Listening To God, Not The Gatekeepers Series

This Sermon was first preached 6th October 2024 at St Barnabas Northolt (Proper 22 Year A Trinity 19) and also at Church of God Pentecostal Church 10th November 2024

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[mime - like in charades - two fingers up to indicate two words.

1 finger up to indicate first word - take a phone out of pocket and listen to it intently.

2 fingers up to indicate second word - take a nail file out and file my nails.

Then indicate with 1 finger for 1st word again.

Put phone to ear…]

My friend Anthony (1) when he was a teenager was learning Russian at college. He went along to a prayer meeting at his church and he heard a younger boy (maybe ten or eleven) speaking in tongues and saying “Ya Znayu Ya Znayu Ya Znayu Boga” - Anthony turned to the boy’s mum and asked “when did he learn Russian” “He doesn’t know Russsian!” said the mum. But said Anthony “He’s speaking fluent Russian “Ya Znayu Ya Znayu Ya Znayu Boga” is Russian for “I know, I know, I know, God”

In 1966 a young 22 year old woman called Jackie Pullinger had a dream. A dream in which God told her to go and travel to the place he would show her to become a missionary there. She spoke to her vicar - who encouraged her to listen to what God was saying and give it a go. So she spent all her savings buying a passenger ticket on a cargo ship going around the world. The ship stopped in all sorts of ports in Africa - and Jackie prayed but nothing was telling her to get off the boat so she stayed on. The boat docked in India. Again she felt nothing. So she stayed on the boat. She was beginning to wonder if she had misunderstood what God was telling her. But then when she got to Hong Kong she began to feel a strong urge that this was where God wanted her to get off.

It wasn’t easy - there were all sorts of immigration problems but somehow God got her through them - and she rented a room in a slum called the Walled city full of Heroin addicts. She felt God calling her to work with them, telling them about Jesus and to help them get off drugs. She found that two things were necessary for them to get off the drugs. They needed to give their lives to Jesus. And she needed to pray for them to receive the gift of Tongues. Then as they went through cold turkey, they would pray these strange sounds that the Spirit would give them and it would help them cope and keep going without giving into the drugs until they came through cold turkey and were free of the drugs.

When I was a similar age - well 20 rather than 22 - I was a student in Oxford. Since I was 16 I had had this strong gut feeling God wanted me to be a priest. A gut feeling that initially was NOT what I wanted, but which stayed with me until I began to say yes. Then one afternoon I was shopping in the co-op shop in central Oxford. It was a slightly weird shop. Most of the food was downstairs. Then you came upstairs to queue to pay. As I was standing in the queue, A man behind me said “excuse me” “yes” “are you thinking of offering yourself for the ministry” I asked if he knew me from somewhere. No - he was not from Oxford, he was just visiting for the day. So why was he saying this. “Sometimes God tells me to say things to people”

You may be wondering what these three stories have to do with our bible readings…

From Numbers Chapter 11

“24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. 25Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

26 Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp”

Or from Mark 5:38 - a man casting out demons in the name of Jesus

Or from James Chapter 5

“14Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.”