Hearing the Voice

Yesterday’s readings were known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” and contain some amazing material for spiritual reflection. This past weekend, I was able to spend a little more time with the readings because I was co-preaching on them with my daughter, Kateri.

My wife, Lynne, and I were sneaking in a brief visit with her in Detroit, and somehow it came up about preaching together while we were here. She’s currently serving on the ministry team at a church called St. Peter’s.  I could say so much more about this church (perhaps in another blog) because it has been such an amazing community of social resistance and nonviolence. This community and one of their former pastors, Rev. Bill Wylie Kellermann, have greatly influenced me, and continue to do so with their witness. In fact there’s an amazing documentary about them called “Not for Sale” that I would encourage people to check out (I’ll post the link soon!).

But back to the task at hand!

One of the readings from this Sunday is Psalm 23. The very famous words, “The Lord is my shepherd…” start this psalm and it is read at so many funerals because it offers such comfort and ease to people. I would highly encourage readers to pause a moment in this reflection to click here and read Nan Merrill’s translation of the psalm.  She translates just a few words differently than I have heard before which help me deepen my love for and understanding of this passage.

So before moving on, I’d recommend that you just read her version of Psalm 23. And if that’s all you have time for today, that would be enough!

If you’re back from that and want to read on, we hear from the gospel of John about Jesus being the gatekeeper for the sheep who hear and recognize his voice.

As some of you have heard me say, I recently came across a different translation of the Christian scriptures by a team of indigenous elders. It’s called the First Nations Version (Intervarsity Press, 2021).  I want to quote the introduction to today’s gospel passage because it offers what I think are such new and powerful ways of thinking about this passage. “Creator Sets Free (Jesus) told this story to the Separated Ones (Pharisees) for they were blind guides, leading the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel) down a false path to a bad end.”

First of all, even how Jesus is named (Creator Sets Free) is such a powerful new name.  But so is the name given to the Pharisees – the Separated Ones.

I highlight this not to diss the Pharisees but instead to help us think about separation – and how it lives in us and around us.

We live in such a fragmented world, and often, instead of following Jesus’ call to bring harmony and peace, the church has been an agent of separation and taught its followers to do the same.  We (collectively) have forgotten that Jesus is the gate/gatekeeper and took that role upon ourselves to try to decide who is in and who is out, who belongs and who does not.

So many of these separations are part of the world that we have inherited, yet we let ourselves become the enforcers and perpetuators of them.  We have inherited a world separated by settler-colonialism. We have inherited a world separated by racism and patriarchy. We have inherited a world separated by human dominance and greed. And these separations have dulled our ability to hear the voice of our true shepherd in this world.

The questions for me that keep coming back are: How do I hear the voice of Jesus calling me in the world? And from where is that voice coming these days?

The reality is that the voice of Jesus – the one whose voice I once recognized – can get blocked by so many things inside us and in the world. Our work is to develop the practices to hear the voice of our true shepherd and not get thrown off by other voices. And that voice may not always be what we expected or be coming from a source that we thought Jesus would look like.

For today, perhaps we can sit quietly and try to hear the call and voice of Jesus deep within us.  What does he want for us today? What does he want for our world? What does he want for creation? And instead of becoming gatekeepers, perhaps we can take up our role as the flock who hears his voice and follows it where he leads us.