CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW??

John 10: 22-30

Sermon preached at University Worship

Southern Methodist University

May 2, 2004

 

 

All of us have probably seen that Sprint commercial where the man is on a deserted island or road or in a busy city and he walks a few feet with his cell phone in his hand and asks “Can you hear me now?”  Then he says, “Good.”  He walks a few more feet and says, “Can you hear me now?”  “Good.”  The idea of the commercial is that Sprint has good coverage and a clear signal for its customers to communicate with others.

 

Like many of you, I have a cell phone.  This is probably my fourth or fifth one and the last few have had Voice Recognition software in them.  You can actually train your phone to recognize your voice and tell it to dial someone in your data base or give your phone a command to do something.

 

There is nothing more frustrating than a phone that will not recognize your voice.  I have been known to be in a crowd of people yelling into and at my phone trying to tell it to do something only to hear a pleasant voice on the other end say, “I’m sorry I don’t recognize that command.”

 

Well today’s gospel is about voice recognition.  Our recognizing Jesus’ voice as the Good Shepherd.  Today’s passage is part of a longer narrative in chapter 10 of John’s gospel in which Jesus uses the metaphor of a shepherd to talk about his relationship to those who believe in him. 

We pick up the conversation at verse 22 of chapter 10.  John tells us that it is winter and Jesus is walking in the temple during the festival of the Dedication. Most of us probably know this festival by another name:  Hanukkah.  It is not the Jewish version of Christmas, but a festival that began back in 164 BC to celebrate Jewish freedom and the rededication of the temple after it had been violated.

 

As Jesus is walking in the temple people begin to gather, or flock, around him.  They can’t stand it any longer.  “How long will you keep us in suspense?” they ask.   “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  The way Jesus answers that question is to refer them back to what he said previously about sheep. 

 

Listen to what Jesus said earlier about sheep and shepherds:

·        The shepherd enters by the gate, not over the fence.

·        The sheep hear his voice, he calls them by name and leads them out.

·        He goes ahead of them and they will follow because they know his voice.

·        The sheep will run from a stranger because they don’t know that voice.

·        Jesus says he is the gate, whoever enters by him will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.

·        He is the Good Shepherd.  The thief, hired hand and false shepherd run away when the flock is in danger.  They leave the sheep to be devoured by the wolf, but the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

 

 

And so in answer to their question about the Messiah, he focuses back on what he taught them about the shepherd.  Ultimate freedom, Jesus says in the context of this festival that celebrates Jewish independence, is knowing his voice and being his sheep.

 

Jesus was a pretty good observer of sheep behavior.  They have a flock or herd mentality.  They stay together for security.  Separation from the herd causes extreme stress.  Like sheep, we are social animals that need each other.  We need to belong.  We herd instinctively.  We need the security of a community.  This kind of thinking flies in the face of the ‘rugged individualism’ of our culture.  But Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows we need each other, and we need him as our shepherd.

 

Did you know that sheep are intelligent?  They always get a bad rap for being dumb.  But they only do dumb things when they are scared.  Hello!  We all do dumb things when we are scared!  As far as sheep IQ goes, they rank just below the pig and right up there with the cow in the world of animal IQ.  A study at the Babraham Institute in England revealed that sheep have remarkable memories, being able to pick out a particular face in a line of pictures—if that face is associated with a food reward.  Some of the sheep could remember up to 50 images two years later.  And you think elephants had the corner on memory!

 

Sheep also have keen hearing.  Making it possible to discern the voice of the shepherd from among many others.

 

 

This is where I think real sheep may have an advantage over us humans. Jesus taught that sheep will run from a voice other than the shepherds.  We want to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, but we listen instead—and sometimes flock--to so many other voices.  There are so many voices in our culture or in our family histories that compete with the voice of the shepherd.  Out of our fear and insecurity we do dumb things when we listen to these other voices.

 

There are voices that tell us we won’t amount to anything.  We are not good enough.  Voices that tell us in order to be secure, to belong to a particular flock, we must have a certain car, certain clothing, a certain bank account, a certain figure.

 

I’ve been wrestling with a voice in my head that likes to make rules.  I wake up sometime with that voice already telling me what rules I broke the day before.  I’ve started to ask, “Whose voice is this and where do these rules come from?”

 

It is my own voice that has been conditioned over the years to think that my worthiness, or goodness depends on how well I obey certain rules.  And where do these rules come from?  My own insecurities.  My misguided perception that willpower is the mark of a true disciple.

 

The invitation for me these days has been to listen for the voice of the shepherd instead.  I’m making some progress.  It is a voice that says, “I know you.”  “You are mine.”  “Nothing will snatch you out of my hand.”  “The mark of a true disciple is not willpower, but listening and following the voice of the shepherd who is your goodness.”

 

Did you know there is a new technology that translates dog barks into English?  It is called Bow-Lingual and it works only for dogs.  Not cats—that would be expecting a miracle.

 

Bow-Lingual is a Japanese-designed electronic device that enables you to know (sort of) what your dog is trying to tell you with his incessant yapping.  You put an electronic transmitter on your dog’s collar that activates every time he barks, sending a signal to a receiver that you either wear around your neck (hmm) or keep close by.  The receiver interprets each bark into previously designed text patterns that fit six different ‘mood’ categories.  So depending on the tone your dog’s bark transmits you can determine whether he is Happy, Sad, Frustrated, Needy, On Guard or Assertive.

 

When the delivery person rings your doorbell you should be able to tell whether your dog is sensing ‘bad karma’ from this person.  The Bow-Lingual system also counts and interprets the number of times your dog barks while you are out.

 

Users have reported mixed results with the device.  Often the translation doesn’t match up with the circumstance surrounding the bark, and if you really want to get down to it, who needs a $120 translator to tell whether or not your dog is happy, sad or angry?

 

The good news for us is that we have built in voice recognition software, calibrated to the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd.  The way we activate this software is to go within our own hearts to hear the voice of the shepherd.  The voice of the shepherd comes from within us, not from without.  Those other negative and false voices bombard us from the outside.  Oh yes, often times we internalize those voices.  But there is a voice that has always been inside of us and will grow stronger and stronger if we listen attentively to it.

 

In the midst of all those other voices, it is the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd that says, “I know you by name.”  “Nothing will snatch you out of my hand.”  What an intimate voice.  What a powerful, freeing voice!

 

It is a voice that calls us out of danger.  It is a voice that goes before us and leads us out of addictions.  It is a voice that goes before us and leads us out of stress and over work.  It is a voice that goes before us and leads us out of self hatred and self doubt. 

 

It is also a voice that calls us to follow.

 

Now this is where as sheep our hearing gets selective.  We have no problem responding to the comforting, intimate, empowering words of the shepherd, but when it is a voice that asks us to follow through the valley of the shadow of death, or forgiveness, or self knowledge—sometimes we refuse to listen.  Jesus becomes like the Sprint man saying, “Can you hear me now?”  And we say, “I’m sorry I don’t recognize that command.”

 

Deb and I have been having some voice recognition problems in our household.  Our cats don’t seem to be communicating.  We have tried behavior modification techniques and that doesn’t seem to be working.  We have actually talked about contacting an animal psychic, or pet communicator, to help us find out what the problem is.

 

Amelia Kinkade is a pet communicator who runs a private practice in southern California, where she has counseled everything from gorillas and elephants to house cats.  She tells the story of a woman named Marge who brought her dog Willow Sweet Pea to a workshop.  The one-year-old black and white border collie cowers when her name is called and hides under the bed for days at a time.

 

After listening to the dog and tossing some ideas around, the group agreed that Willow was disturbed by violent acts and even a death that had taken place in the house before Marge had ever moved in.  Now that Marge knows what the problem is, she can work with Willow.

 

When asked about the ‘technique’ of pet communication, Kinkade said,

“Every living being emits its feelings and ideas like radio waves.  But humans are too self absorbed to receive these messages from animals.  People need to forget personal needs for this communication to work.  Your love is so strong that you can put your own thoughts and feelings aside in order to receive what they want to tell us.”

 

My friends, Jesus’ love for us as the sheep of his flock is like a radio wave emitting from the very heart of God.  My prayer is that we will listen and receive what he wants to tell us.  Amen.