Matthew
8:18-34
March
9. 2014
First
Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL
Christina
Berry
As you probably have discovered
by now, our Lenten theme for this year is “Sensing the Glory of God.” Rather
than deny our senses, as so often the season of fasting might imply, we are
celebrating this Lent how our five senses draw us closer to God, in moments of
daylight and darkness. To that end, we’ll be focusing our attention, through
our five senses, on stories from the gospel of Matthew. We are starting with
the sense of hearing, and we’ve chosen this episode that is full of sounds,
sounds of all sorts. Normally, we have the scripture reading up on the screen,
and many of us read and follow along as the scripture is read. This week, I
invite you to close your eyes and simply listen carefully. Listen especially
for what sounds you hear—voices, noises, all types of sounds. Listen! for God’s
word to us today in Matthew 8: 18-34:
Now when Jesus
saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A
scribe then approached and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you
go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air
have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Another of
his disciples said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my
father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury
their own dead."
And when he got
into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so
great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they
went and woke him up, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!"
And he said to
them, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" Then he got up and
rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.
They were
amazed, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea
obey him?"
When he came to
the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs coming out of
the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way.
Suddenly they shouted, "What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you
come here to torment us before the time?" Now a large herd of swine was
feeding at some distance from them. The demons begged him, "If you cast us
out, send us into the herd of swine." And he said to them, "Go!"
So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed
down the steep bank into the sea and perished in the water. The swineherds ran
off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had
happened to the demoniacs.
Then the whole
town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave
their neighborhood.
What did you
hear, in these two stories?
Did you hear
the yearning in the voices of those who spoke to Jesus? the authority with
which he answered them?
Did you hear
the waves slapping against the boat? the wind shrieking in their ears, the dull thud of feet on the wooden boat as
they scrambled to secure the sails?
Did you hear
the desperation in the voice of the disciples, crying “Lord, save us!”? and the
eerie calm that followed Jesus’ command?
Did you hear the
wonder in their voices as they asked, “What
sort of man is this?” and could you make out what they were saying as they
murmured, when they got off the boat in that place of tombs, where demonic forces possessed two men?
Could you
hear the faint hope in the malevolent voices of the possessed men? Was there a
hint of irony or humor when Jesus granted their request, and sent them into a
herd of swine?
Do you know
what it would sound like, a herd of swine tearing down a hillside, and
splashing into the sea, squealing and grunting in porcine terror? And lastly,
could you hear the footsteps as the swineherders ran to town, perhaps in fear
for what the owner of the pigs would say, and certainly in awe of what they had
just seen.
Did you make
out the uncertainty in the voices of the spokespersons who led the townspeople,
the firm yet fearful request that he get out of town?
We are
trained, from earliest childhood, to listen. From our first days, loving
parents lean into our cribs, eager to hear us babble, to laugh, to form the
first words, which they dutifully record in our baby books. At least that’s the
case for most firstborns among us – the farther along the line we get, the less
likely anyone is to jot that down! Younger sibling issues aside, in most
families, baby’s first words are a milestone.
Then the
words come faster – who is that? what does the doggy say? what sound does a
duck make? can you say bye-bye?
Somewhere
down the line, after we have demonstrated that we are acquiring language, the
emphasis shifts for most children from talking to listening: Put that down.
Don’t touch. Get in the car. I’ve already told you. Listen to your teacher. Soon
enough, we are encouraged to filter out certain sounds. Why don’t you listen? Turn off that music and pay attention to what
I am saying. Don’t listen to that kid – he will only get you in trouble. Ignore
that child – she is just trying to get a rise out of you. Don’t mind the
thunder, just go to sleep.
Eventually,
it becomes difficult to know whether to listen or ignore, whether we are
hearing sound, or merely noise, whether we should tune in or turn away. We even
stop listening to ourselves. We begin to think that saying a thing is as good
as doing it. We stop listening for the voice of God. We approach Jesus with our
half-intended promises: “I’ll follow you anywhere. “But first, let me take care
of some personal matters.”
We get into
the boat with him, all of us, ready to venture out, his people, but when the
storms hit, when the noise is deafening around us, when the rain dribbles and
then trickles and then gushes through the leaky roof, and the church seems to
be gasping its last, splashing uselessly, drowning in its own history, we
scream in helpless anxiety:
“Lord! Save
us! We are perishing!”
We barely
hear him rebuke the storm, and in the silence that follows, we are
uncomfortable. Still, we are with him, crossing over to the other side, where
we meet the unfamiliar, the unusual, the unlike us sort of people. In uneasy
quiet we plod after him into the cemetery. We hear the screams of these fierce
people, the inhuman sounds they make, and we see how very different, how
frightening they are. We step back, stumbling over each other to make a
retreat.
Who among us
does not want to go back to the boat, back to the other side, back to the
familiar past? Jesus speaks again, calming yet another storm, a storm that
rages in human hearts. He casts it away with a word of authority, only one
word: GO! And then, because we are so frail, so hard of hearing, we do not hear
God’s glory in that sound. We only hear the squealing of swine splashing in the
sea. Our thoughts turn to property – pigs, not people – and we hear our hearts
pounding in our ears as the townspeople gather to send Jesus away.
How deaf we
are! Not because we cannot hear, not
because we need hearing aids, but because our ears have tuned out the words of
Jesus. We choose not to listen when his call places demands on us – on our
time, on our loyalty, on the limits of our love. Our fear drowns out his
calming voice when our frail boat is rocked by raging winds. Not only the wind
and waves obey his voice, but the forces of evil, that drive men mad, are
stilled at one word from him. He speaks, and the sound of his voice is NOT like
that of an angel. It is a voice of power and authority, that commands chaos and
destroys the worst demons of our imaginings.
Perhaps we
resist hearing his voice because we know that to hear him would mean to decide,
to follow, to turn away from self and toward that boat that awaits us, to take
away from these safe and satisfied shores, away from these familiar places and
people and toward the strange and unknown. We are frightened. We want him to save us. We know we are
perishing. But we are not sure that we want to go where he is leading. But
listen!
Listen!
This voice of
authority is the same voice that spoke the world into being, the voice that
echoed across the face of the deep and said, “Let there be light.”
Listen!
This voice of
power that calls us is the same voice that spoke to Moses, saying “I am who I
am. I shall be who I shall be. It is the voice that called to Abraham and
Sarah, promising the impossible, the laughable, the covenant.
Listen!
You can hear
the voice that called the prophets, that promised redemption, even from
slavery, even in the face of faithlessness, the voice that called the people
back, saying “Come home. I love you.”
Listen!
Do you hear
him? a baby crying in the night, a child reading in the temple, a son speaking
to his mother?
Listen!
You can hear
him telling stories, hear his healing voice, hear him teaching love, hear him
saying “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” His glory is everywhere to be
heard for those who have ears, ringing through death’s dark valleys, echoing
from the mountaintops, speaking gently in the darkness, and in the cooing of
the turtledove, the giggling of children, the singing of his church, the soothing
murmur of voices in prayer and work and worship.
All around
us, Jesus Christ is at work in the world, and the sound of glory can be heard
by all who have ears, by all who will listen.
Amen.
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