“Live-Streaming God’s Voice”
Seth E. Weeldreyer, First Presbyterian Church of Kalamazoo
January 14, 2024 – Second Sunday of Epiphany
1 Samuel 3:1-10; Mark 1:14-20
Sunday afternoon, sometimes before noon, just after our worship ends, I often receive an email. She joined us again online and shares observations, personal connections—how she heard God speak. A story from her life like one shared. Care for someone mentioned in prayers. “Tell so and so he has things to do, far beyond a hospital bed, so do what the docs tell him!” Precious children on Christmas Eve morning memories of creche figures when she was a child, and a tear or two rolling down when we lit candles and sung Silent Night. “Just beautiful!” Confirmation of a pledge sent and occasionally frustration when a view seemed a little unfocused or sound wasn’t quite clear. On her behalf, I say thanks be to God for our sound and video volunteers working tirelessly, troubleshooting together, charging batteries, tending buttons and tiny screens so we all can hear and see a message of Holy Love. Amen!
Many others send me texts and tell me when I visit or greet them here again: I watch each week online! Probably a few more doing so today! No, friends, I didn’t plan or pray for the snowstorm to accent the theme. More like, God’s saying you want to think about this? Here let me help you! Maybe my inbox will be flooded. If you’re hearing this, consider that an invitation, a challenge!
We could read the Bible as a long series of attempts by God to live-stream a message of Holy Love by which people can live. Maybe God’s message could have been a little clearer if Mark, Dana, Bob, Jim and their companions worked some controls in Samuel’s day! Samuel, whose very name is all about God hearing and speaking, gets called to hear and be the voice of God in the world.
Sometimes like Samuel it’s hard to hear God’s voice and get the message. For whatever reasons, maybe emotion in the moment, or past and current experience that limits perception or creates bias, we just don’t hear so well. Our lens gets out of focus. Batteries need to be recharged. Signal reception wavers. The story of Samuel’s call seems laced with a bit humor (like Scrooge? or when our pets come in for food before we’re ready to get up … go away! 3x). Until Eli gets what’s going on with his eagerness. Yes, friends, even when we’re eager like the disciples who left everything immediately to follow Jesus, sometimes like them in the rest of the gospel we still just don’t quite get it completely. To be fair—and real—hearing and hewing faithfully to God’s voice can get hard because the content of what we hear in context isn’t easy, comforting, doesn’t always seem like good news.
Just before this scene with Samuel, we hear that Eli’s sons who are supposed to inherit the priestly leadership have been terribly corrupt and abusive—greedy with sacrifice contributions made for the good of all and sexually pressing themselves on young servant women. Seems some human behavior transcends time and circumstance. So just after Samuel gets straightened out with God, Eli calls to him and Samuel responds again, “Here I am.” Tell me the hard word of the Lord, Eli says. Don’t hold back. Speak truth. Samuel speaks the harsh message of consequences to come. To Eli’s credit he accepts this sacred vision he can no longer see. And so, time and again, in the story of Samuel, scenes we’ll read in months to come, he will speak in God’s voice hard words that often hurt, offend, and run counter to accepted cultural norms and power. Calling Saul to be king, then telling him his time is done. Calling David and … well, we know how imperfect David is.
You see, friends, that’s the nature of revelation interwoven through scripture. It’s often reality check and prophetic challenge at least as much comfort. Yes, it’s people speaking and acting to bring good news. To give promises that new life will come, that hope will arise, that grace will empower and encourage. Yet, often, others in positions of power won’t hear the news as being so good. They’ll resist, attacking the messenger, to protect their privilege, agenda, and desires. This voice of God beside the lakeshores of our lives is no call to share life at a spa. Not so much bliss, it’s risk. Yes, we believe, turn around / reorient (that’s what repent literally means) … to trust the Divine promise of joy, goodness, peace, … through uncertainty, maybe counter-cultural controversy, even threat. You see, friends, at the heart of our faith flows the cycle of cross and resurrection, death and new life. That’s where Jesus leads those who will follow. And here at the beginning of his ministry, Mark tells us Jesus goes home to Galilee and calls his first loyal friends and followers after John the Baptizer has been arrested, eliminated. More than a chronological time stamp, it’s a narrative alert, a statement of theme, a sign on the wall more consequential than our notice of live-streaming when we enter the sanctuary. Still, the central point is much the same. As we come to worship, know it’s a call to participate in God’s work in the world. No spectators, all contributors.
Yes, we come here on Sunday, tune in online, maybe even anytime during the week, to listen for God’s voice. What touches our hearts, moves us with a glimpse of Divine presence and purpose? What compels us? That’s God’s call … more than a singular big-time conversion experience. God calls us anew all the time, every day, truth be told; to do something that serves others more than self, to bring new life beyond perceived limits, even at the risk of losing something of ourselves, who we are, what we have … being vulnerable to be available for Christ’s mission among us.
I wonder what ways we may sense God calling today or at this time in our lives, that may seem a bit risky, uncertain, vulnerable—maybe in smaller measures, or maybe in larger life direction, assumptions, expectations. What are we willing to give up—like nets and boats, even networks of friends or family or from our boatload of resources to answer when Christ calls and seek the way of Holy Love in our world. This weekend, as we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., we celebrate God’s call to imagine a world of possibility beyond present boundaries and bias. We rekindle our commitment, inspired by Dr. King’s persistence in the lineage of ordinary persons become prophets like Simon, Andrew, Mary Magdelene, and the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well. We pray for courage to stand, to speak, to witness, to serve like Martin as we participate in God’s mission for the transformation of humanity, and all creation.
As Jesus called the first disciples, we listen / learn so we can speak. I like the image of our live-streaming signs—the kind of radio-signal graphic coming from our arches and doors. And gratefully respecting the efforts of our sound and video team of volunteers, you see, friends God wants us all to live-stream the gospel of Holy Love. To make it come alive in all we say and do. To live as if we are God’s voice in this world. The distinctive claim of Christianity centers on the incarnation, the embodiment, the union of God and humanity in Jesus. And by extension, if imperfectly and not as extensively, Jesus says it’s true for us, like his first closest friends. That means in all our own unique identity and variety created as we are in the Divine Image. Gender, race, resources, education, experience, all the ways society tries to categorize—we claim that beauty and possibility, the grace received that gives us voice. To share the shape and substance of God’s mission in Christ as we become together a community of faith, hope, love, and witness.
Here are a few ways I’ve heard people trying to listen for God’s voice this week. He’s been coming for years now and has intended to chat a bit more about his life and mine and church. But Covid and … well, finally we talked a while this week about counseling and sports and motorcycles and reaching a point in life now where he feels a yearning to get more involved. So we imagined maybe getting another men’s group going or Noodling at Noon or serving at Celebrate the Vision. Just after I ended with him, another minister leader in Presbytery called. Concern about smaller churches not far from us who cannot afford services of a full-time minister. Wondering if there’s some way we could explore partnerships. Absolutely no definite plans or promises here, friends. None. Not my choice, rather one we discern together, if anything. Still, I’m willing to listen, chat further, if others are interested, seeking the voice of God, the vision of Holy Love to guide us. At heart I agree with what she said (and have sown seeds about it all for years).
- The world needs the kind of witness to Holy Love that we provide. Especially in smaller communities like ones she cited where all too often the voice of Christian faith is much more narrow, exclusive, judgmental. Who needs to hear good news that You Are Loved?! How can we help communicate it? And ….
- The simple reality is that church life won’t continue to exist the way it was decades ago. We must adapt assumptions, envision differently, be open to exploring new ways of being as the Spirit moves us ever to “
”.
We’re about to ordain and install deacons and elders to service among us, to lead the witness of Divine Grace in this world we are called to share. We’ve felt touched, compelled to proclaim: You are Loved! We’ll try to align our particular gifts with needs we know. And crucially, we’ll try to discern together God’s mission, the will of Christ for us in our world, trusting that the Spirit moves as we speak and listen together, far more and better than when we go it alone. More balanced, better insights and inspiration never thought possible and as we challenge and encourage. In all we say and do, we’ll proclaim with Jesus the reign of God near, around, among, within us—deliverance from whatever binds and oppresses; in the sacred presence and peace we feel, through the justice and joy we seek, for the restoration and renewal we work to make real.
Notice: we are live-streaming! By entering, by our presence here and in the world, we answer God’s call, we consent to participate. And so, even beyond our sound and video volunteers working tirelessly, troubleshooting together, charging batteries, tending buttons and tiny screens, I say thanks be to God for all of our efforts to hear and see and send a message of Holy Love. Maybe my inbox will be flooded with expressions of gratitude, connections with our lives, inspiration for ways we’ll say Here I Am, and follow Jesus, too. If you’re hearing this, consider that an invitation, a challenge!
Thanks be to God. Amen.