Last week I was in Canton, Mississippi. I had gone to attend an event called CREDO 2. The letters stand for Clergy Reflection Education and Discernment Opportunity. CREDO 2 is shaped to embrace clergy who are 55 and older. Some are on the verge of retirement. Others, like me, are many years away but now see that distant horizon as something to ponder, and to prepare for more consciously. I am not 20 anymore, and one's several callings in life begin to sound different as the decades roll along. I am listening in a different way, too. At the same time, I also find that I can't hear as well as I used to. That is both literally true and a good metaphor.

As one grows in years and responsibilities more and more voices are added to the party- a spouse, a family, a larger circle of friends and acquaintances, colleagues, former colleagues, the expectation, hopes and fears of an ever growing group. God's way of communicating with us has been described as "a small still voice." That voice can get lost as more and more people join in the activity of a busy life. It's not that God withdraws. We simply forget to take enough time away from the party, to go to a quiet place and listen more intently. We also find that some conversations require more time than we can offer in the lives we have made for ourselves. I went to CREDO 1 in 2002 just before my last sabbatical and used it as a way of getting ready to listen to God in a deeper, more open way. This CREDO 2 is like a narthex, a little anteroom that separates eight years of very active ministry from more quiet, more still sabbatical time and space. On the other side of a narthex is the nave, the aisle that leads to the altar. At the altar at we receive the gifts of God, are infused with new energy and resolve, commissioned anew and sent out back into the world. Think of a sabbatical as an extended time of worship and wonder, a time to consider more carefully what God has done, is doing, and desires from those who are ready to listen.

Jesus said "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me." I want to follow Jesus more nearly. To do that, a person needs to listen more clearly. Listening leads to discernment.

The Rev. Joe Parrish serves an Episcopal church in New Jersey. he shared the following story with his congregation about a trip he and his wife, Jan, made to a sheep farm in New Zealand. The ranch contained maybe twenty different breeds of sheep, some with big horns, some with no horns; some were very large; others were smaller. The folks there put on a show to demonstrate that sheep can be trained, and that they really do know their shepherd's voice, and indeed know their own names. As the 'ringmaster' called out each sheep's name, that sheep would enter the arena from a side door and bound up a ramp to a stand somewhere between the top of a twenty foot high display platform, facing the audience patiently until all the sheep were dismissed at the end. Each sheep knew exactly where they were to go; they knew to stand still until all the sheep were in their designated place; and they all left in an orderly fashion when dismissed at the end of the show. A sheep dog helped wrangle the sheep into place. At the end of the performance, they ringmaster offered to let us come pet the sheep and the lambs, which were not part of the show. And that I could not resist, having seen several times the picture of Jesus holding the 'One Lost Sheep.'' So I carefully picked up a moderate size lamb, about the size of a large collie dog, and tried to cradle it in my arms. It immediately began to squirm, and twist, and as soon as the shepherd called out its name, it bounded from my grasp. It did know it's shepherd's voice, and that voice was not mine.

The world is full of voices, and the echoes of voices. Some whisper from the shadows. Some rise from within us - old hopes, old fears, the voices of our ancestors telling us how it has always been done, the voices of our children asking "why? Why do we do it that way?" There are voices of resignation, and voices of rebellion. Somewhere in the midst of it all, the Shepherd still speaks.

When Jesus came to Jerusalem for the feast of the Dedication the air was full of voices. One of the voices was an echo from 200 years ago. The Feast of the Dedication was a celebration of a previous rebellion - a proclamation of the Jewish people's deliverance in 164 B.C. from the hands of the despot Antiochus Epiphanes. This Syrian ruler had desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by sacrificing a pig on the sacred altar. Then he put a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies. Both these actions were horrifying to the Jews. The Maccabeus brothers defeated Antiochus in 164 B.C. and Israel was an independent nation for over a hundred years. But by the time Jesus walked into Jerusalem it was under the watchful eyes of an occupying army and Jerusalem had not been independent for a century. The voices of Roman soldiers were part of the crowd.

Jesus' detractors challenge Jesus to speak a clear indication as to whether, or not, he was the messiah. They want to hear something that connects to the actions of the Maccabeus brothers. But Jesus does not speak that language. And they are not hearing the sound of his voice. Jesus speaks of the power, and intention of God by pointing to the works that Jesus has done. The very work that Isaiah foretold- the blind see, the lame walk and the dead are raised. Such mighty miracles could mean only one thing, Jesus was able to act with the power of God.

Jesus was speaking with God's authority. But for them seeing was not believing. Hearing was not enough- the voices in their heads and in their hearts drowned out the small still voice. They wanted a Messiah that would throw off the chains of the Roman occupation of their land. And in their deafness and unwillingness to be changed they did not see the Messiah standing right in front of them.

And what about us? Are we looking through a cloud of expectations that obscures the Christ? Do we have notions that worldly power is the place to find God's righteousness? Are we practicing our ability to listen, to discern that small still voice, so that we might pick it out from the din of calls to arms, fear, anger or resignation?

The Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want…unless we forget to listen to the sound of his voice. He will make us lie down in green pastures and lead us beside still waters. He will refresh us, if we will let him- for what is said of horse is true of sheep, you can lead them to water but you cannot make them drink. He revives our souls and guides us along right pathways - not to fulfill our every desire, but for his name's sake. Listen to Him.
AMEN