'The Sound of His Voice"

                   

Jan 22, 2017 Readings:  Psalm 27    1 Corinthians 1: 10 -18    Matt 4: 12-23

How many of us here today remember listening to the TV or radio show “Art Linkletter and the Kids”  Art was interviewing children with a bible school quiz.

Here are some funny answers given by children.   

Who was Noah's wife:  A lad calls out,   she was Joan of the Ark.
What’s A myth:  another calls out, I know!!  a female moth.
Why is it that sometimes it is difficult to hear in church: Another pips up  “the agnostics aren’t good.”
Where does the Pope live:   in the vacuum.
Who knows the Fifth Commandment:   "Humor your father and mother."
This is my favorite of all:  This is a hard one,  anyone know about LOTS wife.
one of the older ones replied, Oh Ya  I know. “ She was a pillar of salt by day and my dad said but it bet she was a ball of fire by night. “Kids say the funniest things don’t  they”

When I was growing up there was a show on TV that I liked it was called “Wild Kingdom”.  There was one episode I remember as being quite fascinating.  The camera focused on a Mother seal and her  pup, who had just been born.  Soon after birthing her baby, the mother abandoned the pup on the shore in search of food in the rich waters off the coast.  Other seal Mom’s had done the same.  The camera stayed focused on her while out in the ocean,  but when the mother returned she didn’t return to the same shore line and there were hundreds of other seals and pups there.  I remember thinking they all looked the same, they will never find each other again.   The camera continued to follow that Mother as she called to her pup and listened for the response.  Following each others voice and sent soon Mother and pup were reunited.  The host explained that from birth, the sent and sound of the pup seal is imprinted in the Mother’s memory, and the sent and sound of the Mother is imprinted in the pups memory.   It’s a mystery of nature and know one really knows for sure how it works we just know it works. 

 Do you suppose, that’s the way it is us and God?   We are somehow imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a life time we will find each other.  Jesus’ public ministry began with the use of his voice.  He called out to the first four of his disciples, fisherman.   Out of the many voices these men would have heard up to this particular time in their lives, none were heard with such authority, this voice was to change their lives forever.    What do you suppose was different here, what was so special about Jesus’ voice, what made His voice different?   Now that’s a question I want you to take home with you today, think about it, read about it, spend time in search.  As readers, we are struck by the idea, that immediately these men left what was familiar, easy and safe to begin a new life and follow a man they never really known or had met before.   It was as if the voice they heard that day was imprinted upon their memory, their very souls.  They were not only compelled to follow Him,  but it seems as though they had unconsciously been waiting to hear it.  As strange as it seems too many, this voice caused them to leave everything, family, friends, and careers, to become as He said “fishers of men.”

Augustine writes “our hearts are restless until they rest in thee”  Indeed it would seem that these fisherman had restless hearts.  So restless that when they head the voice of Jesus calling to them, they could do nothing else but obey.   Are you restless these days?  Have you ever experienced this longing to know, have you ever thought to yourself, is this all there is?  Has that inner small voice been speaking to you?   Causing you to go seeking, searching for something more, something that seems to be missing in your life? 

I wish the task of discernment was that easy for us today.   But truly I tell you, for many life and faith are complicated.   There are many voices competing for our attention and loyalty today.   Voices that are calling out to us:   this way, that way, enjoyment and happiness can be found here.  Follow me I know the best way, come here, go there, buy this, get that, this is what you need.   Have you felt the pressure folks?   Well maybe within the last verse of Matthew this morning,  we can find a clue to help save us from the many worldly voices that are calling out for attention.   It is so important for us to hear the voice of God speaking to us and take it in.  The reading doesn’t end with the disciples just following Jesus, for many are claiming to do this, yet are still not free.   The reading ends by reminding us what Jesus sets out for us to do.  What his voice has called us to be and to do.  It is not enough just to say were are listening to the message and are his followers, it’s not enough to say “I study the word.”  It is not enough to say “I attend Sunday morning worship services regularly”.   It more than that, for we are called out, out of our comfortable lives, our of our comfortable pew, to let others know that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  We enter the Kingdom now not later, not after death folks, we enter in the here and the now.  This is accomplished not just by following His voice but by doing his work.  We are called to discipleship meaning we are called to find and feed the poor, to find and cloth the naked, to visit the sick, and to encourage others to call upon His name, the one who heels the broken hearted.  We are all called by God, through Jesus to discipleship.  God’s voice is imprinted in our genes folks, it in the human DNA and we are marked for service to one another.  It truly is the only way to freedom, it is the only way into to the Kingdom.