SERMON
Knowing the Voice
John 10:1-21
Pastor
In 1991 the guest of
honor was a church leader from central
He spoke slowly, even cautiously, at first,
measuring his words, weighing their risk, as if he was a man unaccustomed to
candor among relative strangers. Gradually gaining confidence, he spoke of
shifts in the social and political climate of his region. He spoke of the
church made strong through hardship and persecution. Indeed, with an eye cast
toward the American religious scene, he observed that possibly the greatest
threat to the church in his own land was the temptation to relax in the new
atmosphere of freedom, that the church could lose its sense of urgency by
falling into an easy alliance with a seemingly friendlier culture.
He told about the days under totalitarianism,
how the church was officially tolerated but always undermined; how the clergy
were routinely monitored by secret agents who had infiltrated their ranks. “We
would have a meeting about some matter of church business,” he said, “knowing
for certain that not everyone seated at the table could be trusted; some of the
‘ministers’ present were, in fact, government agents.” He paused for a moment
and then added, “But even though these government spies were careful never to
betray their true identities, we could always tell who they were.”
“How?” someone asked. “The voice,” he replied.
“The voice…something in their voices would give them away.”1
The voice. The words may have been smooth and
well-chosen, but there was something in the voice that disclosed the agent of
deception. There was something in the voice that revealed the distinction
between the true and the false, between the dependable and the treacherous.
“Something in their voices,” he said, “would give them away.”
In a similar way, Jesus said that his own
followers could divide the trustworthy from the untrustworthy by the sound of a
voice. “The sheep will not follow the voice of a stranger; they know the voice
of their shepherd, and they follow only the shepherd.”
What is it about a voice that signals a trust?
What is there about Jesus’ voice that beckons his own to follow?
The world is
cluttered with voices competing for our attention. A cacophony of voices shout
for our loyalty, urge us to get into step and to join the followers of this or
that bumper-stickered cause: “Have you hugged your child today?” “Support the
NRA,” “Christians for Choice,” “Christians for Pro-Life,” “Save the Rain
Forests,” “Buy American,” “Question Authority,” “Promote Family Values,” “Fight
Taxes,” “Worship Next Sunday,” “Work for Justice,” “Boycott Lettuce.” Jesus’
voice may sometimes be heard above these clamoring voices, and it may be heard
in some of them, but Jesus claims that his followers will surely know his voice
when they hear it, that they will be able to distinguish his clear and true
call from the false tones of strangers. But what makes this so? What is there
about Jesus’ voice that is unmistakable to his followers?
Part of it, of course, is familiarity. Even a
young child, the crib surrounded by whispering and beckoning voices, turns and
brightens at the sound of the one voice most familiar, the one voice most trusted,
the intimate voice of mother or father. Or again, two people meet, seemingly
for the first time. They are cautious, wary, as strangers are at initial
encounter. But then one speaks a word of greeting and there is the flicker,
then the flame, of astonishing recognition. “Is that you?” exclaims the other
with arms open to embrace. “Is that really
you? How many years has it been? How we’ve changed! I didn’t recognize your
face, but your voice ... I would know your voice anywhere.”
Just so, Jesus’ followers recognize his voice
because his voice is familiar. They discern its cadences; they remember its
reassuring rhythms. Over and again, in times of distress and pain, when they
have not been sure that they could take one more step along the pathway of
suffering, he has spoken comfort to them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I
give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). Many times when their
faith has faltered and their vision grown dim, he has reassured them: “Do not
let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1).
When they were uncertain of life’s purpose, confused about what makes life good
and true, he has called them anew: “This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Even when they have stood at the rim
of death’s canyon, staring with grief into its azure depths, over and over he
has spoken to them of hope: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who
believe in me, even though they die, will live ...” (John 11:25).
At every bend in the road, in every predicament
along the way, they have felt Jesus’ presence and have heard his familiar
words; all the days of their lives he has been the trustworthy shepherd, and
they know his voice. In the flurry of voices that fill the world, the followers
of Jesus listen for the sound of the voice they know best, the voice that
speaks justly, compassionately, mercifully, lovingly and hopefully. When they
hear this voice, they follow; they do not respond to the voices of strangers,
the voices of bitterness, gossip, prejudice and hatred.
Yet, it is more than familiarity that causes the
followers of Jesus to recognize his voice. Jesus “calls his sheep by name and
leads them out.” The voice of Jesus speaks personally and with authority. The
voice of Jesus is not spoken over a public address system, making a vague
general announcement for all the world to hear. The voice of Jesus speaks to
each one, lovingly calls out each name, summoning each and every person to
follow.
One of the pastors I was with at the end of
January told me about a church drama presented at his church on the weekend
before Christmas. It was a “dessert and drama” production of Charles Dickens’
classic A Christmas Carol. The church
hall was transformed into a theater, folding chairs clustered around tables,
all facing a makeshift stage fitted with painted backdrops of the tenements and
sooty chimneys of nineteenth century
When the audience gathered and were handed their
programs, some were amused to note that the part of the tightfisted Ebenezer
Scrooge was being played by the chairman of the church board, a gentle man of
quite un-Scrooge-like generosity. They were impressed, though, by the skill and
energy he brought to his part. He growled his way through the opening scenes,
ringing out every “Bah! Humbug!” with miserly ill will. He shivered with fright
and dreadful self-recognition as he was encountered by the series of Christmas
ghosts.
The final scene called for a transformed and
jubilant Scrooge to chase the shadows of the remorseful night and to greet the
light of Christmas day by flinging open his bedroom window and bellowing
festively to the startled city street below, “Me-e-r-rr-y Christmas, everyone!
Me-e-r-rr-y Christmas!” Then Scrooge, wishing to bestow Christmas gifts upon
the needy of
But something beautiful and unexpected happened.
When the radiant and transformed Scrooge beckoned from the window “Come up
here, boy, I’ve got something wonderful for you to do,” a six-year-old boy in
the audience, seated with his family who were members of the congregation,
spontaneously rose from his chair in response to this jubilant and generous
call and walked on stage, ready to do “something wonderful.”
The actor playing Scrooge blinked in disbelief.
There was now an unscripted child from the audience standing on center stage.
What to do? The audience held its breath. Then the person of faith beneath the
veneer of Scrooge took charge. Bounding down from his window perch, he strode
across the stage and cheerily embraced the waiting boy. “Yes, indeed,” he
exclaimed, his voice full of blessing. “You are the one; the very one I had in
mind.” Then he gently led the boy back to his seat in the audience, returned to
the stage and resumed the play. When the curtain calls were held, it was, of
course, this boy, the one who had felt himself personally summoned from his
seat, who received, along with old Ebenezer himself, the audience’s loudest and
warmest applause. *1
Just so, the sheep hear and know the merciful
voice of the Good Shepherd. When they get up out of their seats and bound up on
the stage ready to follow, the Good Shepherd himself embraces them. “Yes, yes,
you are the one; the very one I had in mind.”
_________________
*1. I am indebted to the Rev. Charles Williamson
of