Recognizing the Voice

When I first came to Canada, many years ago, a long-distance call from England was always a special thing and there was great joy in hearing the voices of my family, those people who were so very dear to me. Lately though, I, like many of you I’m sure, am the recipient of many scam calls, disembodied voices purporting to be Revenue Canada, or my bank, all for the purpose of getting information or money. These are not welcome or known voices.  

Whose voice do you listen to? There are many voices clamoring for our attention: conflicting news media, oppositional political voices, advertising voices, and now, we are dealing with artificial intelligence, no longer sure if what we are hearing is the truth. It can be difficult to know which voices we should listen to, who we should follow. 

There is a program on television called “The Voice” in which famous singers perform in elaborate masked costumes and a panel attempts to identify the masked singer. Fortunately for us, it is not so difficult to hear the voice that we need to pay attention to:  there are certain qualities that make the voice known and heard. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus uses one of the “I AM” statements that are so characteristic of the Gospel of John. He tells us, “I AM the Gate”. He tells us that his sheep know his voice and follow him, but those who are not his sheep do not recognise his voice. In order to recognise the voice and follow its directions, we need to be in relationship with the shepherd. And what does the voice say? “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”. We can trust that voice. 

In the reading from the first letter of Peter, we hear the apostle imploring the early Christians to remain true to the teachings of Jesus, even, or perhaps especially when it is hard. He holds up Jesus as the example to follow and reminds them that they were like sheep who had gone astray but were returning to the shepherd who would lead them along the path of life. 

Today, on Good Shepherd Sunday, all of us here are called to live out our baptism in whatever way the Good Shepherd calls us. Some are called to ordained ministry, others to live out the call of faith in a vowed community, some through the sacrament of marriage, some as parents, and some as single people in the world. It is likely that our baptism will call us to different vocational states at different times in our lives, but we are all called to ministry, to action in one form or another, and we are all called to live out our baptismal calling in community with others. There is only one vocation, and it is a vocation we share in common, to make Jesus known. All of us are called: none more than others, and at all stages of our life, we are assigned our fitting task. 

So how do we recognize “the voice”? Jesus spoke with gentleness, acceptance, kindness and clarity. He reserved his anger for injustice and even then, he was usually measured. We have witnessed a good example of this in one of Jesus’s disciples this week, in the calm voice in which Pope Leo responded to the president of the United States; we have witnessed it also in the announcement that our new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally and the Pope plan to meet in Rome, not to be adversarial, not in the expectation of agreeing on all things, but to listen.  We have a saying in Spanish in my family: Primero busca entender which translates as Seek first to understand. This is the purpose of this coming together, to better understand each other. Pope Paul VI in meeting with former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, many years ago, referred to the Anglican Church as “Our Sister Church”. This is the voice of Jesus speaking through the body of Christ on Earth. 

We attune ourselves to this voice through prayer, through allowing periods of silence in our lives, by refusing to give attention to voices that are divisive, self-interested, or agitated, by protecting our peace and that of others, by being available for God to work in our lives. 

Matthew 19 tells us that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God”. This refers to an archway in Jerusalem which a camel could only pass through by crawling through on its knees: a humble position. This reminds us that we are to be humble before God, open to God’s grace, not overly attached to material possessions, but cultivating a spirit of sharing, of community, of openness: then we will be able to hear the voice. Amen.