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.”
We have a God who acts and speaks.
Sometimes we Christians behave as if God was our Grandad locked up in an old people’s home. We know that once upon a time in the past he used to do exciting things - but we don’t really believe he has anything to say anymore.
That is not our God. God is not Granddad locked in the old folks home. The witness of the bible - and my experience - is that God is a God who acts and speaks. I have shared with you three contemporary stories of God who speaks - I could have shared you stories from St Francis of Assisi or St Ignatius Loyola or even some of your stories.
So why then are we not hearing God?
[take the phone up as if to listen - the snatch it away]
We don’t listen.
The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir." It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I’m sure she had it coming."
We don’t listen.
We don’t listen to each other or to God.
Bishop John Pritchard tells of “A man went to see a monk with a reputation for Spiritual wisdom. he asked the monk to teach him about the spiritual journey, and proceeded to talk non-stop about himself and all his ideas. Eventually the monk got up and made a cup of tea while the man kept on talking. The monk started pouring tea into his visitor’s cup but when it was full he kept on pouring. the tea went over into the saucer but still the monk went on pouring. It spilled over the saucer and onto the table - and still he went on pouring. At last the visitor could restrain himself no longer. ‘Don’t you see,’ he said, ‘the cup is already full!’ ‘Exactly,’ said the monk. ‘And so are you. Your’e so full of yourself and your own ideas that there is no room for me to teach you anything.” If we are to hear God’s still small voice, we have to create space to listen. (2)
Moses is wrapped up in his moaning.
, ‘Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child”, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, “Give us meat to eat!”
14I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. 15If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favour in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.’
It’s hard for him to hear God because he is so full of “woe is me”
And as for the people…
[Get the Nail file out…]
Why am I using the nail file?
(doug larson says - “Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days”
Life in Egypt as slaves had been terrible. Their sons were killed by a genocidal emperor. They were whipped. They had to do forced labour. They had no meat, they were almost starving - yet they have forgotten all of that. Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days
5We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.’
The people are looking backwards but the Spirit wants to take them forwards.
Its really dangerous for us as Christians to be backwards looking - wasn’t it wonderful when… Oh it’s not as good as it used to be… God’s plan is to do something new. If as a church we continually hark back to the good old days - we will be like the Israelites in the wilderness - we’ll get stuck.
Very quickly the Israelites got to the otherside of Sinai - but when they saw how well fed everyone in the promised land looked they could not trust God to do a new thing and bring them to safety there. They were too scared. The people are looking backwards but the Spirit wants to take them forwards.
And then thirdly we can be stopped from hearing what God has to say by the Gatekeepers.
In the Gospel the disciples act as Gatekeepers
“38 John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’
39But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. “
In Numbers Joshua and Moses’s key lieutenants act in the same way -
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. 27And a young man ran and told Moses, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’ 28And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, ‘My lord Moses, stop them!’
Moses’s response is relatively gentle - 29But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!
Jesus’s response to the disciples who try to act as Gatekeepers is harsher -
42 ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.
We are to listen to God not the Gatekeepers.
St Benedict basically invented monasticism - And in his rule for monks he tells the abbot to act as the very opposite of a gatekeeper. When making any decision the Abbot should go to the two youngest newest least important monks and ask for their input. The monks with power will already be pushing to get their view heard. But the youngest monks voices (through whom God could be speaking) will only be heard if he goes to ask them
In the wilderness the Israelites cannot hear God. Moses can’t hear because he is wrapped up in his misery. The crowd cannot hear because they are wrapped up in their nostalgia for the good ol days of being slaves. Joshua can’t hear because he doesn’t want to hear people who don’t behave the way he thinks they should.
But God still speaks: 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.
The 70 leaders all are filled with the Spirit so they will all dream the same dream for God’s people
God still speaks today
He may speak to us in nudges. He may speak to us in pictures in our minds eye. So for example at a friends retirement a few years back - I was given a clear picture of a domino. That God was saying to the priest he was like a domino which seems a small thing - but just like a domino being knocked over and knocking over hundreds more, God was saying this priest would never know the chain of events he had set in motion through his faithfulness to God.
God may speak to us in pictures. God may speak to us in words clearer than anything spoken out loud. He may speak to us through a specific word placed in our mind, perhaps not for us but for us to share with others. He may speak to us through a dream. He may speak to us in feelings and inclinations. And he may speak through the bible.
Sometimes he may speak to us out of the blue just as we are reading the bible as part of our daily devotions. It is like something we are reading has suddenly had a highlighter on it {show highlighter pen} and shouts out in a way it never has before.
But we can also make space to hear God speaking. The twentieth century congregational pastor Frank Laubach said “The problem with nearly everyone who prays is that they say “amen” and then run away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving him our replies”. Mother Theresa (who spent an hour each morning in silent prayer before the blessed sacrament) said “God speaks in the silence of our hearts. Listening is the beginning of prayer”. We are told in the bible that Our lady “treasured these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
You as a church face an uncertain time as I leave. Will God do something new? Do you believe it? If as a community you want to be led not by your own whims or Moses-like-fears or by Nostalgia but by God - then you need to listen.
[pick up phone and mime listening]
If we want to hear God, we need to be like Mary and create space to ponder God’s speaking in our heart and in the silence to hear what he is saying.
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(1) Father Anthony Searle Team Rector All Saints High Wycombe
(2) “How to pray - A practical handbook” by Bishop John Pritchard
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