Good Sound

Easter 4C

John 10:22-30

St. Matthias

May 12, 2019

           It is good to be back at St. Matthias.  I want to begin this week by wishing all of our mothers a Happy Mother’s Day.  I saw my mother in Illinois a few weeks ago and I will be calling her this afternoon.  If your mother has gone on to Glory, then thank her in your prayers.  I believe that those who loved us in this life also love us in the life to come and can hear us when we pray. 

We also celebrate today - Good Shepherd Sunday.  We call it that because we traditionally read the scripture lessons on this Sunday that describe Jesus as the Good Shepherd of his people.  Now as most of you know, for the past 2 weeks, Phyllis and I have been in Israel and I have come back with at least a year’s worth of sermons.  We went to Galilee and Nazareth and the city of Joppa where Peter healed Tabitha in our first reading from Acts this morning.  We sailed on the Sea of Galilee and renewed our baptismal vows while standing in the River Jordan.  We traveled through Europe, Asia, and Africa and stood on the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.  And as our tour bus took us from the Dead Sea, across the DESERT, and toward Jerusalem, we saw lots of Bedouins who are the descendants of the shepherds in Jesus day.  They still herd their sheep and goats across the wilderness looking for grass and protecting their herds from the wolves.  Our guide told us that sheep really do recognize the voice of their shepherd.  They follow his sound more than anything else. 

In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus has come to Jerusalem at the time of the Festival of the Dedication.  Today we know this as the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah.  Jesus is walking in the Temple – in the Portico of Solomon which would have been on the opposite side from the Western Wall which is the only part of the Temple still standing today.  I actually walked in that same area where Jesus had walked.  And on that day, several of the Jewish leaders confront Jesus and demand to know if He is claiming to be the Messiah.  They are taunting Jesus and I can just hear their sarcasm as I read this part of the Gospel of John.  And Jesus responds with the analogy of the Shepard.  This is something the people of Jesus’s day will clearly understand.  Those who believe hear the voice of God and they follow because they know God and believe.  These Jewish leaders clearly do not.

 Several times over the past 2 weeks, I have clearly heard the voice of God.  We spent our first week in Galilee which is north of Jerusalem and is the part of Israel where Jesus was raised and spent most of his ministry.  One day we visited the ruins of a 1^st Century synagogue where archeologists have confirmed that Jesus actually taught.  It is in the town of Migdal - though in first century Galilee it was called Magdala.  We know it from the Bible as the home of Mary Magdalene.  And as I stood there and looked at what was left of this synagogue – it was amazing to think that Jesus actually stood there over 2000 years ago.  He spoke to the faithful and told the people of Magdala that God loves them.  And I could hear the voice of God speaking in my heart telling me it really did happen.  God sent his only Son – Jesus – who stood where I now stood and spoke to the people about the very same God who we worship here today at St. Matthias.

But you don’t have to go to Israel or Galilee or Jerusalem to hear the voice of God.  We just have to listen.  We’ve all been someplace where we felt close to God.  A church, a rocking chair at Camp McDowell, or that special place where we can pray and know that God is listening.  Sometimes we can even hear God in a picture.  Nancy sends me pictures of beautiful flowers and in each one, God speaks.  These are not words we hear with our ears – but messages that go straight to our souls and remind us that God is real and walks with us every day.  We come to this Church and we hear the eternal ALLELUIA in every hymn and anthem and then we share God’s love with boxes of food and bags of beans and rice.  The people who come all say Thank You and God Bless You and I just know that this is what God sounds like when He speaks.  I know that God sounds like the woman at the prison in Aliceville who sees our prayers around the Kairos room.  And God sounds like each one of you when we join together and proclaim, WE BELIEVE IN ONE GOD.  We hear because we follow the Lord and no one will ever snatch us out of God’s hand.

And God is always speaking to us.  We just need to stop and listen.  We will hear because we really do know God’s voice.  And God knows us.  Being a sheep sounds pretty good.  AMEN.