‘Who are you?’

You might be forgiven, reading today’s three Scripture passages, if you at first thought they were all to do about hearing imaginary and unknown voices! In fact you’d not be alone in that thought, for how many of us can actually say we have heard the voice of God or Jesus telling us to do something?

When someone says they have heard God talking to them, your first thought might be that they are ‘off their head’ but as Scripture and other peoples’ experience often tells us this is not necessarily the case and perhaps God did ACTUALLY speak to them.

St.John, in this morning’s second reading records hearing voices and having a vision of angels praising God. In the first reading from Acts the disciples experienced Jesus after his resurrection telling them what to do. Fanciful stories? Well, whatever happened lives were changed. St.Paul’s conversion is perhaps, the most dramatic account of hearing voices and it is hardly surprising that he wasn’t believed at first by the disciples. Why? Because whose word did they have except Paul’s - the Christian persecutor, that he had heard the voice of Jesus call him and command him to stop persecuting his followers and to become one of them.

Paul or Saul, as he originally was, I like to think that Paul was his Baptismal name, certainly changed his tune and his life. He was a religious zealot, a fundamentalist Jew, hell bent on disproving that Jesus was the Messiah. He supported the Temple authorities in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus and was very good at rounding up and condemning the followers ‘the way’.  His sudden and rather dramatic conversion to a champion of Jesus must have been viewed by the disciples as being rather questionable. Was he claiming to be a Christian in order to infiltrate the Early Church and thus destroy it from the inside? Could they trust Paul’s testimony that he had heard the voice of Jesus speak to him?

Quite rightly, the disciples questioned his motives and it took a long time for Paul to really win their trust but win it he eventually did. His writings bear testament to that. Paul, never knew Jesus personally (remember that fact) but Jesus inspired him once he was able to proclaim him as his Saviour and Lord. When he could answer; ‘I know who you are.’ to the voice he heard.

Jesus is good at inspiring people, that’s why, I suspect, that we are here to his morning. We might not fully know what it is that we are doing except the fact that there is something about Jesus that encourages us to live our lives in a particular way and to seek not only to praise and worship him but to reach out to others in need as he did with the Gospel message of unconditional love.

Paul was tested and tested again and again in his new found faith and yet he hung on; despite all the shipwrecks, imprisonments and other hardships. I can relate to that testing, in my own call to ordination and the priesthood. 

Selection and training is never straight forward and my path was anything other than uncomplicated. I have, though, always felt my call. I did not experience any ‘voices calling me’ or experienced an amazing conversion, it’s just always been there for as long as I can remember from my childhood onwards. Others as I have said hear a call or undergo a conversion of life that sets them on a new path but not all of us. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t bothered by God but everyone’s ‘call’ is different.

When anyone experiences a call, it will be tested and the eventual right path found, even if that is not the path one originally thought it was meant to be. All of us are called through our Baptism to ministry and what I mean by that is that we are all called to serve others in Jesus’ name. For some of us that is to ordained or licensed ministry, for others it is to be a ‘Christ light’ in the work place or the home reaching out to others where they are and where we happen to be as well. Like Jesus the greatest thing we can ever give anyone is our attention and time, when they need it most.

All of us here today are ministers of Christ, we are his disciples journeying together closer everyday to God and the ways of the Divine. Following Jesus is a life long occupation, at times we are called to reach out to others and at other times we are the ones that need to reached out to. All of us need to listen to the voice of God of Jesus in our daily lives. Some of us might actually hear that voice, others of us will be prompted to do or say something to help another and others of us may be just called ‘to be’ and shine as that Christ light in the world. We might not even know that we are doing so but if God has a plan then God usually gets his way.

The beginning of Prologue of the Rule of St.Benedict begins with the word; ‘Listen’ and goes on to say; ‘to the Master’s instructions and take them to heart’. They are good words and words appropriate for us today as we ponder on God’s call to us. ‘Listen’ and keep on listening all your lives to what God might be saying to you. For the more we listen or try to listen the more we might come to realise who is speaking to us and what it is that we are called to be and to become and to do.