READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
1 Kings 19:11-21
1 Peter 3:8-15
- St. Luke 5:1-11
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the
Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and
love. (2 Jn 1)
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Church, saying:
“On one occasion,
while the crowd was pressing in on Him to hear the word of God, He was standing
by the lake of Gennesaret”
Really known as the Calling of St. Peter, our Gospel
pericope today reveals to us that God uses His voice to Call. The voice of
Jesus is the voice of God. God’s Word reveals this so that we do not go off on
a fruitless quest of trying to hear His Voice where He hasn’t promised it to
be. This should point us to the importance of His Church, who proclaims the
Voice of the Lord each time She gathers.
People chase after the voice of God for one reason: to be
better than their neighbor. For if you hear the voice of God, then you get a
book deal, you get a speaking tour, you get bragging rights. And though hearing
God is part of your salvation, sin causes us to interpret what we’ve heard,
before we really hear it.
Just before our Old Testament reading in the Bible, Elijah
had just faced off against 850 false prophets, revealed God to them alone, and
killed them. He ran away, because even though he had triumphed, now the state
was after his head. Do you think that any of those prophets of Baal thought
they had a false spirit within them, a lying spirit?
No. They all thought they had the truth. Especially when all
the others came together with the same truth, they further solidified their
belief. They were prospering. They had the favor of God’s king and queen. They
were sacrificing as commanded and following God’s Law.
We know the difference because we’ve been let in on the
story. We know God has called Elijah and these false prophets are false. But,
what if we had to live the story instead of hearing it? Would we be able to
tell who was correctly hearing God’s voice?
The “still, small voice” is something we have probably heard
our entire lives in Sunday School and from just about every “Christian” book
out there. They want us to hear God's voice and they want us to believe they
know how to do it. One popular way is to listen for the “still, small voice”,
because that’s what Elijah did in the cave.
How this is accomplished, they say, is by quieting both
heart and mind, not running into a cave, by the way. If you are quiet, then you
can listen. That makes sense, right? That same advice is given to married
couples, parents, and CEOs for business, so why wouldn’t it work for God, too?
With that mindset, however, you may yet be silencing the
voice of God. How can you tell? Voices are voices. One way to tell would be if
the speaker shows up…
A preacher tells me, “Sit quietly. Close your eyes. Now
listen for the still small voice of the Spirit in your heart.” A friend argues
that a still small voice is telling him it’s time to cut ties with his
girlfriend, or worse his wife, usually just before Valentine’s Day. A
nature-lover says to tune into the still small voice of the universe in dancing
leaves and whispering winds.
Repent. The counter to “God spoke to me” is “well God spoke
to me too”! But where does that get you? Is Jesus going to call anyone the same
way He did to the Apostles ever again?
And in the first place, we don’t even know what a voice is.
What is its beginning? What is its ending? A voice starts as nothing and when
someone stops speaking, it ends as nothing. It is a sound that touches the ear
and apart from that sound, we know nothing about the nature of speech.
Moses says in Psalm 90:9, “all our days pass away under
Your wrath; we live out our years as though they were speech”, that is they
end after the shortest possible time. To keep our reason further under His
thumb, our Lord also calls speech, “feet”. As we hear in Romans 10:15, “How
beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
“His Word runs swiftly”, from Psalm 147:15. And Psalm
91:13 reads, “You will tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and
serpent you will trample underfoot.” This is not done except through the
Word. For while the hearer sits quietly and receives the Word, the “feet” of
the preacher run over him and crush him to see whether or not he can be made
better.
And we will keep diving into this mystery of God’s voice,
since it is so important, for the Voice has come to Elijah. Before that, Elijah
had just settled in the cave and the Word of the Lord came to him there, just
before our Old Testament reading (v.9). And before that, it was the Messenger,
or Angel of the Lord that fed him, voicing the command, “arise and eat”
(v.7).
That is, the Son of God, the Word, has come before Elijah to
speak, to give voice to His Will. It was not, I repeat, not the wind, not the
earthquake, and not the fire. This same Word ushers Abraham outside to count
stars (Gen. 15). He appears to Samuel and stands before him (1 Sam. 3). Later
still, he touches Jeremiah on the mouth (Jer. 1). Finally, the Word becomes
flesh in St. Mary’s womb (John 1:14).
At Horeb the Lord shows Elijah (and us!) that He is to be
found in His Voice, His Word, His Son. To seek the “still small voice” is
simply to seek Jesus, to hear Him, to receive Him, to know all of God in Him.
And Jesus is catching men.
Catching, not like fish to the slaughter, but catching
alive. Alive in body and soul in front of God. And Jesus is the example. He
knows the net woven for us is of sin, death, and the power of the devil. He
knows that we are the little fish, taken in and led astray; led to the wages of
sin.
And what is that? Not doing enough hard work to hear the
voice of God? “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices”, the Lord
demands in Isaiah 1:11, “I have had enough of them”.
“This is The One to whom I will look:”, continues the
Lord in Isaiah 66:2, “He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles
at my word.”
Jesus is the only One to Whom the Father looks and Jesus
preaches the Gospel and the Gospel gives the forgiveness of sins. “And as
for me, this is my covenant with them”, says the Lord in Isaiah 59:21, “My
Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not
depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the
mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord, from this time forth and
forevermore.”
So faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of Christ,
and the Word of Christ by pastors, stewards and apostles, Jesus being the
First. The first to create, the first to speak, and the first to get caught in
the net, suffer, die, and rise again.
The net has been irreparably broken, because it was of the
Law. The Law that demands works to prove one’s loyalty. Yet this could always
be faked. Fear of God could simply be the fear of punishment. It is possible to
seem “of God”, by just giving lip service.
The voice of God is not happy with just lip service. The
Gospel preached brings the sinner to life. You want to hear the Voice of God?
Listen to His Word. Let it catch you, don’t catch it. Let it change you, don’t
read into it what you are already looking for.
The failure of the Old Testament is our failure today, that
is to fail to hear God’s voice. For through the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus
has commended His words and sermons. The total righteousness of man leading to
salvation depends on the Word through faith.
And that Word is made flesh, has suffered, and was
crucified. Much more, that Word continues among us as One Who Serves. Thus, one
of the Markers of the Voice of the Lord pertains to the free justification of
sinners by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith.
That was His will with St. Peter today, saying yes you are
sinful, but no I will not depart. I will forgive you and count your hearing as
righteousness. That was His will with St. Elijah. Yes, you cannot make it on
your own, but I will not kill you. You will live and you will bring my Word to
all who have not believed the devil’s words.
Do you want to hear the Voice of God in your life? Listen to
the Son when He is speaking Himself, in His own Word and in His own Church. You
do not have to make it up. Jesus already says what He wants to and His Church
that gathers around His Promises and His means, already has the Voice of God.
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