The Voice Of The Shepherd

I'm going to be honest with you – I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with Good Shepherd Sunday. I guess I've just never really liked the idea that we, as God's people, are sheep. Sheep are such dumb creatures. I always think of them as the animals who follow the path, who must be watched at all times to make sure they don't wander off and get lost. They don't ask questions or think for themselves. They just passively follow the shepherd wherever he may lead.

So why, in today's gospel, does Jesus compare us to sheep? Does he mean that we're supposed to follow him blindly and without question? That we shouldn't think or act for ourselves? That we should passively wait, hoping that somewhere there is a shepherd watching out for us and making sure we're going in the right direction?

I don't think so.

You see, this past week, as I was doing some reading in preparation for this sermon, I discovered that sheep have another quality as well. They can recognize their shepherd's voice. When sheep hear someone calling to them, they can tell whether or not it's the voice of their shepherd, whether or not it's the voice of the one they can trust. Jesus describes this process in today's gospel. He tells us that "The sheep follow [the shepherd] because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers."

Do we recognize Jesus' voice? Do we follow him?

Over the past few weeks, I've been hearing a lot of discussions about the future. Seniors are making decisions about where they're going to work or study next year, Juniors are laying plans for their theses, Sophomores are deciding on departments. We are all of us making or finalizing our summer plans. We are choosing our classes. Here at ECP, we're searching for our new leader for next year. And in the midst of all these choices, all of these moments of looking ahead towards whatever is coming next, we are confronted with the image of sheep who hear their shepherd's voice and follow him.

And we are forced to ask ourselves: Do we recognize Christ's voice? Do we follow him?

As soon as we start questioning whether or not we are following Christ's voice, I think we have to ask ourselves what Christ's voice sounds like. For those of us who haven't ever heard God's voice directly – and I'm assuming that that's most of us here – this means slowing down the busy pace of our lives and taking time to listen. In her book, The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila offers a beautiful meditation on the modest form which Jesus' word can take in our daily lives. She writes, "[God's] voice reaches us through words spoken by good people, through listening to spiritual talks, and reading sacred literature. God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illness and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly he calls to us."

I think St. Teresa's words offer us several important messages about how we might hear Jesus' voice calling to us and leading us in our day-to-day lives. First of all, we often hear Jesus' voice best through the voices of other people. People whom we love – our friends and family, people whom we respect – our priests and professors, people whom we have never met – writers and artists from our era and from the ages which came before. This means that we do not need to listen and strain to hear Christ's voice in solitude. We listen for Jesus' voice together in community on a Sunday evening, and we listen for Jesus' voice with our friends and classmates as we go about our daily lives during the week.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to see the power of listening for Christ's voice in community in the work of our ECP discernment committee as we search for Steve's successor next year. When I was first asked to be a part of the discernment committee, I had a very clear idea of what my participation would mean, and it really didn't have much to do with discernment. I initially thought of this committee as a search committee; I imagined that each member would have their own strong perspectives and agendas and I feared that my opinions might well run counter to the group instincts. But I quickly discovered that this committee wasn't going to function in that way – at least on our best days we weren't going to function in that way. We aren't trying to come to a quick decision, we are attempting to discern God's will for us as a community by taking the process slowly, one small step at a time. And as we've continued to meet, I've gradually come to the realization that this process doesn't depend upon me alone. It depends upon the prayerful work of every member of the committee praying and working together in community, and, as time goes by, it will depend upon the prayerful insights and observations of every person in this congregation as we bring candidates in to visit our church. The process of discernment is a process of waiting and listening together, listening for God and listening to one another.

But I think this process of discernment applies equally well as we search for meaning in other parts of our lives. We do not just listen for God's voice during the service on Sunday or while we are searching for new clergy. Jesus' voice calls to us to guide us in every action of our life. I'm not just trying to say that I think Jesus calls us to be compassionate and kind and warm-hearted to others, although I think he does want us to be all these things. I'm saying that I think Christ calls to us and guides us each in individual ways; he calls us to walk in the Footprints charity walk in Trenton or to volunteer at the local high school, to cook delicious weekly dinners for hungry Episcopalians on Wednesdays and to join athletic teams or to try out for plays. To be college professors and engineers, Episcopal priests and Ibankers.

On a large scale, we frequently talk about God's will in our lives as vocation. Martin Luther, and you knew I had to bring in Luther at some point in this sermon, describes vocation as "faith exercised and sustained." And I think this really captures something of the essence of what we are trying to do when we strain to hear Jesus' voice. We are striving to exercise and sustain our faith through the week; we are trying to remember that we are sheep and that Jesus is our shepherd.

And – and this part is a huge relief – this means that the entire burden of decision doesn't rest on our shoulders. We don't need to plan out our entire lives, to figure out a ten-year-plan and stick to it. We don't even have to know what we're doing this summer or next year. We just have to open our ears and our hearts to the voice of Christ and prepare ourselves to follow him step by step. For as we walk forward in our lives through faith, we do so with the knowledge that Jesus is calling to us to lead us, if we will just slow down in our busy lives for long enough to pause and listen. If we will just trust that Christ is, indeed, our Good Shepherd.

It is so easy for all of us to get caught up in trying to decide what we want to do – in trying to be strong, independent and decisive and in trying to make practical, workable plans for our own futures. But today's gospel reminds us that as Christians, we are also trying to follow Christ's voice. We are trying to discern God's will for us in the world, and we are trying to live fully into our potential as children of God. There are so many voices in this world that call out to us to distract us: the voice of ambition that calls us to strive to be the very best even when we must hurt those around us, the voice of materialism that urges us to gather up and hold onto all the things of this world, the voice of pride that tells us that we are better than others around us. And amid all of these troubling tempting voices comes the voice of Jesus, who calls us forward to follow him every day of our lives.

Today's gospel asks us if we can tell the difference between the voices of this world and the voice of Jesus. Jesus tells us that sheep pick out the voice of their shepherd from the voices of all other men and follow him. And today's gospel poses the question: Do we?

Amen.