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CHILDREN'S EDUCATION |
SERMONS The
Second Sunday after Christmas Day Does God talk to you? Does he tell you what he wants you to do? Does he warn you when there is danger? Certainly today's gospel tells us that he talked to Joseph, the father of Jesus. After Jesus' birth, and after the visit of the wise men, we read today that an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to get out of town. So Joseph packed up Mary and the baby and took them down to Egypt, where there were well-established Jewish communities. When Herod died an angel returned to Joseph to tell him it was okay to return to Palestine. But he was warned not to return to Bethlehem. Rather the family settled in Nazareth in the region of Galilee. It was there that Jesus grew up. I know people today who are certain that God talks to them. They will tell you, "The Lord told me to do this," or "The Lord told me to do that." They are so sure, so certain. And, of course, they may be right. But there are also the Jim Joneses and the David Koreshes. People who are sure that God has talked with them. People who are sure that God has told them what to do. And people who can convince others that they have a special word from God. Yet their end is tragedy, destruction, and death. How can we know? I have a friend who is a rabbi. He works in campus ministry and told me once of a student who had come to talk with him. He told the rabbi, "God has spoken to me and told me what I need to do after I finish college." I asked the rabbi how he had responded. He said, "I asked him, 'How do you know that it was God?'' "Oh, I'm sure it was God," the student replied. "It was just like a voice, a feeling. It was so clear, so certain. I am sure it was God." "Have you been going through some difficult time in your life?" persisted my friend. "What did you have to eat before you heard the voice?" The student became rather annoyed that the rabbi seemed so skeptical. He asked him the reason for all his questions.. "Because," said the rabbi, "if you can't explain it some other way, it probably wasn't God. God is so large, so mysterious. If the message was so direct and straight-forward, and clear, it probably wasn't God." The truth of the incarnation is that God has entered into creation, that God is actively involved in the world and in our lives. God does speak. But God's voice, as one Hebrew writer put it, is "a sound of sheer silence." In order to hear it, we must listen carefully and attentively. And we must be aware of how our own hopes and desires and fears interfere with and distort its message. If the message we hear is so clear, so sure, so certain, we would be wise to question it; wise to ask, as the rabbi did, what is going on in our lives. Where is this message really coming from? We would be wise to seek the counsel of others who have experience listening for God's voice. Matthew tells us that after Joseph's dream he "got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt." My suspicion is it wasn't that simple and straight-forward. I suspect that Joseph and Mary had a long and difficult conversation in the stillness of that night. I suspect that through the years they had many long and difficult conversations. Wondering, questioning, asking themselves what it was that God was calling them to do. God has never promised those he loves that life will be simple, or easy, or straight-forward. God has never promised easy answers or clear signs. What God does promise is to be with us. That we are loved. That nothing can separate us from that love. That, whatever comes, God will never abandon us. That love will triumph over fear. That joy will triumph over pain. That life will triumph over death. And in the end that is all that matters. It is enough. David
Christian
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Chapel
of the Cross · 674 Mannsdale Road · Madison, Mississippi
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