29 04 07 My sheep hear my voice John 10: 22-30 Ali Newell
More on sheep this morning. How much can we as city dwellers talk about sheep? Do you find yourselves resisting the image in Johns gospel of us as sheep being gathered or is it just me?
My knowledge of sheep as far as it goes, is that rather than following easily on hearing a shepherds voice, [as we hear in the John passage], actually they usually have to be rounded up and chased by dogs. Usually sheep rush about in a slightly mad way in response to the dogs who have an enormous job trying to gather them together.
We had a border collie for 12 years who desperately wanted to be a working dog -He would gather anything in sight . In fact on Iona Jo our dog used to love to gather up the pilgrims who made their weekly pilgrimage together round the island He’d circle round us all and then lie down exhausted at the hermits cell mission - accomplished. When we moved to Portsmouth with no pilgrims and sheep,he tried to herd buses instead.
What does it mean to be gathered into community? Why do we do it? Why do we gather every week here? Its an amazing thing really… It would be interesting to ask people here, ‘What is your experience of gathering together to be renewed?’ and to hear people’s stories of how they have been nourished by the worship and by one another.
There is definitely something important about our need to be gathered for our wellbeing in God and about forming a community but are we really like frantic stupid sheep - its all a bit humbling as a picture.
So what about the sheep following when they hear the voice of the shepherd? Do they do that? Well I had a thought about a sheep I was given when I was a teenager in Orkney. I called this petlamb Sally and was given her by a girl who live on the most northern island in Orkney , North Rognavalsay. Sally was a special North Ronaldsay lamb They are special because they eat seaweed and need to eat it in order to survive. They are small and tough and brown, black, and white and their wool is spun and knitted into very expensive jumpers. Anyway Sally this sheep was a character. I thought back to times of bottle feeding her and how she was very responsive to my presence and voice because I was the one who fed her. She knew me and recognised my voice but she didn’t follow meekly - she became a wee bully always trying to push her way past me to the bottles of milk.
But lets stay with this gospel phrase ‘my sheep know my voice’
Whats in a voice?
Knowing and recognising a voice brings up strong images for me. Whats in the quality of a voice? Having many of my loved ones often far away over the last few years hearing the quality of their voices over the phone is very important to me Sitting in the kitchen and the phone rings and suddenly its my 19 year old Kirsten on the phone from Sri Lanka in tears telling me she and her friend are covered in broken glass what should they do ………or another time I can hear her laughter - she’s in the jungle and she’s been riding an elephant .The recognition of voice can be deep and immediate. It can get you in your gut.
When do you recognise Christ’s voice and does it sometimes get you in your gut?
Whose voice comes to mind as being of importance to you in terms of love and truth and vision and inspiration? Who have been people who carry Christs voice for you? Can you hear Martin Luther King’s voice and his ‘I have a dream’ or the voice of Nelson Mandela just after being released? I have a tape of Elizabeth Kubler Ross with her heavy German accent speaking about death and dying - an unmistakable voice of compassion. And what about people closer to home. My father in his dementia did not speak for 6 months yet in church, in that gathering place, you might suddenly hear his singing voice and after weeks of silence that was an amazing thing - to recognise his voice.
Singing voices have unmistakable qualities. We’re used to Steve and Caroline and Simon and Elspeth and Naomi and Susanne and Steven and Rachael leading us here. We know their voices, we recognise them. And they help us make a good song together - often they lead us into a sense of God’s presence and help us have a sense of harmony and belonging of being gathered.
I once had a funny experience with Philip of suddenly recognising Susanne’s voice blaring out from a CD in a car in the desert of New Mexico.We were walking along the path and could hear her voice behind some low sand dunes – that’s Susanne singing we said to each other and when we turned the corner there were three people wildly dancing and having a great time to her singing of a meditative chant in the middle of nowhere. – a slightly ridiculous scenario.
Voices can surprise you , inspire you to dance, move you ----
I will never forget the voice of a black South African singer from an ANC group that came to the abbey on Iona. It was during the apartheid regime and they got news that some of their friends had been killed back home. In response to this she began singing out her pain and the pain of her people in this raw, yet strong, wailing voice and the group that was with her recognised her lead and followed it. They all began to sway and wail…’sensenina, sensenina Lord what have we done’ and she gathered them and led them with her voice to a place where their grief and suffering was held - what a gift – an expression of Christ’s suffering love.
And where do we hear truth voiced? Jesus said ‘I am the truth for you’
This week the team I work with in Glasgow watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ In the documentary you listen to the voice of Al Gore giving a very clear picture of the dire state of our planet and the repercussions of not addressing global warming but its a film with hope at the end. I’d love us to watch it together as a church community here. Whatever you think of Al Gore it raises spiritual issues. How do we become awake and aware and open to change? That’s one of the pressing questions in it - a very spiritual question - that’s what prayer is about. At the end and beginning he shows a famous photo taken from space of the earth rising - like moonrise or sunrise. It is strongly symbolic. What does it mean for us to be part of ‘earth rise’? Is resurrection for us today in part living ‘earth rise’ in how we live our lives and care for the planet? How do we hear the voice of Christ calling us to act? What does it mean for God’s sacred body, the earth to rise into life? I love the words of the Iona Community Sunday liturgy in Iona abbey. The leader says, ‘Thanks be to God that we have risen this day’ and the response is, ‘to the rising of this life itself’
How are we part of choosing that, living that, praying for that with millions of others…… Importantly the voice of the risen Christ speaks the word of hope and transformation to the whole world, to the whole planet not just a chosen few holy ones – and yes, we often don’t listen or recognise that voice of life and love and truth but sometimes we doand that is surely where to focus. In relation to the environment, I’m speaking from the position of my family having a very large carbon footprint so we need to listen very carefully.
Where else this week have I heard Christs voice?
I was asked to facilitate a meeting with a small seed group on Monday who have been working for the last 2 years to bring into being a Larche community in Glasgow. I was very impressed by this wee group. They are listening in faith and letting themselves be gathered by a dream rooted in reality and trust .They are praying their way towards a vision of a community where, as they say in their mission statement, ‘We are working to build a world that recognises the unique value of every person and our need for one another. We will promote the gifts of people with learning disabilities and enable them to take a full part in L’Arche and society.’
One lass with learning disability said, ‘This doesn’t happen -people don’t treat me like that. Why?’ There was no answer to that except for them to say, ‘lets make it happen, lets have Larche in Glasgow.’
The story in Acts is interesting. Tabitha this woman church leader is the only individual woman called a disciple in the New Testament so we can be very glad her story is in there. In the miracle Peter says to the dead woman ‘Tabitha get up’ Can we hear the voice of love saying ‘get up’ to the dead part of us. Can I hear ‘Ali get up’ to the part of me that is dead in fear, or anxiety or doubt or despair or self absorption or compulsiveness or lack of self worth…my list goes on…. and can I/we allow ourselves to know we are made in God’s image and so be called by God to ‘get up,’ to rise into that place where we are true to the deepest in ourselves, where we reflect Gods life and compassion and justice and truth. We are called to small resurrections every day. Each of us has known the voice of Christ, the voice of love in our world in some way - and been graced by it, inspired by it, responded to it - that’s why we’re here.
And this week we will be listening to many political voices as we choose where to place our vote on May 3rd working out which party for us best reflects the values of Christ.
I can hear the voice of that deeply political churchman and peace activist George MacLeod saying ‘Matter matters because at the heart of the material is the spiritual’and he meant the matter of the bodies of people, the bodies of nations and the body of the earth .
The Iona Community which he gathered together has a commitment service once a week where people kneel down at the front of the abbey and are given some words of Jesus. ‘I am the way for you] or ‘I am the life for you’ or about thirty different phrases are given but just one for each person. As the person kneels, you could say at that time they hear his voice and allow themselves to be addressed by Christ’s words of encouragement. Under your seat there is a slip of paper with words of Jesus on it. I thought you might like to allow these words to address you as reflect for a little while.
More on sheep this morning. How much can we as city dwellers talk about sheep? Do you find yourselves resisting the image in Johns gospel of us as sheep being gathered or is it just me?
My knowledge of sheep as far as it goes, is that rather than following easily on hearing a shepherds voice, [as we hear in the John passage], actually they usually have to be rounded up and chased by dogs. Usually sheep rush about in a slightly mad way in response to the dogs who have an enormous job trying to gather them together.
We had a border collie for 12 years who desperately wanted to be a working dog -
What does it mean to be gathered into community? Why do we do it? Why do we gather every week here? Its an amazing thing really… It would be interesting to ask people here, ‘What is your experience of gathering together to be renewed?’ and to hear people’s stories of how they have been nourished by the worship and by one another.
There is definitely something important about our need to be gathered for our wellbeing in God and about forming a community but are we really like frantic stupid sheep -
So what about the sheep following when they hear the voice of the shepherd? Do they do that? Well I had a thought about a sheep I was given when I was a teenager in Orkney. I called this petlamb Sally and was given her by a girl who live on the most northern island in Orkney , North Rognavalsay. Sally was a special North Ronaldsay lamb They are special because they eat seaweed and need to eat it in order to survive. They are small and tough and brown, black, and white and their wool is spun and knitted into very expensive jumpers. Anyway Sally this sheep was a character. I thought back to times of bottle feeding her and how she was very responsive to my presence and voice because I was the one who fed her. She knew me and recognised my voice but she didn’t follow meekly -
But lets stay with this gospel phrase ‘my sheep know my voice’
Whats in a voice?
Knowing and recognising a voice brings up strong images for me. Whats in the quality of a voice? Having many of my loved ones often far away over the last few years hearing the quality of their voices over the phone is very important to me Sitting in the kitchen and the phone rings and suddenly its my 19 year old Kirsten on the phone from Sri Lanka in tears telling me she and her friend are covered in broken glass what should they do ………or another time I can hear her laughter -
When do you recognise Christ’s voice and does it sometimes get you in your gut?
Whose voice comes to mind as being of importance to you in terms of love and truth and vision and inspiration? Who have been people who carry Christs voice for you? Can you hear Martin Luther King’s voice and his ‘I have a dream’ or the voice of Nelson Mandela just after being released? I have a tape of Elizabeth Kubler Ross with her heavy German accent speaking about death and dying -
Singing voices have unmistakable qualities. We’re used to Steve and Caroline and Simon and Elspeth and Naomi and Susanne and Steven and Rachael leading us here. We know their voices, we recognise them. And they help us make a good song together -
Voices can surprise you , inspire you to dance, move you -
I will never forget the voice of a black South African singer from an ANC group that came to the abbey on Iona. It was during the apartheid regime and they got news that some of their friends had been killed back home. In response to this she began singing out her pain and the pain of her people in this raw, yet strong, wailing voice and the group that was with her recognised her lead and followed it. They all began to sway and wail…’sensenina, sensenina Lord what have we done’ and she gathered them and led them with her voice to a place where their grief and suffering was held -
And where do we hear truth voiced? Jesus said ‘I am the truth for you’
This week the team I work with in Glasgow watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ In the documentary you listen to the voice of Al Gore giving a very clear picture of the dire state of our planet and the repercussions of not addressing global warming but its a film with hope at the end. I’d love us to watch it together as a church community here. Whatever you think of Al Gore it raises spiritual issues. How do we become awake and aware and open to change? That’s one of the pressing questions in it -
How are we part of choosing that, living that, praying for that with millions of others…… Importantly the voice of the risen Christ speaks the word of hope and transformation to the whole world, to the whole planet not just a chosen few holy ones – and yes, we often don’t listen or recognise that voice of life and love and truth but sometimes we doand that is surely where to focus. In relation to the environment, I’m speaking from the position of my family having a very large carbon footprint so we need to listen very carefully.
Where else this week have I heard Christs voice?
I was asked to facilitate a meeting with a small seed group on Monday who have been working for the last 2 years to bring into being a Larche community in Glasgow. I was very impressed by this wee group. They are listening in faith and letting themselves be gathered by a dream rooted in reality and trust .They are praying their way towards a vision of a community where, as they say in their mission statement, ‘We are working to build a world that recognises the unique value of every person and our need for one another. We will promote the gifts of people with learning disabilities and enable them to take a full part in L’Arche and society.’
One lass with learning disability said, ‘This doesn’t happen -
The story in Acts is interesting. Tabitha this woman church leader is the only individual woman called a disciple in the New Testament so we can be very glad her story is in there. In the miracle Peter says to the dead woman ‘Tabitha get up’ Can we hear the voice of love saying ‘get up’ to the dead part of us. Can I hear ‘Ali get up’ to the part of me that is dead in fear, or anxiety or doubt or despair or self absorption or compulsiveness or lack of self worth…my list goes on…. and can I/we allow ourselves to know we are made in God’s image and so be called by God to ‘get up,’ to rise into that place where we are true to the deepest in ourselves, where we reflect Gods life and compassion and justice and truth. We are called to small resurrections every day. Each of us has known the voice of Christ, the voice of love in our world in some way -
And this week we will be listening to many political voices as we choose where to place our vote on May 3rd working out which party for us best reflects the values of Christ.
I can hear the voice of that deeply political churchman and peace activist George MacLeod saying ‘Matter matters because at the heart of the material is the spiritual’and he meant the matter of the bodies of people, the bodies of nations and the body of the earth .
The Iona Community which he gathered together has a commitment service once a week where people kneel down at the front of the abbey and are given some words of Jesus. ‘I am the way for you] or ‘I am the life for you’ or about thirty different phrases are given but just one for each person. As the person kneels, you could say at that time they hear his voice and allow themselves to be addressed by Christ’s words of encouragement. Under your seat there is a slip of paper with words of Jesus on it. I thought you might like to allow these words to address you as reflect for a little while.