Readings

This Week's Sermon

Date: January 10, 2010

Title: The Voice That Tells Us Who We Are

Message Delivered By: Cathy Stentzel

It’s no coincidence that we hear the story of the baptism of Jesus today, the first Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany is the season of revealing—the time in the Christian year when we focus on God’s surprising revelations—in three magi from another land and faith tradition – in strangers and enemies, and most unexpectedly, in our own lives. The message of Epiphany is that you (and I) are God’s beloved child, and that God is moving in and through your life and mine, to bless the world.

The story from the gospel of Luke about Jesus’ baptism is full of revelation: Imagine the heavens as they open up and the voice of God speaks directly to Jesus saying, “You are my child, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” All four gospels tell this story. And in each version the Spirit descends like a dove. Now the Holy Spirit is not a bird; Luke and the other gospel writers use the dove as a symbol—just as the dove is a symbol of new creation after the flood in the time of Noah—the dove here symbolizes the Christ is the firstborn of God’s new creation, the beginning of the reign of God on earth.

The dove also is a symbol for how the Spirit comes into our lives. Have you ever seen a dove fly down and land? It is graceful, gentle, quiet. And that’s the point being made—that’s the way the Spirit enters our lives—gently, gracefully, and sometimes so quietly we don’t even know it’s there. The Holy Spirit came to Jesus gently and quietly, and in Luke’s version, the Spirit came privately, while he was praying. It wasn’t a public event as it is in Matthew and Mark and especially in John. In Luke no one else saw the dove, no one heard a loud booming voice from heaven. It was a personal and private experience. Jesus came out of the water, went off by himself and Luke says, “was praying.” He was praying. That’s when he heard God’s voice calling him the beloved One and telling him how pleased God was with him.

Henri Nouwen writes “to pray is to listen to the voice of the one who calls you beloved. To pray is to listen to the voice of the one who calls you my beloved daughter, my beloved son, my beloved child. To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts and let that voice resound through your whole being.”

I have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit many times since I was a young teenager, but only once have I heard the voice of God, and that voice came literally out of the blue, totally unexpectedly. And it was while I was praying. On that occasion I was alone in the farmhouse at Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania, where Jim and I lived and worked in the early 90s. I was straightening up the meeting room, gathering papers and putting away hymnals following a lovely and moving retreat led by Marjorie Bankson called, “Soulmaking as Women.” And as I worked I was praying about the direction my life would take when we left Kirkridge: In my mind I verbalized the question, “God, what do you want me to do next with my life?” Suddenly I felt a rush of energy from above me come into my body through the top of my head. At the same moment I heard a voice seemingly from over there saying “You will be a pastoral minister,” And next I heard a lovely, clear bell-like sound more beautiful than any bell I have ever heard on earth

As you can imagine, I was surprised, shaken, shocked even. I remember falling to my knees (something I never do!) staying that way for a few minutes, in a daze. Then I stood up and finished my chores and walked up the drive to our house, besieged by doubting voices: Was that really the voice of God? Had I been struck by lightening? Did I have a mini-seizure? “You will be a pastoral minister!” What? Hah! I could never be a pastor! I don’t even go to church! I’m terrified of speaking in public! I’m not smart enough or good enough! What church would ever have me? I’m too shy! I’m too old! I’m too scared! Etc, etc. Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah from inside my head.

But over the next few days, as I meditated and prayed about the experience and the voice saying “You will be a pastoral minister”, I could not excuse it, rationalize it away or remove its stunning power. Something had happened, and in fact that something, that voice changed my life from that day on. I was embarrassed, but I got up enough courage to tell Jim what had happened. He decided for both our sakes that he needed to play devil’s advocate, to try and talk me out of considering the long path toward ministry, giving even more reasons than I had for why it wouldn’t work for me to go to seminary for three or four years, we had been working for less than minimum wage, we couldn’t afford, we had no idea where we would live or what he could do to make money, etc etc, yada, yada, yada.

It took me about two years to discern the truth of that calling. It wasn’t an easy path: I visited and interviewed at seven seminaries, before feeling the Spirit’s quiet presence at the very last one. Doors began to open, and marvelous coincidences occurred. We ended up in Piqua, Ohio where I served as the pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation about 30 hours a week while going to United Theological Seminary in Dayton. I received a salary of $12,000 and a parsonage next to the church where we lived. Jim bless his heart, covered emergencies at the church when I wasn’t there, became a hospice volunteer with HIV/AIDS clients and moonlighted at the Dayton Daily News as a copy editor, before becoming pastor himself at another UCC church in that town. In 1997 I was ordained in the Piqua church in front of a packed congregation with my whole family present and the glorious sounds of a brass quintet! It was the most stunning and beautiful day of my life.

That was the result of earnest prayer! Of listening and believing that I had heard the voice of God resounding through my whole being. Jesus says to us, “You are loved as I am loved. That same voice is there for you.”

“Jesus listened to that voice all the time, and he was able to walk through life. People were applauding him, and laughing at him. Praising him and rejecting him; calling Hosanna!, and calling Crucify him!” But in the midst of that, Jesus knew one thing—I am the beloved. I am God’s favorite one. And he clung to that voice.”

You are the beloved child of God. Do you know that? Say I am the beloved child of God! Now turn to a neighbor and say one at a time, “You are the beloved child of God!” That’s the message I want you to really get deep inside. But there’s something else to consider.

In the first reading this morning we heard Henri Nouwen say that the people with disabilities that he lived with in the L’Arche community “hear voices that tell them that they are no good, that they are a problem, that they are a burden, that they are a failure. They hear a voice continually saying, “If you want to be loved, you had better prove that you are worthy of loving. You must show it first.” I imagine that many of the homeless people we serve here at MCC hear those words often—or read them in the Citizen’s Voice. “Lousy bums! Why can’t they get a job like the rest of us! Go back where you came from!”

In fact, there are many of us in this room who have heard those voices saying similar negative, painful things. We have heard the voices of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, teachers, even pastors—ministers and priests. We have heard the voices of bosses, lovers, friends, spouses or exes, even our own children. The voices judge us, compare us, tell us were not as good or smart or good looking or talented or capable as someone else. That we’re wrong! The voices criticize us, put us down, hurt us. The voices may even say “I hate you.”

And sometimes, the negative, critical, hateful voice we hear the loudest and the most often is our own voice. Our own voice. And here I have a confession to make—I want to tell you something I never told a soul in the congregations I served in Ohio because I feared what people would say, or that I would have the stigma of mental illness: Since I was a young child I have suffered from depression and anxiety. It wasn’t diagnosed as clinical depression until I was in my early 30s, because I come from a family of stiff-upper-lippers. You know, “keep a stiff upper lip and for God’s sake don’t let anyone else know how you feel” was my family’s mantra that we all internalized. In addition several times a week my mother was heard saying “I could just kill myself.” Or, “I think I’m going to commit.” Later in life she told me that she’d only been joking, but I’m not so sure.

Anyway, today I take an anti-depressant and have taken it continually for more than ten years. But even with meds I still have those days, even weeks, when getting out of bed in the morning is a struggle. Those days when I don’t want to do anything or talk to anyone or go anywhere, even in beautiful Key West. When I came back from the trip to Israel/Palestine I was really depressed. And one way I know I’m going into a dark place is I begin saying to myself: “I hate myself.” “I hate myself.” “I hate myself.”

As much as anyone here needs to hear the words of Nouwen, I do: “The spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, You are the beloved and on you my favor rests.”

“You are my beloved child, and I am very pleased with you.”

Now, I have one more thing to say. And that is that at MCC Key West I have found a loving and accepting community. When we first came here at Easter three years ago, and we came to the end of the service and the song “I will change your name”, I cried and cried, tears streaming down my face. And that went on for several weeks. Some of you have had a similar experience. We come here perhaps not even acknowledging how wounded we are by the world out there. Or how many critical voices we have heard in our past and this week—including our own negative voice. And then we hear “I love you. I will call you by a new name: Beloved, you are my beloved child”, and the healing of hurts begins and continues.

I love you guys and I feel your love. And it is in the love of Christ’s community that we find healing and solace for the wounding voices. Through you I feel the Spirit’s presence—and hear the voice of God: and this happens in the line serving meals for cooking with love on Saturdays, or handing out lunches to the homeless whom we are one with on Monday through Wednesday, and in Sunday worship as we sing and pray and listen for that blessed voice of Love. I know I am God’s beloved most often, however, when I pray for one or several of you or am prayed for during the blessing at communion, The Spirit comes down gently, gracefully, quietly and settles on us At the table we meet and are met in love. How wonderful it is to touch and be touched, in those blessed moments of grace!

I think that’s why so many of us return Sunday after Sunday, and why we do so much to reach out to others in our city: because here we know we are the beloved children of God, and we have a powerful blessing to share with the world. Amen.