Our Need: Stop and Listen 02/05/06
I would wager all $100 of my life savings that at least 90% of adults in this room have a cell phone and many of you have an Ipod, and all of you have radios, TVs, home phones, and computers. The question, in light of our texts: "how often do you use the off button?" That is: do you make a time, create a space, away from those glorious gadgets of our glittery globe. In a world of endless noise, do you have a place or time when you hit the off button, and listen for a voice from another world? Today’s Bible lessons would then add this rhetorical question: "If Jesus, the Son of God who lived in a world without any electronic noise, much less a world where every home has 100 channels... if Jesus needs a quiet place, how much more do you and I?"
Jesus, like many charismatic humans, had become the victim of his success. People were hunting him down. Mark says that they had found in his teaching an extraordinary authority. They had seen in his actions, incomprehensible power. How did he heal, cast out the evil, teach like they’d never heard?
This was a man worth following. And reading between the lines, you can see that the disciples loved it. Running out to find him – early in the morning—they urged him to come back to town. "Come on, everybody's waiting! This is it! Success is just around the corner. You've got the throngs at your feet. A few more hundred and we can start the building campaign. Just think Jesus, we'll have the First Jesus Synagogue of Capernaum. We'll have a big auditorium, and eventually a gym, and if things keep going, we’ll do like those churches in the future and build golf courses."
Jesus gives an answer to the disciples that can best be described as a non-sequitur – Latin way of saying: it doesn't follow. It's most often used in logical argument: the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. Here's Jesus' non-sequitur: "Let's leave this place, and go into the neighboring cities, for that's why I've come."
"Who'a Jesus, we got to quit letting you out of our sight! You get these funny ideas. The first time you were in the desert you decided you were called to this ministry, and now a morning by yourself, and you want to leave the crowds and go to a town where we aren't known. But they love you here!"
If Jesus hadn't left, he might have converted the entire town, and built the biggest buildings, and done the most charming things. And we would have never heard the name Jesus of Nazareth.
How did he know to go? He answered to another voice, he danced to another drummer, he was in love with Another—one worthy of absolute and ultimate love. He removed himself from the noise of the world, and allowed something more important than gold to pierce his ears. And it called him to do something that most would have found difficult to impossible.
Flannery O'Conner: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." Following truth can be as popular, as normal, as ordinary, as leaving a crowd of admirers for other lands, as caring for the underprivileged who can do nothing for you, of giving sacrificially so that it hurts your bottom line, of loving the immortal invisible more than the mortal visible of this world.
So... understanding that turning off the noise of the world, going to a quiet place, listening for the voice of your Creator is necessary. I will quickly address some myths that Christians occasionally have about this space and time we call the "quiet time."
Myths:
1) That if God doesn't speak audibly, it's a waste of time. I do think many have heard the voice of God, in a voice louder than words, but it doesn't happen often. Why? I'm not sure, except I can speculate that God is often saying: "you don't need to hear from me on that, I've already got it in black and white." It's in the famous 10, or in the teachings of Christ. We don't need to have God tell us to quit being hateful, or to love our neighbor, or to forgive our enemies. You don't need to hear from God: "don't steal time from your boss, don't get inebriated and act immorally..." Point: often the quiet time is the time when what you know, slips down into what you believe—and then do. It's the time when the Spirit work.
2) It needs to happen daily. Now, I know you expect me to say that you need a daily quiet time, and in fact I think it would be best for all of us to spend time turning off gadgets and turning on our inner ears. I encourage you to do that. However, the gospels make it pretty clear that this activity of Jesus was not a daily event, it was a special event. It happened at key points in Jesus' ministry. After his baptism, before going into all of Galilee, before the cross. The point is not its regularity, its ritualistic nature, the point is that you know where to go when you need to know where to go. It needs to be a major part of your life, intentional, not simply a rote part of our daily routine.
3) That your quiet place is a place of solace, of peace, of easy encouragement. Not according to Mark. Jesus' first trip away was into the desert where he met the devil, and was tempted 40 days. This is not simply a place of revelation, it is also a place of temptation. This is the balancing truth to what I said earlier. If the truth makes you odd, if it challenges the thoughts of those around you,—you'll need lots of time in prayer, making sure the crowds aren't right. For as much as we like to speak badly about the crowds, they are sometimes right. Democracy is a horrible form of government, but it seems to be the best one in history. Christ's calling makes us odd at times, but our calling is not to be odd. It's an occasional side-effect, not the real character-trait.
4) Flying is always the result of going to the mountain with God. No, in fact as Isaiah says, sometimes God is the wind under your wings, and sometimes he just helps you to walk, w/o fainting. This is the famous insight of John Claypool, whose 3 year old daughter died of leukemia. Sometimes it's enough that God helps you put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes God is the floor that keeps you from falling into the abyss.
OK, those are the myths that I heard growing up—sometimes in a well meaning devotional, and sometimes in a sermon. The most dangerous myth is that we can have a healthy life without turning off the noise of the world, and listening intently for the voice of God. I don't need to tell you how to do this, you just need to find that place, and that time where you make it happen. It won't be comfortable, it won't be easy, it might challenge your values, it might make you odd, it might precipitate a big change in your life, or a small change that starts a transformation. And to prove that sometimes the crowd, and the noise gets it right, I'm going to close with a saying from the crowd of today: "just do it."
Jesus, like many charismatic humans, had become the victim of his success. People were hunting him down. Mark says that they had found in his teaching an extraordinary authority. They had seen in his actions, incomprehensible power. How did he heal, cast out the evil, teach like they’d never heard?
This was a man worth following. And reading between the lines, you can see that the disciples loved it. Running out to find him – early in the morning—they urged him to come back to town. "Come on, everybody's waiting! This is it! Success is just around the corner. You've got the throngs at your feet. A few more hundred and we can start the building campaign. Just think Jesus, we'll have the First Jesus Synagogue of Capernaum. We'll have a big auditorium, and eventually a gym, and if things keep going, we’ll do like those churches in the future and build golf courses."
Jesus gives an answer to the disciples that can best be described as a non-sequitur – Latin way of saying: it doesn't follow. It's most often used in logical argument: the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. Here's Jesus' non-sequitur: "Let's leave this place, and go into the neighboring cities, for that's why I've come."
"Who'a Jesus, we got to quit letting you out of our sight! You get these funny ideas. The first time you were in the desert you decided you were called to this ministry, and now a morning by yourself, and you want to leave the crowds and go to a town where we aren't known. But they love you here!"
If Jesus hadn't left, he might have converted the entire town, and built the biggest buildings, and done the most charming things. And we would have never heard the name Jesus of Nazareth.
How did he know to go? He answered to another voice, he danced to another drummer, he was in love with Another—one worthy of absolute and ultimate love. He removed himself from the noise of the world, and allowed something more important than gold to pierce his ears. And it called him to do something that most would have found difficult to impossible.
Flannery O'Conner: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." Following truth can be as popular, as normal, as ordinary, as leaving a crowd of admirers for other lands, as caring for the underprivileged who can do nothing for you, of giving sacrificially so that it hurts your bottom line, of loving the immortal invisible more than the mortal visible of this world.
So... understanding that turning off the noise of the world, going to a quiet place, listening for the voice of your Creator is necessary. I will quickly address some myths that Christians occasionally have about this space and time we call the "quiet time."
Myths:
1) That if God doesn't speak audibly, it's a waste of time. I do think many have heard the voice of God, in a voice louder than words, but it doesn't happen often. Why? I'm not sure, except I can speculate that God is often saying: "you don't need to hear from me on that, I've already got it in black and white." It's in the famous 10, or in the teachings of Christ. We don't need to have God tell us to quit being hateful, or to love our neighbor, or to forgive our enemies. You don't need to hear from God: "don't steal time from your boss, don't get inebriated and act immorally..." Point: often the quiet time is the time when what you know, slips down into what you believe—and then do. It's the time when the Spirit work.
2) It needs to happen daily. Now, I know you expect me to say that you need a daily quiet time, and in fact I think it would be best for all of us to spend time turning off gadgets and turning on our inner ears. I encourage you to do that. However, the gospels make it pretty clear that this activity of Jesus was not a daily event, it was a special event. It happened at key points in Jesus' ministry. After his baptism, before going into all of Galilee, before the cross. The point is not its regularity, its ritualistic nature, the point is that you know where to go when you need to know where to go. It needs to be a major part of your life, intentional, not simply a rote part of our daily routine.
3) That your quiet place is a place of solace, of peace, of easy encouragement. Not according to Mark. Jesus' first trip away was into the desert where he met the devil, and was tempted 40 days. This is not simply a place of revelation, it is also a place of temptation. This is the balancing truth to what I said earlier. If the truth makes you odd, if it challenges the thoughts of those around you,—you'll need lots of time in prayer, making sure the crowds aren't right. For as much as we like to speak badly about the crowds, they are sometimes right. Democracy is a horrible form of government, but it seems to be the best one in history. Christ's calling makes us odd at times, but our calling is not to be odd. It's an occasional side-effect, not the real character-trait.
4) Flying is always the result of going to the mountain with God. No, in fact as Isaiah says, sometimes God is the wind under your wings, and sometimes he just helps you to walk, w/o fainting. This is the famous insight of John Claypool, whose 3 year old daughter died of leukemia. Sometimes it's enough that God helps you put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes God is the floor that keeps you from falling into the abyss.
OK, those are the myths that I heard growing up—sometimes in a well meaning devotional, and sometimes in a sermon. The most dangerous myth is that we can have a healthy life without turning off the noise of the world, and listening intently for the voice of God. I don't need to tell you how to do this, you just need to find that place, and that time where you make it happen. It won't be comfortable, it won't be easy, it might challenge your values, it might make you odd, it might precipitate a big change in your life, or a small change that starts a transformation. And to prove that sometimes the crowd, and the noise gets it right, I'm going to close with a saying from the crowd of today: "just do it."
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