Sermon for 25 Mar 2012

FIRST READING Jeremiah 31:31–34

31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

PSALM Psalm 51:1–12

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out my offenses.  2 Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.  3 For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me.  4 Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment.  5 Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb.  6 Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, and would have me know wisdom deep within.  7 Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow.  8 Let me hear joy and gladness; that the body you have broken may rejoice.  9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my wickedness.  10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.  12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.

SECOND READING Hebrews 5:5–10

5 So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; 6 as he says also in another place, ” You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” 7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10 having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

GOSPEL John 12:20–33

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. 27 Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say — ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

ARE YOU LISTENING?

As I began studying for this sermon, a couple of things came to mind. First was how troubled Christ must have been as the day of His arrest came closer and the fact that it seemed no one was listening. I know that over the years I’ve been accused of not listening or having “selective hearing” as many people have. This may come from trying to do two things at once or it could come from simply not understanding the message. Or, as is the case most often, it comes from simply not being willing to stop what we’re doing, and actively listen to what’s being said. It reminds me of the story of a man sitting on his couch watching television.
The game is on and his wife tries to engage him in conversation: “Dear, the plumber didn’t come to fix the leak behind the water heater today.” Husband: “Uh-huh.”
Realizing that her husband is tuned into the game instead of her, she tries to get his attention: “The pipe burst today and flooded the basement.” Husband: “Quiet. It’s third down and goal to go.” Wife: “Some of the wiring got wet and almost electrocuted Fluffy.” Husband: “Darn it! Touchdown.” Wife: “The vet says he’ll be better in a week.” Husband: “Can you get me a Pepsi?” Wife: “The plumber told me that he was happy that our pipe broke because he can now afford to go on vacation.” Husband: “Aren’t you listening to me? I said I could use a Pepsi!” Wife: “And Stanley, I’m leaving you. The plumber and I are flying to Acapulco in the morning.” Husband: “Can’t you please stop all that yakking and get me a Pepsi? The trouble around here is that nobody ever listens to me.” How familiar does this sound?
It was six days before the celebration of the Passover. Passover was a massive celebration in Jerusalem. Josephus, the notable Jewish historian, estimated that over two million people were attracted to the great Passover Feast. Devout Jews from all around the Mediterranean came to offer their sacrifices to God and to pay their half shekel temple tax. We’re told that 256,500 lambs were slain at one such Passover and that each lamb represented at least ten worshippers, so you can imagine the crowd that was present if that many animals were sacrificed. Among those who came for the celebration were Romans, Persians, Syrian, Egyptians, and Greeks.
As our lesson for today opens, Jesus is in Bethany, where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. Bethany was a small village about one and a half miles from Jerusalem. This was some time after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and in gratitude, Mary and Martha were throwing a dinner in Jesus’ honor. Lazarus, of course, was there, alive and in the flesh, as we say.
A large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because they wanted to see Him, but also to see Lazarus. Lazarus had become somewhat of a celebrity himself. We can imagine the tabloid headlines: “Bethany Resident First Man to Be Raised from the Dead.” We noted a few weeks ago that since the beginning of His ministry, Jesus had a rock star kind of following. And the raising of Lazarus did nothing to discourage that. As one of the Pharisees said to a colleague, “Look how the whole world has gone after him!”
Among those who came to see Jesus were some Greeks. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. Philip’s surname was Greek and his home village was known as a place where there were numerous Greek descendants. Maybe the visiting Greeks thought Philip would be more open to their inquiries than the other disciples. “Sir,” they said to him, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; and together they told Jesus. It seems like a reasonable request. An appeal that the average rabbi would be honored to grant. But this was Jesus and His response in many ways leaves us as puzzled as it did the disciples.
It appears that unlike other rabbis, Jesus simply wasn’t impressed. Instead, He replied, as He often did, with a somewhat cryptic message about His coming death. He concludes His response to them by saying, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” And it’s this voice of God that I’d like to focus on for a few moments this morning.
From internal evidence, this was an audible voice, a voice which could be heard by anyone listening. But notice: John tells us that the crowd that was there and heard the voice coming down out of heaven dismissed it, as thunder, while others said an angel had spoken to Jesus. In response to their reaction, Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine . . .” Interesting responses don’t you think? God speaks from the heavens, but the people who heard God’s voice simply dismissed it as thunder.
When I read this reaction, I thought of that phrase that the television show Seinfeld introduced to the world, the expression, “yada, yada, yada.” For the most part this expression is used by the person who doesn’t want to go into boring, inconsequential details. Things like, “New tax code changes went into effect today, yada, yada, yada . . .” Expressed differently, the phrase “blah, blah, blah” is another response that fills the same purpose in today’s vernacular. In some ways it reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoons of when the teacher is talking to one of the gang. The only sound we hear from the teacher is waa, waa, waa, waa waa.
To the crowd that day when God spoke, it apparently meant nothing to them. All they seemly heard was “yada yada yada . . . blah, blah, blah” or it was only the sound of thunder. Dr. James Lemler was preaching one time about the Trinity. He told about a couple of parents who had gone home from church and during Sunday lunch were talking about his sermon. In the midst of their conversation, their second-grade daughter sitting at the table chimed in. “Oh, Father Lemler’s sermons, they’re always the same,” she said, “You know . . . blah, blah, blah, . . . love . . . blah, blah, blah . . . love.” Dr. Lemler said he was amused and thought to himself, “Hey, this little girl really got it . . . the message, the repetition, the core, the redundancy.
“And so it is with the Holy Trinity,” says, Dr. Lemler, “. . . Over and over again . . . blah, blah, blah, love . . . blah, blah, blah, love . . .” “God the Creator . . . I love you and give you life. “God the Redeemer . . . I love you and embrace you in that love forever.
“God the Spirit . . . I love you and warm your heart and your soul with my love. “Blah, blah, blah love . . .”
I wish that’s what the people heard that day when the voice spoke from heaven, “Yada, yada, yada love . . . .” But Mark’s description indicates otherwise: “The crowd that was there and heard the voice said it had thundered . . . ” Which leads us to the following truth: Many people are so disconnected from God, that if God were to speak to them, they wouldn’t hear His voice. All they would hear would be thunder. Jesus said to those who heard only thunder, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine,” but they did not hear.
There’s a rather obscure definition of sin in the Bible. It comes from a Hebrew word that means “a failure to listen.” When we fail to listen, we’re cut off from whoever is speaking to us. In George Bernard Shaw’s play St. Joan, which is about Joan of Arc, Joan tells of hearing God’s messages. She’s talking to King Charles. Charles doesn’t appreciate this crazy lady in armor who insists on leading armies. He’s threatened by her. He says, “Oh, your voices, your voices, always your voices. Why don’t the voices come to me? I am king, not you.”
To this Joan replies, “They do come to you, but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the Angelus rings . . . you cross yourself and have done with it. But, if you prayed from your heart and listened to the trilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.” Joan heard the voice of God; the king, if he heard anything at all, heard only thunder. The reason was that she was listening for that voice. The sad truth is that some people are so disconnected from God that they never hear God’s voice. Which brings us to another realization; other people are so preoccupied with their own pursuits that they’re unaware when God does speak.
There’s a time-honored story about an old farmer who was persuaded by his nephew to visit the big city. The young man proudly took the farmer on a tour of the large metropolis. At one point as they walked down the street the old man suddenly stopped and asked, “Did you hear that?” The young man looked at the milling pedestrians and the traffic and replied, “Hear what?” “A cricket,” the old man said as he walked toward a little tuft of grass growing out of a crack next to a tall building. Sure enough, there tucked in the crack was a cricket. The young man was amazed.
“How could you pick up the sound of a cricket in all this noise?” he asked. The old farmer didn’t say a word and just reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of coins and dropped them on the sidewalk. Immediately a number of people began to reach for their pockets or look down at the sidewalk. The old man observed, “We hear what our ears are trained to hear.” Psychologist Ellen Langer says that many people are so preoccupied with their daily tasks that they rarely listen to those around them.
It’s like that little game that children used to play: What do we call a tree that has acorns? An Oak. What do we call a funny story? A Joke. What do we call the sound a frog makes? A Croak. What do we call the white of an egg? How many of you said, in your mind “a yolk”? The correct answer, of course, is “the white.” But nearly everyone gets it wrong. They’ve become accustomed to words ending in the “oke” sound, and so they answer, “The yolk.”
How well do we listen to those around us? How well do we listen to God?
Author Mark Buchanan tells about a scene from the movie Ray which was based on the life of musician Ray Charles. Ray Charles went blind at age seven. He lived his childhood in poverty, in a one room shack at the edge of a sharecropper’s field. In this particular scene from the movie, we see Ray as a child run into his house and trip over a chair. He starts to wail for his mother. She stands at the stove, right in front of him, and instinctively reaches out to lift him. But then she stops . . . backs up . . . stands still . . . watches.
“Young Ray stops crying. He listens. He hears, behind him, the water on the wood stove whistling to a boil. He hears, outside, the wind pass like a hand through cornstalks. He hears the thud of horse hooves on the road, the creak and clatter of the wagon they pull. Then he hears, in front of him, the thin faint scratch of a grasshopper walking the worn floorboards of his mama’s cottage. He inches over and, attentive now to every sigh and twitch, gathers the tiny insect in his hand. He holds it in his open palm. ‘I hear you, too, Mama,’ he says. To this she weeps with pride and sorrow and wonder.” Later he explains to someone, “I hear like you see.” Ray Charles trained himself to listen. That would be wise for those of us who have our sight. Listen to our colleagues. Listen to our loved ones. Listen to our God. As I’ve mentioned before, true listening isn’t a passive activity. Listening takes effort.
It’s also important to understand that God does speak to those who do listen. Not audibly, perhaps. We worry when somebody says they hear voices, as we should. The voice of God most often is an inward voice, a silent voice, a voice within the mind. God at times may speak through a friend. God may speak through a strong emotion. When someone says, “I felt God telling me that I should support that mission project.” I’m confident God did. The greatest untapped source of power in this world is the unheeded voice of God in human affairs. Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine.”
Many of us were moved a few years back when the story came out about how the D.C. snipers were apprehended. Terry and I were stationed in New Jersey at that time in 2002 and we followed the almost daily updates that came from those tragic shootings that were being perpetrated in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Before the pair were caught, ten people were killed and three others were critically injured. Thankfully, a good number of citizens came forward to assist police in solving this heinous crime. Among those that offered to assist was trucker Ron Lantz, a resident of Ludlow, KY.
Lantz was listening to a radio show when he heard a description of a car being sought by officials in connection with the sniper case. A short time later he noticed a car that matched the description, a Chevy Caprice, at a Maryland rest stop and called 9-1-1. He was one of several who called police that night, and not the first. However, he did play an important part in capturing the two suspects. After calling 9-1-1, Lantz and another driver blocked the exits to the rest area, effectively trapping the suspects until police could arrive.
Here’s what’s special about Lantz’ story, as verified by several trusted sources. About a week before he helped make this capture, Lantz was driving down the Interstate when he heard another report about the snipers. He decided somebody needed to pray about this situation. He got on his C-B radio and sent out a call to any other truckers who were nearby to join him at a certain rest area for a time of prayer about this situation. It was getting dark when Lantz pulled his rig into the rest area. There were about 50 other rigs already there. They all got out of their cabs and stood in a circle, holding hands, 60 or 70 of them, including some wives and children.
“Let’s pray,” Ron Lantz said. And for almost one hour they did just that. They prayed that these killings would come to an end. And one week later Ron Lantz spotted a Chevrolet Caprice at a Maryland rest stop. Are the two related? Some would say, “Coincidence.” Yada, yada, yada. Blah, blah, blah. All they will hear is thunder. And perhaps they’re right. Perhaps it was coincidence. I seriously doubt it. God works many times through those who call on Him in prayer. And I also know this, if you’re not daily communicating with God, making known your requests and actively listening for God’s reply, you’re missing out on the greatest resources life has to offer, the leading of God in an uncertain world.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it this way: “We need to find God and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature, trees, flowers, grass thrive in silence; see the stars, the moon and sun, how they move in silence . . . The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us.”
God spoke from heaven that day, but all most people heard was thunder. How about you and me? What do we hear when God is trying to talk to us? Do we hear God’s voice or do we hear the noise of our busy lives or the world? God wants us to take time to listen to what He has for us. You never know, if you take the time to actively listen, you might hear the answer to your prayers.
Amen