Drawing Near to God by Listening to God

 “Drawing Near to God by Listening to God” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on March 20, 2022. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 38:45.

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1 Samuel 3:1-11

1 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” 5 and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. 6 The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 11 Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.

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Each week as we journey through Lent, we’ve been focusing on a different Spiritual Discipline. And the Spiritual Disciplines we’ve been focusing on each week come directly from Scripture. Today is no different as today we reflect on and hopefully practice the discipline of listening to God.

Scripture is full of stories of people listening to God. The very foundation of our Christian is rooted in Mary of Nazareth listening to the Angel from God telling her she would be the mother of Jesus. After a moment of shock, Mary replies, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let everything you’ve said happen to me.”

Centuries earlier, there was the story of Moses. While tending a flock of sheep, Moses saw a burning bush call out to him. The voice of God tells Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and after some reluctance and a few excuses, Moses returns to Egypt to free the people.

The prophet Isaiah replied, “Here am I. Send me!” when God called out to him. The 12 disciplines left everything behind to follow Jesus when it was asked of them. Jeremiah first thought of himself as too young when God spoke to him but then became a prophet of the Lord. Even Ananias, who did not want to restore Saul’s (also known as Paul) eyesight due to Saul’s persecution and murder of early followers of Christ, listened to God when God said God chose Saul to be a instrument of God’s Word. And of course, there’s Samuel that we heard from today who said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Can you imagine if any of them chose to ignore God’s voice? To say something like “God what you’re saying is really neat but you’re not listening to me…”

We might just have a different story altogether…

A few weeks ago, while scrolling through social media, I saw a disagreement between two people I respect. One had posted an article that shared one perspective on this one thing, and the other person commented saying they didn’t agree with that perspective and then they offered their own. The first person responded in disagreement, and so the second person responded by saying “Just try to hear what I’m saying…”

“Just try to hear what I’m saying…”

And then the conversation was over. No more responses. No more dialogue. No more disagreements nor the opportunities to find common ground. Before the conversation even had a chance to be fruitful or faithful, it was over all based on a comment that there was a lack of listening from the other party.

For those of you who have social media, you have most likely witnessed something similar to what I just described. As of late, the topics could include politics, theology, the pandemic, war, mental health, how we should raise our children, rising gas prices, even sports… just to name a few. And I’m not focusing on the disagreement. To disagree is NOT a bad thing; at times it’s the most faithful thing. I’m focusing on two people talking past each other, a lack of listening, and an abrupt end to a conversation because an understanding that “hearing me” should be synonymous with “agreeing with me”.

This is not just unique to social media though, is it? Have you ever witnessed a conversation where there was a lack of listening? Both parties are talking but neither are listening. And then suddenly one of the two says, “You’re not listening!” (which is most likely true of both parties) and then the conversation just ends.

Or let’s be a little bit more honest, before God and before one another, how many of us were in a conversation and we in that moment lacked the skill of listening?

Or even to take it one step further and to be really honest, before God and before the people we see as our church family, how many of us were in a conversation here at FPCA or in a conversation with a person from FPCA or in a conversation regarding FPCA that lacked listening?

And before we point our fingers and say “Taylor, I know exactly what you are talking about. I know exactly who you are talking about,” then you’re not hearing this sermon. We are all guilty of this, and so today we are looking inward.

Listening to God is a spiritual discipline that we are all called to practice. For some, we hear God in Scripture, in preaching, in prayers, in music. For others, we hear God in nature, in laughter, in the rush of life, and in the silence of it all. Listening to God draws us closer to a God that is always drawing closer to us. Listening to God brings into focus an invitation from Jesus to converse with him, to simply be with him. That invitation to be with Jesus, are you listening for that? Can it really be that simple?

Each of us have a preferred method listening to God. When we want to listen to God, we go do the things that we feel enables us to do that. We go to worship, we turn on music, we go for a walk. But here’s the catch. Should we only be listening to God when we want to listen to God?

Think of Mary. Do you think she wanted to be an young unwed mother? Think of Jeremiah. He did not want to a Prophet of the Lord. Think of Ananias. He was worried that Saul would kill again if he restored Saul’s eyesight.

Or think of Samuel. While sleeping, the voice of God calls out to him. Three times throughout the night, Samuel awakes to a voice saying his name. Three times he goes to his mentor Eli, waking him up as well, to ask what Eli wants of him. And three times, Eli tells Samuel that he did not call for him and that he should go back to bed. It is on the third time Eli tells Samuel to listen for the Lord if he is awoken again.

And of course that is what happens, for the fourth time in the night, Samuel awakes because he hears the voice of the Lord calling out to him and this time Samuel listens to that voice rather than confusing it for Eli’s.

Waking up four times throughout the night…. Sounds like a bad night’s rest to me. Can you imagine, waking up a teenager four times throughout the night, for them to listen?

I imagine Samuel, a great biblical figure, was not and did not want to listen for God while he was sleeping. In fact, Samuel hears God four times but didn’t actually listen for God until the fourth time. This is because Scripture tells us the Samuel didn’t know the Lord or the Word of the Lord which is why he could hear the voice of God but not recognize it as God. This is only revealed to Samuel after he listens to Eli. Samuel is only able to listen to God after he listens to Eli.

Samuel was able to hear God but not listen. That is, until Samuel listened to another…

When was the last time you listened for God in another? When was the last time you recognized the conversation happening between you two was also with God? And when was the last time that during a conversation in which you didn’t like what you were hearing, you listened even more intentionally for how God was at work by listening intentionally to the person you were conversing with, even if you disagreed with them?

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, writes, “Developing an ear that recognizes God’s voice and that listens to your life opens up the possibility of hearing God through anyone or anything. Practice listening to God and you will develop a heart tuned to pitch and timbre of God’s word to you.”

Developing an ear that recognizes God’s voice takes practice from all of us. But with practice, a greater chance to not only hear God’s voice but to listen to God’s voice is possible.

I think it starts with how we practice our listening skills with other people as a way to honor them, as a way to honor the image of God within them.

And yes, sometimes listening as a means to honor someone may mean listening while disagreeing, while being upset, while being passionate, and while worrying if the conversation that is happening is actually God’s work happening right in front of us. And I believe, most of the time, it is exactly that.

What if the next time we are in a conversation with someone, whether in-person, email, or social media, we tried to model how God listens to us?

Think about it. I think most of us in the room have an active prayer life, or at least hopefully we did this week as that was the topic of last week’s worship services. In prayer, we call out to God for guidance, direction, protection, and answers. Sometimes we demand for God to do something, to give us a sign, or to show us the way. And God just continues to listen. Not ignore; not dismiss; not shut us down. The Almighty keeps listening.

And while listening, God is not taking a break or doing nothing. We trust that God is at work in the listening because true authentic, intentional listening engages the heart. God listens to us so intentionally and deeply because our very lives are a part of God’s story.

What if we listened to each other like that? That we listened to each other so intentionally and deeply that their lives become a part of us. That their story becomes a part of our story. How much more present would God be in our community if we all listened to each other’s stories so intentionally and deeply that it all became one story?

And I get it. At times all of us have experienced moments where we feel like we’re not being heard. What if our response to that was to listen more? What if we all took the vow to listen more, to one another and to God?

And again, “listening” is not synonymous with “agreeing with me” or “doing what I say.”

Listening is hearing something beyond just words or noise. Listening is gift of being fully present with one another and with God. Listening is rejoicing in presence.

Henri Nouwen wrote a beautiful book in the form of a letter to a friend, The Life of the Beloved, describing the ways all of us are beloved by God. Nouwen compares hearing God’s voice to discovering a well in the desert: “Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that call you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.”

That’s the community we are called to be. A community that loves each other so much that listening to each other is not something we do out of necessity but because we desire to hear each other longer and more deeply. A community that just wants to listen more because we recognize being present with each other and with God is a gift like a well in the desert.

Let’s dig deeper.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. The Call to Samuel, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59172 [retrieved March 21, 2022]. Original source: Contact the Vanderbilt Divinity Library for further information.

 

Baptize: Dying and Rising with Christ

 “Baptize: Dying and Rising with Christ” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on January 30, 2022. You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 19:35.

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Romans 6:3-11

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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As a young child, one of the very first prayers I remember reciting is the traditional version of “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.”

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Amen.

Who remembers this prayer?

This week I thought of this prayer and without thinking much about it, I said these words as I was getting into my bed.

But let me set the scene. Above my bed, almost acting as a headboard, I have displayed three nature landscapes. The left picture features snowy mountains. The right picture features a forest of trees. But the center is a vast body of water.

And so I said those words of that prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

As I said those words, I rested my head on my pillow and then I looked up. I’m directly beneath this portrait of water, as if I’m submerged beneath its depths, “If I die before I wake…” and I remembered my baptism.

Now, like many of you, I was baptized as a young infant, younger than three months. So when I say, I remembered my baptism, or when we call on each other to remember our baptism, we are not intending to recall the event or moment it happened, but rather, remembering our baptism means we are claiming the promise made to us in our baptism. Remembering our baptism means honoring the name of the Triune God inscribed on our hearts. It means rejoicing in the new life given to us as beloved children of God. Remembering our baptism means sharing that life and joy with others, so they too may know just how loved they are in the eyes of their Creator.

This week, as I laid in bed beneath this body of water, metaphorically submerged in its depths, reciting a prayer about sleep and death, I remembered how loved I am. And although all the details may seem odd, it also just makes sense.

Baptism, like the water it contains, holds these details in a mysterious paradox. Submerging and rising, death and new life.

The last couple of weeks we’ve seen water as life-giving. We must drink it. All of creation consumes it to grow. We use it to wash and clean. Throughout history, people and civilizations have sought out bodies of water to settle nearby. Water itself has served has boundaries and barriers. Water sometimes stands between where we are and where we want to go, so crossing the waters is an act of freedom, especially when crossing that water leads to a well-deserved vacation.

But as much as water is essential for life, health, growth, and enjoyment of humankind, water is also capable of great damage, destruction, and even death. The same water that we seek out can also be a tool of great devastation. Think of tsunamis or hurricanes, flooding or blizzards. Water can bring both life and death, which presents us with the very paradox found in Christian baptism. What does it mean to both die and rise with Christ in baptism?

To understand this, we must go back to the beginning of the Gospels.

Two and three Sundays ago, we read Mark 1:1-11, the story of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist. Jesus’ baptism truly marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry according the Gospels. And moments before Jesus ascends into heaven after his death and resurrection, he tells his disciples to go out and baptize others. But Jesus doesn’t ever baptize anyone between his own baptism and ascension, or at least it’s not mentioned in scripture. What makes Jesus’ practice of baptism even more unusual, if baptism is a sign of repentance and a washing away of sin, why did Jesus, who was without sin, need to be baptized?

Understanding why Jesus was baptized and why he tells his followers to do the same to others will help us understand what it means to die with Christ in our baptisms.

When Jesus was baptized, the voice of God reaches out from the heavens claiming Jesus as God’s Beloved Son. The Holy Spirit descends and marks Jesus in this claim from God. Jesus’ baptism is the Triune God working separately and as one, the true definition of the Trinity. It’s a moment of diversity and unity, revelation and mystery, gathering and sending, giving and receiving, dying and rising – all captured in love.

Jesus was baptized so that we might share in his baptism when we are baptized. In the same way, Jesus shared our life when the Word became Flesh and God lived among us as the Incarnate Son. That’s who our God is. A Savior who wanted to share the human experience with us so that we might share the holy heavenly experience with him.

Because when we are baptized, we share in the moment that Jesus experienced in his baptism. The spiritual blessings of Christ’s baptism spill over into our lives in our baptisms. The same Holy Spirit descends and marks us. The same voice from Heaven reaches out and claims us as beloved. The same moment of diversity and unity, revelation and mystery, gathering and sending, giving and receiving, dying and rising – all captured in love – happens to us in our baptism because it happened to Christ in his.

So if we share in Jesus’ baptism and Jesus’ life, it also makes sense we share in his death.

And although Jesus’ death was terrifying and cruel, sharing in his death is another gift given to and for us. Sharing in Christ’s death means sharing in his crucifixion. That crucifixion directly hangs the oppressive powers of sin and death in our own lives. Sharing in Christ’s crucifixion means the very power of death that tries to claim us is uprooted and cut off.

Although we will die one day, it is not to death but to life.

To share in Christ’s death means the story of Easter, his resurrection, is also shared with us. We share in the liberating, life-giving power of God that takes root and grows within us every day as the resurrection is happening right here, right now.

In baptism, dying and rising with Christ is a sign and symbol, but it is more than just a metaphor. Baptism, death, and resurrection were actual events Jesus experienced as part of his humanity. These are moments we too have experienced and will experience: our own baptisms, our own death, and our own promise to new life. And while we haven’t experienced our own death and resurrection yet, we live out the pattern of dying and rising with Christ in our baptisms as we fulfill our calling of Christian discipleship. Every moment of letting go of old burdens or destructive habits as we embrace Christ’s new way of truth and life, when we turn away from violence or hate and instead turn to peace and love, when we confess our sins and receive the promise of forgiveness and grace, and when we reject and resist social evils by breaking down dividing walls and instead build up beloved community in Jesus’ name – that’s the practice of death and resurrection in our own lives every day.

Dying and rising in baptism may seem like a holy mysterious paradox too difficult to grasp, but that’s the Savior we follow. We share in Jesus’s baptism, life, death, and resurrection. We share in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a leader who calls forth wisdom from foolishness, strength from weakness, abundance from scarcity, and new life from death. This is a God rooted in paradox, but it’s a paradox for our sake.

So today we remember our baptism. We submerge ourselves beneath the baptismal waters to share in the death of Christ. And with a breath of fresh air, we rise to new life, marked by the Holy Spirit and claimed as beloved. This is the Gospel. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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