Seeking the Better Things

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday August 4, 2013, the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Later this month St. Andrew will call and install their new Interim Pastor so while I am still on the fill-in list, my season of frequent service to this congregation is coming to an end. Thanks be to God for their hospitality and generosity during this season.

Unfortunately this week there is only text, no audio or video.

Hosea 11:1-11

Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

I would like to begin by saying how much I enjoyed Tara Porr’s sermon from last week.[1] I particularly enjoyed how she reimagined Hosea’s proposal, if you can call it that, to Gomer. The way she took scripture and inflected it into the way we speak was marvelous. When she used Gomer’s voice to say “That’s so sweet!” I laughed. It was a wonderful way to take a whore-endous, whore-rific, whore-rible piece of scripture—puns intended—and replay it in a modern way.

But it was her skill with handling the symbolism of Hosea wedding a woman of many sexual partners symbolically representing our Faithful Lord’s wedding to a nation that takes many partners that was brilliant. Still, I can imagine her preparing that sermon, reading that passage and thinking to herself “how in the world does this preach?” because I felt the same way when I read these passages from Colossians and Luke.

She read from the densest use of the word “whore” found in scripture. I get to share “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)” and “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.” After reading these passages, when I say, “This is the Word of the Lord” I almost expect to hear the congregation reply “Really?” instead of “Amen.”

Paul tells Timothy that all scripture is good and beneficial for study and teaching, but these have an edge to them that point to many uncomfortable lessons.

Then Marie showed me an article from the Wall Street Journal blogs about the actor Ben Foster who is starring in a movie based on retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s memoir “Lone Survivor.” This book and its movie are based on one of his unit’s reconnaissance missions in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2005. Their objective was to kill or capture a Taliban leader. On missions like these in the wilderness of Afghanistan they would occasionally cross paths with local shepherds.

In a recent interview, Mr. Foster was asked about this scene. He replied, “The ancient question of war is do you kill a shepherd and save your own life and potentially endanger your people, or do you let him go? They decided to let them go, and these brave young men were hunted down.” [2]

Foster continues, “[Luttrell] was the lone survivor, and asked a man in this village to give him water. The law there is if you give a man water who asks for help in war, you’re taking him in as a family member and you must protect him to the death.” [3]

The reason I chose to tell this story is because I want us to consider our family. Who is our family? How do we welcome new members into our family? What does it mean to be a member of a family or more righteously this family? We’ll get back to that.

Our gospel reading opens with a definition of family which is gaining some traction these days, the family as an economic unit. In my 20’s I had a friend whose grandfather owned a large soybean farm in Kansas. This man and his wife had four children and after the parents’ death, each of them owned a quarter share in the farm. They had it all worked out, and the family as an economic unit was secure. They didn’t run into the trouble Luke’s gospel reports when Jesus had the brother screaming, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

This man wanted his request heard, and knew how to fawn while asking it too. “Teacher,” other translations say “Rabbi,” in a word he appealed to our Lord’s earthly status and the traditions of the thousands of teachers who came before him. Maybe if he had thought of Jesus as Lord rather than as teacher he would have been better off. As important as the family as an economic unit is, Jesus did not take to the question well. Jesus flat out asked the man who he thought he was to make this decision.

Jesus adds to his lesson telling the man and all with ears to hear, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

The story that follows is one which stock brokers, insurance agents, and others who sell 401(k)’s don’t want us to hear.  In a nutshell we can plan all we want, but there will be a day; and that day could be tomorrow or it could be 100 years from now. Depending on our own resources and taking joy in stuff ultimately leads down the road to nowhere.

So, Jesus tells us to be on our guard against all kinds greed and then tells a story about a man who has a special place for all of the stuff his life has brought him. I’m not talking about his barns either, in truth I’m talking about his heart.

There is a phrase in that sentence that always gets the best of me. Jesus doesn’t warn us about financial greed alone. As for this man, his greed took root in more than just his possessions; it took root in eating, drinking, and merriment; everything his life can buy but nothing God provides. He warns the people about all kinds of greed. I could give you a litany of the sorts of greed that corrupts the lives of human beings, but the list would be long, the oration would be boring, and the recitation ultimately incomplete.

In the end, it is enough to know that Jesus warns the people about all kinds of greed, not the run of the mill garden variety financial kind. Then it’s Paul who takes that laundry list and names it something else, he calls all kinds of greed idolatry.

Now if there isn’t a more loaded word than idolatry I’d like you to share it with me. I’m not saying you can’t find one, I’m saying if you do I’d like to get prepared to be frightened. Simply put, Idolatry is putting anything, the idol, before God. A pastor friend from Colorado thought the NFL was the perfect American idol. His opinion came from the simple truth that in the Mountain Time zone games start at 11:00 AM. With worship starting at 10:30 folks didn’t get out until the end of the first quarter. If there was a potluck it would be halftime before fans got home.

So many people stayed home during football season that giving actually went down during those four months, longer if the home team made the playoffs. Considering this was during John Elway’s heyday on the reins of the Broncos, the playoffs were almost a foregone conclusion. Yes, my pastor made a pretty good argument for the NFL being an idol.

As for taking this to the “loaded idolatry” level let me finish saying “Texas high school football” and get out of the way. Considering Allen ISD just finished a $60 million facility, that’s not a sanctuary or a tabernacle, it’s a bloody cathedral to high school football.

Is it an idol? I don’t know the people well enough to know, but $60 million for a high school football stadium? If the Church of Jesus Christ had fundraising like that there would be no hunger in East Texas.

Paul begins this portion of his epistle to the Colossians saying, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Paul is writing this to the saints in Colossae, he’s writing to believers, the church. I make this point because some translations don’t say “So if…” they say “Since…” Paul is not asking whether they have been raised with Christ or not. In a lovely turn of a rhetorical phrase he is saying that they are raised in Christ.

Since they are raised in Christ their minds should not be on the things of the earth. They should not be set on the idols we make with our own hands and worshiped like they mean something. They are called to be of a higher mind. They are called to live the life they have been freely given at great cost so that we may be with Christ in God.

We are to surrender fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and all forms of greed (which is all forms of idolatry) forsaking anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. We are to be clothed with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

We are to live in Christ so that we may not only be able to seek the better things, but accept them and nurture them when we discern them.

So, what does this have to do with family? Let’s begin with who is in the family.

Paul covered this pretty well. There is no longer Greek or Jew—cultural identification and membership is considered moot.

As for circumcised and uncircumcised this relates to faith. As culture bears no more meaning; neither does religious affiliation.

As for barbarians and Scythians, the Barbarians (with a capital B) were Turks and the Scythians were Iranian. This could have meant “from west or east” as much as it could mean “vicious people” verses “more cultured vicious people.”

Slave and Free had to do with social status as well as economic status. It comes down to whether or not you have freedom on earth, you have freedom in Christ.

These differentiations are vitally important because in this day and time we have to beware of who we say doesn’t belong. Let us remember that after the “Slaughter of the Innocents” in Matthew's gospel comes the “Escape to Egypt.” Our Lord’s family arrived as strangers in a strange land. They had no visas or permits. The Lord told the Jews to stay out of Egypt so there would have been few kin folk when they arrived. Thank God for the gifts of the Magi or else they would have had no gold or other liquid assets when they arrived.

In short, our Lord was once a political refugee and an illegal alien. In Christ there is freedom for all. This is vitally important to our Lord today because while an infant he was once was a refugee, a prisoner to the power and politics of his time.

How do we welcome new members into our family? In a way, it’s not completely unlike how the Afghani man accepted Marcus Luttrell, with water. While they extended a cup of drinking water, we become family in the waters of our baptism. In this holy sacrament we are welcomed into the community which Christ has ordained to be his body. In these holy waters we are baptized and sealed by the spirit.

In the waters of our baptism we suffer the death that faces all who come into the chaos of water only to be received into new life as a member of the Christian community. We are welcomed in this messy, messy sacrament to join together in the messy lives we live together. It is this unity in Christ, as he too was baptized in the waters of new life, that we come together as family. Family where we defend each one’s dignity against the world that would love to see that new life crushed.

So what does it mean to be a part of this family? It means more than showing up once a week and touching base like a seven-day game of tag where you have to come once a week or “you’re it.”

It means we defend one another. This isn’t unlike the answer to the question “who is my neighbor.” A neighbor is someone who shows mercy, someone who makes a difference. But neighbors are largely a voluntary alliance. We don’t get to pick our family.

Family, in family there is love and respect and dignity even when your little sister bugs the living daylights out of you. Even when your brother borrows the car and doesn’t bother to put gas in it, family is still family. When the Session, Presbytery, or General Assembly votes don’t go as we believe they should, we are still family. Even when family leaves, we are still family. In this love, even in the midst of strife, in the waters of our baptism God’s peace is there.

This is where I share our joy. Nurtured by the food and drink of the Lord’s Supper we share the joy found in our Call to Worship. In the words of the 107^th Psalm, Let them give thanks for the mercy of God, for the wonders the LORD does for all people. For God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Whoever is wise will ponder these things, and consider well the mercies of the LORD. Halleluiah!

God satisfies the hungry heart with the better things. It’s up to us to seek them, nurture them, and share them with the world.

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[1] “When Words Aren’t Enough” based on Hosea 1:1-10. Miss Porr is a student at Princeton Seminary and about to start a yearlong internship in Groomsport, Northern Ireland. Godspeed and have a great year Tara.

[2] Chai, Barbara, “Ben Foster on how ‘Lone Survivor’ asks ancient questions of war.” http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/04/16/ben-foster-on-how-lone-survivor-asks-ancient-questions-of-war/, retrieved on July 31, 2013.

[3] I am reminded that Luttrell wrote in his book that he was offered tea instead of water. Foster’s recollection may be inaccurate, but it both is what he told Barbara Chai and works better with the end of the sermon.

BIG G, little g

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 17, 2010, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 31:27-34
Psalm 119:97-104

2Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Ancient Babylon had its stories, its own myths about their gods. Their creation story was written between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago and is found in a set of ancient writings called the Enuma Elish. The Babylonian creation myth is known as the story of Marduk and Tiamat.[1]

The story begins when Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountains, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.

Apsu and Tiamat became the forbearers of a host of gods including a great-grandson named Ea. Ea was the cleverest of the gods and with his magic became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his ancestors.

Eventually, these gods caused such a ruckus that Apsu proposed to Tiamat that he kill all of their descendants. Tiamat did not favor this plan, but Apsu decided to set it into motion despite her objections.

Ea and his siblings became aware of these plans so he hatched a scheme of his own. He cast a spell on Apsu, and pulling Apsu’s crown from his head he slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu’s waters. It was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.

The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained that Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, to whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father’s battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.

Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat’s monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu’s battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting into it. He shot an arrow down her throat splitting her heart, and she was slain.

After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat’s water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat’s salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat’s body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu’s fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigris and Euphrates creating a fertile valley. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.

Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work and they rebelled burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to his father Ea. He had Kingu, Tiamat’s general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu’s blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals.

This is the story of Marduk and Tiamat.

Now, the creation story we are familiar with from Genesis begins with a God whose love is so great that humanity is created to share that love. Humanity, we were created to be in relationship with God and to love God. Our world is not the remains of a dispatched goddess. We aren’t made of the stuff of yet another slain god. We aren’t substitutes for gods who went on strike for better wages or working conditions, or whatever reasons gods go on strike.

Let me just say, and I trust that you agree, I prefer the Hebrew creation story found to the Babylonian every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Created in a loving relationship by the Lord God is far better than being created as slaves of a demigod.

God whose name we spell with a “big G,” the Lord our God is to be loved and yes feared too. Those Babylonian gods, gods we spell with a “little g,” they simply were to be feared. This is the difference between the God Jesus refers to and the parable’s judge, the lord of the manor, a god over his own land.

This judge was the lord of his land. He had the power of life and death over his subjects. He didn’t fear God (with a big G) nor did he have respect for his people. He must have been a very powerful man and quite a piece of work. The way this judge reined his power would have made Marduk proud, but he had one thorn in his side, a woman seeking justice against her opponent.

Now the woman of this parable must have been some kind of persistent. A single woman would have had no social status in the ancient near east of this parable, and considering she was complaining to a man who had no regard for anybody, she must have been quite a thorn in his side. Actually, what is written in our bible “so that she won’t wear me out” can be translated as “so that she won’t keep beating me in the face,” which is several levels above merely annoying.

So because according to the parable she was such a pain in the neck, both figuratively and literally, she received justice. Jesus then compares this to the Lord God who will grant justice quickly to the ones who cry out to the Lord.

Let me just say, and I trust that you agree, I prefer the justice of the Lord our God to this little tin god every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Created in a loving relationship by the Lord God is far better than being slaves of a demigod.

Little tin gods; this expression comes from a poem called “Public Waste”[2] by Rudyard Kipling, the author of “Captains Courageous” and “The Jungle Book.” This poem is about Exeter Battleby Tring, an expert railway-surveyor who was the obvious candidate to manage “The Railways of State.” But since he did not come from the right social bracket; “the Little Tin Gods” gave him what CEO’s today call a “golden parachute” and appointed “a Colonel from Chatham” in his place. The reader who was not a part or the rich and elite could appreciate the frustration of Battleby Tring who was more qualified, but not one of them.

Here were the “little g” gods treating those around them like slaves created by the blood of lesser gods. Here were the “little g” gods who had neither regard for God with a “big G” nor respect for any of the people. In our gospel reading we are presented with a god of the manor who have what the world considers power over people and events and the Lord who is the King of Glory. The world has them both and it is up to the church, it is up to us to praise one and hold the other’s feet to the fire.

Scott McClellan writes about the “little g” gods of American politics in his book “What Happened?” He talks about how American politics has shifted from using power to change things and make them better to a position of gaining power for the sake of having power. He talks about a model of governing called “the permanent campaign” where governing is forsaken in exchange for maintaining power within one political party.

Let me take a little aside and say that McClellan was a George W. Bush insider and the theory of “permanent campaign” was created by Patrick Caddell, an advisor to Jimmy Carter. If how the people who govern us are guilty of this sin as McClellan says, it is not the property of one side of the political aisle or the other, it belongs to both. I like to say it like this, in government there are not too many Democrats or too many Republicans, but there are far too many politicians. Little tin gods are little tin gods whether they come from Kipling or from Babylon, red states or blue states.

Jesus says that the unjust judge will give the woman justice just to relieve his own discomfort. Our God will grant justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him out of love. But then he asks, when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth? For our Lord to find faith, we will need to be faithful to the God who loves and gives graciously, not the gods who want only fear and slavery, so we need to discern the differences between the two.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian agency that has the responsibility for among other things detecting counterfeit money, has a very specialized training program. What they do not do is study the many, many ways counterfeiters find to copy currency. They do not study the latest trends in how criminals copy inks and make plates to create fake bills. They take the opposite approach. Instead of learning how fakes look, they study real Canadian dollar bills. These agents scrupulously study their own money. They study every little piece and nuance of their bills, the images, the inks, the typefaces, even the feel and smell of real money. This way they become intimately familiar with what real money looks and feels like.

They find it’s easy to spot a counterfeit when you know the real stuff.

For us, this is a lesson to be learned in finding the differences between gods, those we look at as “big G” Gods and “little g” gods. By being able to recognize God in our lives, we are better able to recognize the idols of our life and time; idols which make demands upon us like the gods of ancient times.

We find God in our scriptures. It is in the stories of our faith that we learn that the loving God wants a relationship with creation. It is in holy writ that we find an overflowing God who creates in abundance, not out of a need for slaves. It is in the Psalms and in our Call to Worship this morning[3] that we learn of God’s law and how it makes us wiser than our enemies because it is always with us.

Paul’s second letter to Timothy makes this point as he implores the young man to continue in what he has learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom he learned it. Paul reminds Timothy that all scripture is useful for teaching and training so that all who belong to God will be equipped for every good work. Paul even says that it is Christ Jesus who is the judge of the living, not some self-declared deity, someone who has made themselves an idol to be worshiped like a little tin god.

So yes, in our world, a world that no longer worships Marduk or Tiamat or Zeus or Apollo or any of the gods of ancient societies, we have “little g” gods of our own. So we are called to work like the Mounties and know who God is so that we will not be taken by false gods that come our way. We are called to seek God in scripture and in prayer. When we do this that we will be found faithful by the Son of Man when he comes again in glory. In Him, in his blood and righteousness alone is our hope.

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[1] The stories of Marduk and Tiamat can be found in Matthews, Victor H., and Benjamin, Don C. “Old Testament Parallels, Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East.” Third Edition. New York: Paulist Press, 2006, pages 11-21 and at http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSMarduk.html, retrieved October 15, 2010.

[2] Text of “Public Waste” can be found at http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2774/, retrieved October 15, 2010.

[3] Psalm 65

Hearing Voices

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday January 7, 2007.

Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 22-23

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I want to share an old bumper sticker with you this morning, but it’s just wrong, yet there is a part of me that laughs at this. There is an old bumper sticker that says, “I do what the voices in my Rice Krispies tell me to do.” Yeah, certainly not politically correct. But I do not bring this up to make light of mental illness. The son of one of Marie’s dearest friends suffers from schizophrenia. The tragedy of mental illness has caused in her friend much distress. His torment, and the torment shared by their family is far more devastating than the snap, crackle, and pop of breakfast cereal. They are constantly in Marie’s prayers. But I do mention this to open the door to our readings today.

Each of our readings today deals with hearing a voice, the voice of the Lord. Three deal directly with the voice and the other deals with a source of the voice. So let’s consider the voice of the Lord.

In our Call to Worship this morning, Psalm 29, the voice of the Lord is defined seven ways. The voice of the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord makes Lebanon skip like a calf and Sirion skip like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes out flames of fire—or in other translations flashes of lightening. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. And finally, the voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl stripping the forest bare. The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice and because of its power everyone and everything in the temple say “Glory.”

There are some things happening here that is lost on we who are not from the time of King David. The first is that this psalm lists seven images of the voice of the Lord. In ancient times, the number seven represented completion and perfection. There are many examples of this. The first creation account in Genesis lists seven days of creation.[1] One of the versions of the Ark story has Noah bringing seven pairs of each clean creature onto the ark.[2] Revelation is loaded with sevens including the seven churches, seven stars, seven lamp stands, seven bowls and seven plagues.

Considering all of the attributes of the Lord’s voice that could be described, the psalmist intentionally stops at seven to represent perfection in the Lord’s voice.

Another piece of ancient history lost to us is worship of the god Baal. Baal is represented as, among other things, a weather god. One image of Baal is a man casting a lightning bolt upon the earth.[3] Baal is a powerful god worshipped by the Canaanites. And the Old Testament is filled with times Israel turned from the Lord and turned to Baal worship.

But our psalm tells us the Lord is more than just a weather god. The Lord can do all of the things Baal can do, and do them in sevenfold perfection. On top of that, the Lord can do so much more than Baal could ever hope or imagine.

So our psalm tells us several things about the voice of the Lord. First and foremost, the voice of the Lord is perfect—in sevenfold perfection. Second, our Lord is more powerful than Baal, and all of the other gods.

But this lesson takes us into a corollary lesson, a lesson well known in antiquity which doesn’t find much favor in our time. There are other gods. Today we don’t particularly think of weather gods or such. But there are people and things which are ascribed so much glory that they are revered and worshipped like gods. People do sometimes tend to pray at the temple of money or power or celebrity or fame or esteem or any one of a million other things. To paraphrase scripture, we cannot love the Lord and our stuff. The love of the Lord must precede all we are, all we do, and all we have. We are to love the Lord who according to the Psalm is mighty, powerful, and perfect in sevenfold witness.

The prophet Isaiah heard the word of the Lord spoken to him, and he was required to pass along the message to the ruling elite. In this passage, we read of the Lord who affirms for the nation that it is he who has redeemed Israel. It is the Lord who is with us as we pass through the waters. The Lord is with us when we walk through the fires. We are precious in the sight of the Lord, and because of this, we should fear nothing.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is a difference between fearing nothing and having nothing to fear. I do not think we have nothing to fear. A quick survey of the daily news gives each and every one of us something to fear. But the Lord promises, these things cannot prevail against the faithful. The Lord is the source of our confidence, nothing else can stand against the tide of our sin sick world.

Another lesson we take from Isaiah is that it is the Lord who created us. We are more than a simple collection or random atoms or a people created for the amusement of a higher power or as a proof to some biochemical—mathematical scheme. We are created by the Lord who loves us and cares for us. This love and care is the second lesson from Isaiah. The Lord loves us and cares for us as we walk through the waters and the fires.

There is another lesson to take from Isaiah. We are to be obedient. We are to listen to the Lord and follow. Isaiah reminds us everyone who is called by the name of the Lord is not to withhold anything. Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth, after all, we were created by the Lord for the Glory of the Lord. Hearing the voice of the Lord and following is a heady vocation, but it is the one we were created for.

Luke gives us another hearing of the voice of the Lord. Now, there is something that we can assume from the scripture which isn’t implicitly said. We can assume John the Baptist has heard the voice of the Lord because of what he knows. John knows he is not the one who is to come. He is the one to make straight the way for the Lord. John knows of the baptism of water and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire and that the two are different. He also knows which he is to bring and which will come from the one greater than he. From hearing the voice of the Lord, John is attentive and obedient.

The most wonderful lesson taught by the voice from heaven follows in Luke’s gospel, Jesus the Christ is the Son of God. Luke’s gospel gives us the image of the Holy Spirit descending bodily like a dove and the voice from heaven saying “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is in relationship with God as a son is related to his father. The Spirit of God descends and gives an anointing touch to the Son of God. This relationship is given to us in this beautiful image.

But there is one more relationship Luke gives his readers. Our reading ends with, “[Jesus] was the son (as was thought) of Joseph, the son of Eli.” Now, Luke could have belabored the point of this by telling us who was emperor or governor like at the beginning of John’s ministry in chapter three, instead we hear of Jesus’ earthly father and grandfather.

Jesus is the anointed, the appointed, the Christ, the Messiah. Known to people, Jesus is the son of a man, the son of Joseph, son of Eli. He has come into this world fully human and fully divine. In his baptism, he identifies with our condition and need for redemption. In his baptism, his heavenly father gives his approval. The voice from heaven declares being well pleased with Jesus, fully human and fully divine.

Our lesson here is that the Lord values relationships. Who we are is based on whom we belong to, who we serve, who we love. Relationships are what is important.

The psalmist tells us the Lord is mighty. Isaiah tells us we belong to the Lord, and the Lord will keep us safe from the waters and the fire. Luke tells us that while John baptizes in water, it is the Son of God comes in power and baptizes us in the Holy Spirit and fire.

Finally, Acts teaches us that until we come into the fullness of the Lord, God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are not in full relationship with the Lord.

So there it is, the voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty. The voice of the Lord is perfect. The voice of the Lord causes everyone and everything in his temple to say “Glory.” The Lord is more powerful than any god of antiquity or of today. The voice of the Lord reassures us. The voice tells us that we are protected from the dangers of water and fire. The voice tells us we are precious in the Lord’s sight. The voice tells John he will baptize in water; and the voice tells John one will come who will baptize in Spirit and fire. The voice of the Lord tells us not to fear. The voice of the Lord calls us into relationship, a relationship we enter into through the waters of our baptism and the fire of the Holy Spirit.

The voice of the Lord is all around us. We must pay attention, we need to listen. Only when we listen can we respond. So let us listen, let us listen to the voice of the Lord together. Study the voice in scripture. Study it in prayer. Study it in work. Study it in relationships with the Lord and with one another. But do not be afraid, the voice of the Lord is not the voice of mental illness. Be discerning, because not every snap, crackle, or pop is the voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is all around us. Listen to the voice of the Lord and let everyone and everything say “Glory.”

[1] Genesis 1:1-2:3
[2] Genesis 7:2
[3] Craigie, Peter C., Word Biblical Commentary [computer file] : Psalms 1-50 / Peter C. Craigie; David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Baker, John D. Watts and Ralph P. Martin editors.—electronic ed.—Dallas : Word, Incorporated, 1998.