To hear is an incredible gift. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be unable to hear. For the world of sound is vast, varied, beautiful. There are sounds of nature: the roar of thunder, the soothing rustle of the wind in the trees, the ripple of the mountain stream, the simple song of the bird. There are sounds of music: the simple melodic line, the soothing harmony, the complex dissonance. There are sounds of relationship: joy, grief, frustration, hilarity. There are sounds of mechanics and industry: the power of a combustion engine, the grating rattle of the jackhammer, the unnerving whistle of the dentist drill. Sound is everywhere. Our world is a celebration of auditory delight, a cacophony of creation -- for those who can hear.

            What do you hear?

            Speaking in terms of the physics of sound, there are sub-sonic sounds, sounds whose frequencies reside below the receptivity of human hearing. These sounds can only be felt. A couple years ago we added two bass cabinets to our organ, which had been omitted from the original installation. They reside beneath the choir loft. They are never seen. They are seldom heard. But, when all is “swell” with the organ (pardon the pun, Susan!), you can feel the sound waves, rising to the surface. They resonate in this room. If you are standing on this stage at just the right moment, they will “shake your nerves and rattle your bones.” It is a wonderful “sound”!

And, at the upper end of the frequency range, there are also super-sonic sounds. Our dogs know them well, for they can hear much higher pitches than we are able. Sometimes when they cry out in the night, they’re not asking to be let in – they are responding to messages that are quite literally “over our heads.” Only a fraction of the sound spectrum is available to our ears, but the question remains…

What do you hear? And what can you not hear? What “sounds,” what voices, what callings are we missing? What deficit in our “hearing” led Jesus to say, frequently, ironically, “To him who has ears – let him hear” (cf. Mark 4.9). To the one who is able, grant her more than the ability of audition – grant true hearing.

What do we hear?

            As a college student, I was granted the privilege of venturing into the recording studio on several occasions. I was fascinated by what I found there. There were microphones of every shape and size. Far from the wonderful, live acoustics of this beautiful room, sounds rooms are absolutely dead. They are lined with black foam, designed to soak up every ounce of sound that escapes the microphone, so what is transferred to the recording is pure. In the control booth, there was a 24-track recording board with more knobs than “Carter has pills!” What could all of those little buttons and dials possibly control? I was fascinated.

A small representation of our college marching band had been selected to record portions of all of the newly arranged tunes for the next marching season. Band directors around the country received complimentary records (yes, actual vinyl records!) in hopes that they would buy these arrangements and enlist their high school marchers in the coming season. One particular piece had a difficult trumpet lick, which ended up in the stratosphere. At the end of a long session, no one in the section could seem to hit that top note cleanly. At one of our breaks, I walked into the recording studio as our director and the sound technician began working their studio magic. Re-mixing the tune, I listened to that one line and at just moment of our miscue, the director turned down the dial marked “trumpets” while boosting the dial marked “flutes and piccolos,” and presto! Mr. Bocook grinned in satisfaction as we listened again. There was no way to discern the difference, and high school kids all over the country that year marveled at the incredible range of the Furman trumpet line! Everything we hear may not be just as is sounds, so the question remains…

What do you hear? And what can you not hear? What “sounds,” what voices, what callings are we missing? What deficit in our “hearing” led Jesus to say, frequently, ironically, “To her who has ears – let her hear” (cf. Mark 4.9). To the one who is able, grant him more than the ability of audition – grant true hearing.

What do we hear?

I love today’s strange passage of scripture, from John’s strange, apocalyptic vision. John’s dream has captivated the minds and souls of hearers for two millennia, and it still has great, contemporary power. I read this week that the twelve-part “Left Behind” series, with its sadly maligned use of John’s imagery, has sold more than 60 million copies around the world.[1] (Wouldn’t you like to know that 2000 years from now, someone would sell 60 million books based on something you had written! Even if they were getting it all wrong, you’d have to know that you had done something right, that there was some, deep truth within your language.) And there is in John’s Revelation. His text was written for persecuted Christians around the ancient world. Those suffering, especially in Rome, unspeakable tortures at the hands of the Emperor Domitian (81-96 C.E.), and his now-forgotten agents of terror. John wrote to comfort, to assure, to bring peace to the hearts and minds of a troubled people. Ironically, his words, too often, bring only fear.

The culmination of John’s literary expose of pastoral care is a promise. It is a promise on which Christians have stood for all the generations since they were first penned. The promise is variously interpreted, but it is the heart of our eschatological (future) hope. Jesus promises those who despair: I am coming soon.

            My own theology, as I preached before Easter, leads me to believe, “Jesus will not ‘come again’ – unless his spirit of love and compassion comes into your own life. Jesus will not usher in the Kingdom from on High. For the kingdom, as he said… is already among us (Luke 17.21)”[2] But I do believe that the heart of Christian faith lies in the culmination of John’s message, in that hope, in that promise, in that waiting – which will come – to us, for us, with us… in us.

            In the heart of the culmination of John’s prophecy of hope is a message for this Mission Sunday. We come this day thinking of the good work we will do when we leave here. Of projects fulfilled. Of tasks accomplished. Of missions done. And on this day we hear appropriate, fearful words. I am coming soon… and my reward is with me… for I will repay according to everyone’s… work.

Some Christians take Jesus at his word a bit too literally here. For their lives are ensconced in the hard labor of life-consuming work. We clock-in for our twelve-hour days, and fill our time cards with work-weeks of overtime pay, consciously and sub-consciously working for the earthly and heavenly rewards that such labor is supposed to gain. I will repay according to your work.

But let us read again. What do you hear? “Let us listen, now, for the word of the Lord.”[3] What have you mis-heard? For at the end of an 80-hour week, whether you’re working for the boss or working for the Lord, all you can get from labor is a sore back and an empty, if well-furnished life. But there is more. What do you hear?

“The Spirit and the bride (the Church) say, (Work? Go? Do? Serve? Give?) No. The Spirit and the Church say, ‘Come.’”

Welcome. Be at peace. You are forgiven. You are beloved of God. Have you heard it? It is the task of the Church to say, by all that we do, “Come.”

And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”

Welcome. Be at peace. You are forgiven. You are beloved of God. Have you said it? In your heart? You home? In your politics? At the office? With your checkbook? It is the task of all who are welcomed, to respond, “Come.”

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Everyone who lives alone and knows anxiety – Come. Everyone who lives with self-loathing and inferiority – Come. Everyone who lives in resentment instead of gratitude, in hostility instead of compassion, in fear instead of trust – Come. 

Let anyone who wishes to take the water of life as a gift.

Just when our faith would turn us into working machines, we need to listen again, for all of life is Grace. Henri Nouwen has said,

Ministry is not, first of all, something that you do (although it calls you to do many things). Ministry is something that you have to trust. If you know you are the beloved, and if you keep forgiving those with whom you form community and celebrate their gifts, you cannot do other than minister.[4]

            Discipleship, says Nouwen, begins in solitude. In listening to our own hearts and for the heart of God. What do you hear? Where do you go to hear it? In a world as noisy as ours. Where can you listen? How do you listen? How well? How often? When our souls have heard the welcome, our discipleship continues, he says, in community. That place where we are being knit together by all the others who are “hearing voices,” too. Only out of that community, then, a community of forgiveness and compassion, can we really minister.

As we seek to “Become disciples through worship and service,” we cannot omit the worship – neither individually nor corporately. For only as we rightly hear, can we rightly serve.

What do you hear?

I was standing across a large balconied opening from her. We were in a group touring some of the great cathedrals of London and were marveling at the great dome of this church. “The acoustics here are perfect,” the guide told us. There was noise around and below us from all the other visitors so that I could not hear Elizabeth speak when she looked at me. But as she turned away, I heard her voice. [Amy begins to sing here] “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…” She was singing in a whisper against that domed wall, and from behind me her voice was as clear as a bell. “That saved a wretch like me… I once was lost, [Russ, add harmony here]… but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

Across the distance, through the chaos, behind the noise, that living word is clear. Jesus says, Come to me… and I will give you rest. It is the reason for our worship. It is the cause of our service. For all who have ears, our task is to hear the music. Only then can we join in with the singing!

May it be so! Amen.

PASTORAL PRAYER

Give us ears

That we might hear,

And then,

make us part of your song.

Amen!