The Voice of the Lord
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Mark 1:4-11
A sermon preached in Duke University Chapel on Sunday, January 7, 2018, by the Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery
There is a Bible story about when the prophet Elijah meets God at Mount Horeb. We are told that “there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence [or as the KJV says, ‘a still small voice.’] When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13) If Elijah lived in our day, it would be very hard for him to hear that voice because in our day, it’s the loudest voices, the loudest protesters, the loudest political pundits that get public attention. No one seems to care about the still small voices in our society. But remember, just because you are loud doesn’t mean it is of God. This isn’t to undercut shouting churches because God speaks in shouts and whispers for God is polyvocal and regardless of the volume, the voice we need to hear is God’s and so many have prayed throughout the years, “silence in me any voice but your own.”
The voice of God to Elijah comes out of the sound of silence through a still, small voice after all of the noise. In the stillness. Have you ever heard God’s voice? Is it tenor, soprano, baritone, alto or bass? Is it raspy or smooth? Is it as soft as quiet contemplation in a monastery? Or can it be like the loud ringing of bells? How do we even know it is God’s voice that we hear? How can we be so sure? Some Christians are so sure that the voice they hear is always God and that they are always God’s mouthpiece. Faithful Christians have been discerning the voice of God for centuries through the study of the Scriptures, through prayer, through circumstances, through the community of faith. But do you know God’s voice?
I’m not talking about judging God’s voice as to its quality as if we’re talking about the TV show called “The Voice” where judges Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Jennifer Hudson, and Miley Cyrus, choose the type of voice that best fits their teams and needs. God’s voice is not about our choice. How could it be that way, anyway, when it is God’s voice that gives us our voice, when it is God’s word that creates our life?
God’s voice gives us our voice, our breath, our first breath, our resonance, our life energy. We cannot speak unless we are spoken to, unless God speaks to us first, and that’s exactly what God does in the beginning in Genesis. As poet James Weldon Johnson writes, “And God stepped out on space, And he looked around and said: I’m lonely—I’ll make me a world.” God speaks the entire world into being for God is a speaking Being who is always doing. When God speaks, we receive the breath of God. God speaks and something happens. God said, “‘Let there be light’ and there was light.” And at the creation, God kept speaking and kept creating, day after day, night after night.
God said and then it was. God loves to talk. God is the poet laureate of heaven. God’s voice creates. God’s voice illuminates. God’s voice brings us to voice, brings us to light, brings us into the light, gives us a vocation, a reason for living. Actually, we get the word ‘vocation’ from the Latin vocare,
which means ‘voice.’ God’s voice gives us our voice, our vocation, when God calls in still small voices or louder ones. God has a creation vocation viva voce.
We shouldn’t be surprised then in hearing that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All thi
