January 13, 2002

"Slow Down and Listen"

Sermon:

A young and successful executive was driving down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his brand new Jaguar. He was watching for kids daring out from between parked cars, and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As he drove on no children appeared. Instead, a brick suddenly smashed into his side door, making a very noticable dent and a long scratch in the paint. He slammed on the brakes and quickly reversed to the spot where the brick had been thrown. Boiling with anger he jumped out and grabbed a kid standing there. Pushing him against a parked car he shouted, "What was that all about? What do you think you're doing? That's a new car and the damage from that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do this to me?"

The boy was apologetic. "Please mister, please help me. I'm sorry about your car. I didn't know what else to do. I threw the brick because nobody else would stop and help me."

With tears streaming down his face he pleaded, "It's my brother. He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheel chair, and I can't lift him. Would you please help me get him back in his wheelchair?" By now the boy was sobbing uncontrollably, obviously very afraid and upset. The young businessman had completely lost his anger, and his impatience as the growing lump in his throat felt like it would choke him. He followed the boy and helped him lift the handicapped youngster back into his wheelchair. Then he took out his carefully accessorized designer handkerchief and wiped the blood off a few scrapes the boy had suffered from the fall. It quickly appeared that everything would be alright. He wasn't seriously hurt, just shaken up.

"Thank you, and may God bless you" the grateful child said to his reluctant rescuer. The man stood speechless, still unable to talk, as he wateched the little boy push his wheelchair bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the car. His head was spinning with his thoughts and emotions. The damage to the car was very noticable, but he never bothered to repair it. Instead, he kept it as a reminder of this simple message: Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

How about you? Do people around you in need of help have trouble getting your attention? Does God have trouble getting your attention?

When Jesus was baptized, Matthew tells us, there was a voice from heaven that said, "This is my Son whom I love. With Him I am well pleased." Now, I don't think Matthew was just making this up. In fact, all four gospels tell us that there were both visible and audible signs from heaven telling the people who Jesus was. The Spirit descended in visible form, something like a dove, and a voice declared His identity.

Many times I have read that passage and I have often wondered, "Why didn't that settle it right then and there?" Why is it that 2000 years later there are still so many people who cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Could the answer be as simple as this: They don't listen!

I mean, let's consider this carefully. If we really believe all those things we say in the Creed, if we believe that Jesus really is the absolutely unique Son of God, the One through whom we find salvation, the One who alone can take away our sin and make a place for us in heaven, and not only that, if we believe, as St. Paul said, that "all things were made through Him and for Him", if He is the One who spoke the world into existence, then how can it be that so many people don't know Him?

Just as John wrote in that beautiful prologue to his gospel, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him." How can that be?

Maybe it's because there are so many people who are travelling through life so fast that the only way to get their attention is to throw a brick at them.

What about you? Do you ever slow down long enough to listen? I mean really listen to the voice of God within. If you had been there that day when Jesus was baptized, would you have heard the voice from heaven, would you have seen the Spirit descend, or would you have been so busy worrying about getting on with you own plans for life that you would have been oblivious to it all, just as most of the people there that day were, and most of the people in the world today still are.

What will it take to get our attention? I honestly don't know. Two days ago was the four month anniversary of the attack on our nation. Four months ago we watched in unspeakable horror as 3000 people died. Someone threw a brick at us, and I thought that was just the brick that might get our attention. But even now, only four months later I hear more concern about stock prices and unemployment figures than I do about prayer and repentance. I see more people pinning their hopes on an economic turn around than on the power of God.

On September 12 if you had asked me what should be done with "Ground Zero" in New York, I would have said that we should rebuild the World Trade Center just exactly as it was and show the terrorist of the world that they accomplished nothing.

Today I feel very differently. After the story about the new car and the brick, I really wonder if we shouldn't leave Ground Zero just as it is, a big empty hole in the middle of Manhattan, with a simple wooden platform where people can come and look, and remember how great is the danger of going through life so fast that you don't pay attention to the warning signs.

I know it's a totally impractical, unreasonable idea, and I don't expect anyone to take it seriously, but it's how I feel about the whole thing right now. I don't want to put a bandaid over the wound and pretend it's alright. I want it to get our attention until something in us truly changes.

We are called to be a people of prayer. Let's do that right now.

Lord Jesus, you call to us every day in a thousand ways, and so much of your speaking we fail to hear because we are too busy with ourselves to bother listening for your still, small voice. Open our eyes to see what You are doing. Train our spirits to listen for Your Word. Teach us to sort out the noise, to turn off the voice of wants, vain desires, greed and self-centered obsessions. Make us sensitive to the voice of genuine need, so that our neighbor who is in a crisis does not have to throw a brick at us to get our attention. In the fellowship of your church teach us to serve one another.

Lord, there are enough needs right here in this room to keep us occupied in your ministry. Help us not to walk away from here today forgetting our brothers and sisters until next week. We want to be the Church every day, not just Sunday. We want to hear Your voice, not our own. We want to be ready to follow where You lead. We want to know the blessed peace of hearing you say to us what the Father said to You: "You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased."

Amen.