voices.  I got to thinking about this at our Optimist meeting.  We meet in a small room off the PCC cafeteria.  We were getting ready to start, but we heard a voice out in the cafeteria line.  It was definitely Duane DeWees, one of our members.  So we waited a couple of minutes for him to get his food, and get in the meeting.

I thought, "How interesting that we can recognize voices without seeing the person speaking."  We all know about how our fingerprints are unique, and no one else has fingerprints like we do.  That, in itself, is amazing.  But I think it's equally amazing that each of our voices are unique.  Infants have already gotten to the point where they recognize the voices of their mothers, even when they can't see their mothers.

There were times when I'd be with Ryan and Kristin in a large crowd.  Maybe we'd be separated from each other, and one of them would call out, "Hey, Dad!"  A bunch of men would turn their heads, which I thought was odd, because clearly I knew it was one of my kids, just by their voices.

People who study this phenomenon have been trying to figure out how it is that we can recognize voices without seeing faces that go with that voice.  To me, the answer is fairly clear:  relationship and experience.  We have a certain amount of experience with the people whose voices we recognize.  We have an ongoing relationship with them.  I read one report this week about the only known case of a person who doesn't have this ability to recognize people's voices.  She has a brain lesion in the part of her brain where hearing is processed.  That would be tough to not have the ability to recognize voices.

We do this all the time, even before we had caller ID on our phones.  Someone would call and just start talking, assuming you would know who it was.  You can call your spouse and just start talking, and hopefully, they will recognize whom it is they are talking to without having to ask.  Hopefully they don't say something like, "Who is this?”

Some might call this selective hearing, like this cartoon demonstrates.  It's not a matter of voice recognition.  It's more about where the switch is set.

The question then is, "Do we have a setting for God on our selective hearing aid?"  Do we listen for God?  Since we can become so good at recognizing other's voices, are we just as good as recognizing God's voice?  That's the big question that this chapter in Experiencing God asks:  How do we recognize God's Voice?

The answer has to be the same as how we do this with everyone else--experience and relationship.  The main way we are able to hear God's Voice, and know it is God is by having  an ongoing relationship with God that is nurtured and grown through conversation.

That's the way we build any relationship.  We talk to each other.   We converse.  Some have said, "Talk is cheap," but talk is one of the main ways we explore each other, deciding if we want to know more.  Listening to and using our voices to communicate is the primary way we bond.

The author and playwright Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pen name, George Eliot, once said, "Voices--I think they must go deeper into us than other things.  I have often fancied heaven might be made of voices."  If that were true, then it is vitally important to get to know God's Voice, to develop relationship with God through sharing of our voices.

So I'm going to take you in a different direction than Blackaby has in this chapter about how God speaks.  I want you to imagine a different way that God communicates with you, with a different style of voice.

One of the assumptions in this chapter of the book is that if God is going to talk to you, it will be this momentous, earthmoving, life-changing message.  That God's got a message for you.  Or instructions you are to follow to the T.

But what if God just wants to talk--have a simple conversation?  An ordinary, everyday, shoot-the-breeze conversation.  Have you ever thought about God speaking in that way?  I hadn't either, until I ran across this book.  It's titled, The Little Notebook by Nicole Gausseron.  The subtitle of the book is, The Journal of a Contemporary Woman's Encounters with Jesus.  Gausseron is a devout woman from France who has recorded some of her everyday conversations with Jesus in this journal.  Kind of blew me away, the first time I read it.  These exchanges with Jesus were so ordinary.  So chatty.  Was such a thing even possible with the one, high God, I wondered?

So I tried it.  And have been developing a chatty relationship with God over the years.  Here, lately, since the weather is getting a bit warmer, I'll take my lunch and go out to Pratt Lake.  I'll just sit there and eat, and read, and chat with God.  The other day when it was so windy, I invited God to sit in my truck with me and we talked about the amazing patterns the wind made across the surface of the lake, and how all the patterns were so random--like fingerprints, or voices, none were the same.  Does that sound weird to you, to talk to God about stuff like that?

Another time, I was living out in California, when my life had gotten really messy, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom, leaning up against my bed.  I invited God to come sit beside me, and we talked about why life has to get so messed up, and telling God I was sorry for my part in the mess.  We had this great conversation about consequences, and how there are some consequences I will never see, that God would take care of for me, because he loved me.

I remember a time I had taken my kids to Seattle to go to Bumbershoot, a huge arts and music festival that goes over the Labor Day weekend.  Ryan and Kristin had gone off to explore by themselves, and I was walking around.  All of a sudden I sensed God falling in step beside me, and God said, "Look at all these different people!  They are amazing, aren't they!?  It's just so funny how some people are and choose to turn out.  I love it!" God said.  I nodded, yes, and we chatted a minute about that, and then God was gone, off to enjoy the diversity.

Does all that sound weird.  Wondering about me, now?  Or have you wondered about me all along?  It might sound weird because you think I'm hearing voices.  Or, you might think it sounds weird because it's outside your experience with your talking and listening to God.

The question then might be, do we actually have a conversational God?   Do we believe in a God who enjoys times when God doesn't have to be "Godlike", speaking in some reverberating voice?  Just chat.  Is God not free to do that?  Free to be God, however God chooses to be God?  Is it somehow unGodlike to just make "medium talk", maybe not small talk?

Who does God have to just talk to?  Many have asked me the same question, which is on a much, much lower scale:  Who do ministers have to talk to?  And for me, not usually about deep stuff.  Just chat with.  What makes people think that God doesn't like a good chat, not about anything earth-shattering or life-altering.  Just talk.

This is what being in a relationship with God involves.  The everyday, ordinary encounters of the holy with the human mundane.  Maybe a person's reluctance to have conversation with God has more to do with their inability to chat just with a human being, let alone God.

But conversation assumes relationship.  One of the common complaints I hear when counseling couples is, "We just don't communicate (anymore)."  And it isn't about having big, heady, or heart-to-heart conversations.  It's about chatting.  Just chatting as if you know each other.  Informal conversation that gives each other the simple message that you see and acknowledge each other in a caring, friends, chatty way.  Chatting is fun and it makes you feel you matter.  What makes us think that God doesn't enjoy the same thing?  That God knows God matters to us simply because we enjoy chatting with God?

Is it possible that God doesn't want to speak to us about the huge, the momentous, the tumultuous all the time?  I know God is God.  And that, "...my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD" (Isaiah 55:8).  And if you, like Blakaby does in this chapter, get all your illustrations of God speaking, out of the Old Testament, God becomes a formidable figure who shouts all the time.

But, if you look at Jesus, God in the flesh, you get a very conversational God, who makes jokes, and from time to time teased people--particularly overly serious people.  You see in Jesus, a God who just likes to chat people up.

So, God speaks--yes.  God speaks and creation happens--yes.  God speaks and fire and brimstone comes down out of heaven and destroys cities and armies--yes.  But God, in Jesus, speaks in a tender moment and a woman caught in adultery is forgiven.  Jesus chats her up, "Hey, where'd everybody go?"  God speaks, and the cedars of Lebanon, huge trees, are shattered--yes.  But Jesus speaks and children run to him.  What do you think Jesus talked about with children?  Eschatology?  Theology?  God speaks and whole armies die--yes.  But Jesus speaks to 10 guys with leprosy, touches them even, while having a simple conversation with them, and they all find their way to healing.

Yes, God's Voice can be fearsome and powerful.  But power isn't just exhibited in loudness.  Power of voice can come in tenderness and simple conversation.  Try it, with God.  Start chatting God up.  See if God chats back.  Begin to recognize the chatty Voice of God.

Experiencing God: Listen Attentively

"Experiencing God:  Listen Attentively"
Job 47:7-9

In your bulletin is a nine dot puzzle.  Some of you have probably already been working it, trying to figure it out.  Maybe some of you already have seen this puzzle and know the “trick” of trying to solve it.  Because there is a trick.  You have to think a bit outside the box, or outside the dots, I should say.  If you think you have to keep your lines inside the box of dots, you won’t be able to solve the puzzle.  Here’s the solution: (draw the lines).

As I mentioned, if you made the assumption that the only way to solve the puzzle is to keep your lines within the square, you’ll find out you made a false assumption.  You may try and try and try, based on that assumption, but you will never come to the solution.

This little puzzle is a good example about the often made mistake of acting on certain assumptions we make and their consequences.    We make these kinds of mis-assumptions all the time in little or large ways.

For example, men have never understood women.  We men hear a woman say one thing, and we make the assumption she is really saying another.  Those assumptions can be very dangerous and get us men in a lot of trouble.  For example, here are some simple phrases women make, and the assumptions we guys think the woman is really saying:

We need = I want
It’s your decision = The correct decision should be obvious by now
Do what you want = You’ll pay for this later
We need to talk = I need to complain
You’re...so manly = You need a shave and you sweat a lot
This kitchen is so inconvenient = I want a new house
I heard a noise = I noticed you were almost asleep
Do you love me? = I’m going to ask for something expensive
How much do you love me? = I did something today you’re not going to like
I’ll be ready in a minute = kick off your shoes and find a good game on TV
You have to learn to communicate = Just agree with me
Yes = No
No = No
Maybe = No
I’m sorry = You’ll be sorry
Do you like this recipe? = It’s easy to fix so you’d better get used to it
All we’re going to buy is a soap dish = It goes without saying that we’re stopping at the cosmetics department, the shoe department, I need to look at a few purses, and some new sheets would look great in the bedroom and did you bring your check book?
Anyway, you get the idea.  The assumptions anyone makes can lead us in entirely the wrong direction.  Especially about God and listening to God.  For example, we make huge assumptions about how we think God speaks to us, or how we think God should speak to us.  Lots of people are waiting to hear the Voice from the sky like what happened when Jesus was baptized, or Moses spoke to the burning bush, or Paul being knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus.

But for most of us, God may never speak directly to us with the Voice from the clouds.  For most of us, God gets our attention, or speaks to us through other people.  God uses others as God’s mouthpiece, and it’s a matter of listening and paying attention to others so we can hear God speak.  When you think about it, unless we talk to ourselves a lot, most all of our conversation is with other people.  Why can’t God use all that talking and listening to speak to us?

So, in order to listen for God, to listen to God, it may not be about listening to God himself.  It may be more about listening to other people.  In order to listen for God, you have to listen to what people are saying.  In order to serve God, you have to serve others, and pay attention to what is happening in their lives.

By listening to other people we are trying to get an inkling of what God is doing, or has been doing, with them in their lives.  It would be like talking with someone about their spouse.  By listening, you are finding out how their spouse is affecting their life, and vice versa.  You are finding out about someone you may have never met, but you’re getting to know them nonetheless.

The same is true when we listen to people tell about their experience with God.  We may not know very much about God.  But if we listen well, we will learn a great deal, not only about God, but also where the person is in their relationship with God.  We will find out that their experience with God had been going on for some time, even though they may not have interpreted it as such.

By listening to them, we are trying to get an inkling of what God is doing or has been doing, with them.  And then, by listening, we must then discern what our role is:  are we to help get the person a little further along the way?; are we supposed to “close the deal”?; or, are we supposed to be a silent witness?

What we sometimes don’t get is that by listening to this person or that person, we are ultimately listening to God who is at work in both that person who has crossed our path, as well as ourselves.

It just may be that we are not supposed to talk to that person about Christ.  It may be that this person is not for us to influence, even though our egotistical attitude is pushing us to do so.  Maybe God had that person cross our path to get something across to us!  Maybe we are the object of God’s Voice, and if we aren’t listening correctly, thinking that we are God’s gift to this other person, and we have something to tell them, then we will miss hearing God.  We have to listen to discern that.

Back in 1976, I had a seminary internship in Dodge City and Spearville.  I worked in Dodge with the Christian Education and Youth programs.  I served as Intern Pastor at the Spearville church.

During that year, the Dodge City church hosted, for a 3 month period, Zarine and Molly Ralston.  Zarine was a Pastor in the Church of South India.  He and Molly were itinerating around the United States for a year as missionaries from the Church of South India to the United States.  Did you get that?  They were missionaries to the United States.

It took a while for me to get my head around that fact:  that the Church of South India decided the United States needed someone to set our country straight about the gospel.  That we didn’t get it.  That we had strayed from the faith and needed someone from India to tell us all about it.  My imperialistic, American Christian thinking had to be reorganized so I could really hear what they were saying.  I had this intrenched notion that we American Christians were the ones who sent out missionaries to “backward countries” that were overrun by other religions.  That they were the ones who didn’t get it.  But I had to adjust my arrogance so I could listen correctly and hear God speaking through Zarine and Molly.  I had to listen to Zarine and Molly in order to listen to God.  It was an amazing 3 months.  In addition to hearing the gospel in a different way, I learned a lot about cooking with curry from them as well, which was a great side benefit.

This listening to others in order to hear God’s voice can be a hard discipline to master.  We make the assumption that God will somehow make His Voice come straight to us, without any kind of intermediary.  That, that’s how God is supposed to speak to us so we know absolutely, without question, that it was God speaking to us.

But think of the main problem that people had with Jesus.  Jesus said God’s Voice was speaking through him.  To the religious teachers and leaders, that was blasphemy: thinking that you spoke for God, or spoke as God.  So there’s a fine line we might have to walk, listening for God through other people.  Some people who say they speak for God are the worst witnesses.  And those who humbly walk through their day may be the very ones whom God is choosing to make His Voice known.

The whole premise behind the book of Job is that these three friends show up to try and “comfort” Job, and end up totally misrepresenting God.  They presume to speak for God to Job, telling him exactly what God told them to say to Job.  But Job didn’t buy it, and neither did God.

When listening for God, the difference is the presumption.  The three friends presumed to speak for God.  They were full of religious arrogance.  But the real mouthpiece of God is the person who has no idea she is being the mouthpiece of God.  But we can tell the difference, can’t we?  When the Voice is true, we hear the sincerity and humility behind it, that she has no idea she’s being used by God.  That’s what we’re listening for.

I’ve been watching some of the back episodes of the TV show, Bones.  It’s a show about an FBI Special Agent, named Booth, who is teamed up with a cultural anthropologist that Booth has nicknamed “Bones,” because she works with identifying dead people’s bones.  Bones is also an atheist, who believes religion is all cultural mumbo jumbo.  Booth is a strict Catholic, and their dialogue about religion is sometimes fun to follow.

In one episode, they are trying to solve the murder of an Amish teenager.  During one of the interrogations of an Amish community member, Bones is spouting her anthropological disagreements with the man’s religion.  He is strong in his faith, and she’s not hearing him.  She’s hearing the man through her own prejudices.  At one point in the interview, the Amish man tells Bones, “You are not hearing me; we believe the greatest sin is to presume to speak for God.”

I found myself totally agreeing with the Amish man.  How many atrocities have been committed by those who have “presumed to speak for God?”  Poor God!  He’s got all these people wandering around the planet spouting off about how they know exactly what God thinks, and what God wants.  They are totally clear-headed about how they think like God and know God’s mind.  They’ve got it straight from God, or so they say.  The people who may be the most dangerous are those who think they have the direct pipeline to God, rather than listen to God through what I would call, the humble others.

The best way to listen for God may be to listen to others, but NOT those who presume to speak FOR God.  Other than Jesus.  So it is a bit of a messy listening process.

It is to listen to those who presume nothing of the sort, and suddenly, when they have spoken, we know—we know for sure that God has spoken!  And spoken to us!  That’s how the people reacted to Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  People said, “Here is someone who speaks with authority.”  That is, authenticity, humility.

When we hear people like that, isn’t it usually the case that the speaker has no idea that they’ve been used by God as God’s Voice.  But we do.  We’re sure of it.  We may have been mulling over some situation for some time, praying about it, contemplating, and then BOOM!  God speaks through an unsuspecting mouthpiece.

That’s why we have to listen so attentively for God.  We never know when, how, or through whom God will speak.  And God has NO restrictions through whom He can speak.  If we put those restrictions on God, thinking all the lines have to be within the dots, we will miss that great Voice, and the words that may be meant just for us.  We may miss the opportunity to hear God speak because we expected God can only speak one way, or only through certain people who presume to be God’s mouthpiece.  And, after all, just think.  God may use you as an unsuspecting mouthpiece for someone else, carrying a God message you had no idea you were speaking.

Experiencing God: Station and Calling

"Experiencing God:  Station and Calling"
1 Corinthians 7:17

I’m going to switch things up a bit this morning.  I’m going to disagree with and take a different angle from chapter 8 in Experiencing God.  One of the groups I visited last week was doing a bit of what I would call, “dialoging with the chapter by disagreeing with parts of it.”  I encouraged them to do so, and by doing so, caught the bug.  As I read chapter 8, I found there was a lot I was “dialoguing” with.

The premise of the chapter is, “Doing things God’s way is always best” (pg. 95).  There’s nothing wrong with that premise.  That’s what we are about as God’s people.  I think we’d all agree on that.

The question, then, is, “How do we know what God’s way is?”  I think there are several answers to that question.  One of my problems with this chapter in the book is that the examples given by the author of the people in the Old Testament who exhibited knowing God’s way don’t fit with the rest of us and our ordinary, everyday lives.

People like Noah, who was told very clearly what he was supposed to do (build an ark big enough for a few people and every species of life), even to the point of being given the measurements for the ark.

People like Moses, to whom God showed up in a burning bush that wasn’t burnt up, and told exactly what to do to free the slaves from Egypt.  And got a cool magic staff in the process.

People like Abraham, who was going to be made the father of the Israelite nation.  Not only that, he was so faithful, he was willing to sacrifice his own son in order to show God how far he—Abraham—was willing to go with God.

Here’s my problem.  These are great people.  They certainly have been held up and revered as God-fearing, faithful people who did absolutely everything God asked.  And God was very clear with them about what He wanted done and how they were to do it.  They are a model for all people of faith.  Yes?  But how many of us are asked by God to be a Noah, a Moses, an Abraham?  These men, and more, were asked by God to do world moving tasks.  They were asked to be part of a world-wide pandemic that God would use to purge evil from the earth.  They were asked to free a whole nation of people, and get that nation established in the Holy Land.

But there’s a whole lot of the rest of us, who are never asked by God to do something even close to that, who have not been talked to by God through a burning bush, or any other kind of plant life, to do something so world shaping.  We are just the normal people trying to muddle through life, making decisions about our everyday life, and hoping everything works out for the best.  We pray about stuff, and God seems silent.  We end up feeling unimportant to God and the larger scheme of God’s history, so we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as faithfully as we know how.

The title of this chapter is, “God’s Invitation To Join Him In His Work.”  But with the examples (Moses, Noah, and Abraham) the author uses, it makes us feel that that invitation is going to be some huge world changing task.  And that we have to know exactly what God wants or we’re going to blow it.

What I want to explore with you this morning is the premise that God does invite us to join him in his work, but does so in an entirely different way than what this chapter describes.  And it’s a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way than Blackaby would be comfortable with.  Blackaby wants us all to be absolutely clear what God wants us to do in every circumstance, before we do it, or we’re going to mess things up.  My thought is that if we knew all that, we’d be God.  But we aren’t.  We’re a bunch of human beings who are ambling around trying to do the best we can with very little information.  Even from God, sometimes.

What I want to talk about is living out our lives according to a theology or doctrine of vocation, rather than always thinking we have to, and can get, explicit plans from God about life choices that lay before us, as Blackaby states.

The most important doctrine that came out of the Reformation was “justification by faith alone.”  But the second most important was the “doctrine of vocation.”  We hear a ton in churches about the first, and nothing about the second.  So it is that doctrine of vocation I want you us to think about this week and talk about in your groups, as opposed to sitting around waiting for God to tell you exactly what to do. 

First, this is what a theology of vocation is NOT.  A theology of vocation has to do with a "calling," but not in the sense that you hear God's voice summoning you to do a great work for God--like building an ark.  The theology of vocation is not some kind of "occupationalism" with a particular focus on your job.  The doctrine of vocation isn't about evangelizing on the job.  Nor does the theology of vocation mean that everyone is a minister.

The doctrine of vocation is about the priesthood of all believers.  The theology of vocation is about God's glory at the expense of our own.  The doctrine of vocation is primarily about living the Christian life and developing eyes and a heart for seeing where God is hidden even in the mundane activities of our everyday lives.  How do we see the glory in the seemingly inglorious?

We are indebted to the reformer Martin Luther and Lutheran theologians who followed Martin Luther for developing this theology of vocation.  In doing so, Luther and his followers used the Lord's Prayer as a way into understanding the theology of vocation.  This is how it goes.

When we pray the Lord's Prayer, one of the things we ask God to give us is our daily bread.  And God does.  But the way God gives us our daily bread is not by dropping a loaf out of the heavens upon our plates each time we sit down to eat.  Instead, God gives us our daily bread through the vocations of farmers, millers, bakers.  In our current day we might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, the lady at the checkout counter.  Virtually every step of our whole economic and vocational system contributes to that piece of toast you had for breakfast.  And when you thanked God for that food, you were thanking God, not just for the toast, but for all the vocations of people that God called and put in place.

God makes gifts of healing happen most often not through out-and-out miracles but by means of medical vocations.  God proclaims the Word by means of vocational pastors.  God teaches by means of teachers who made that vocational choice.  God creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, authors, and musicians whom God has given particular talents.

Vocation is not just us doing our jobs based on our talents.  Vocation is God at work.  Martin Luther once said, "God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid."  According to Luther, vocation is "the mask of God."  God is hidden and active in vocation.  We only see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor, or pastor, or artist.  But, looming behind these human masks, God is genuinely present and active in what they are doing for us.

In this way, vocation is part of God's providence.  Providence is a word that describes that overall carefulness that God has for the world.  God is everywhere and at all times taking care of every bit of creation.  Providence describes how God is intimately involved in the governance of his creation in its every detail.  People, exercising their vocation, is one way God carries out that providence in the world.

Thus, whenever someone does something for you--brings your meal at a restaurant, cleans up after you, builds your house, fixes your heating and air-conditioning, teaches you something new, draws your blood--be grateful for the human beings whom God is using to bless you and praise him for his unmerited gifts expressed in their vocations.

But here’s another side of the issue I’m struggling with.  Blackaby says in this chapter that you have to have absolutely clear indications from God about what you are asked to do and how you are supposed to do it.  If you don’t get that, don’t do anything.

Let’s think back to your breakfast.  Was the farmer who grew the grain that went into that piece of toast you had this morning a Christian?  How about the author who wrote the book you just read—a book that moved you and stirred your emotions.  How can you glorify God for the work of an unbeliever who didn’t wait for God to tell him to go drive his tractor and planter across the field?

The theology of vocation answers that question.  In God’s rule over the world, God uses even those who do not know him, as well as those who do.  Every good and perfect gift comes from God (says James 1:17).  But the emphasis is on God and the gift, not the one who particularly made it happen.  Certainly human beings sin in their vocations and sin against their vocations, resisting and fighting against God’s purpose.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of difference between a Christian farmer planting his field and a non-Christian farmer who does essentially the same thing.  God can use both to bring forth daily bread, which God, in turn, distributes to Christian and non-Christian alike.  Whether one simply went about his business, or one sat in his chair waiting for God to tell him exactly what to do didn’t seem to matter.

But there is a huge difference for the farmer.  The Christian farmer works out of faith, and his faithfully chosen, God given vocation.  The non-Christian farmer works out of unbelief, or sheer economic reasons, or whatever.

Martin Luther actually used two different words for this difference in vocation.  One word was “station,” and the other word is, “calling.”  Non-Christians are given a station in life, a place where God has assigned them, whether they see God’s hand in it or not.  Christians, though, are those who hear God’s voice in His Word, so they understand their station in terms of God’s personal calling.

The Christians’s primary vocation is to be a child of God.  But God has also stationed that Christian to live a life in the world.  The Christian, in faith, now understands his or her life and what God has given them to do as a “calling” from the Lord—that God is now putting them on, using them as a mask, to live for and serve others in a hidden sort of way.

It may seem strange to think that such mundane activities as spending time with your spouse and children, going to work, and taking part in your community are part of your holy calling.  The daily grind can be a spiritual adventure.  But ordinary life is where God has placed most of us.  Noah’s, Abraham’s, and Moses’ may be called to do some extraordinary thing.  But not most of us.  Most of us are just trying to get by, making our vocational decisions faithfully as we move in and out of our families, the workplace, this church, the culture, the public square—those are the places and situations where God has given us our calling and vocations, where God has asked us to be his mask so that he can go about serving the people he loves.