Voice of God

 Genesis1:1-5; Psalm 29; Mark 1:4-11

If I said I heard the voice of God you would immediately think I was crazy and yet God's voice is present today in almost all of the scripture. God's voice has something to tell us today, just as it had something important to say back then. God's voice creates, breaks, whispers, and calls us beloved. This is what God is calling us to remember this week in the midst of heartbreaking violence. This is what God wants us to show to a hurting world. This is what God speaks in and through us to help heal a hurting world. The thing is the choice is ours, do we listen and harken to God's voice?

In Genesis God's voice creates, first it is light and it is good. This theme follows through all of the creation. Every single thing is which God creates is good. Not better, not best, not required to follow a certain way or certain set of rules, just is good the way it is. We seem to forget this. All God created is good. We make rules people have to follow in order to be good enough for us. We ignore the creation, the animals, the mountains, the lakes, the streams we think they are there for us and we can ignore them. Pollute them, destroy them because they were made for us, not us for them. Yet creation exists in this harmony of goodness with one another. When it is living in balance, in fullness of the treasure it all is, then we know a part of the kingdom of God.

We cannot deny the goodness with which God created us all. Yet this is what we are told to forget. You have to be Democrat or Republican to be good. Or you have to be progressive or conservative to be good. These dichotomies are false. We were all created by God. All made in God's image. All meant to be recognized as good. When we forget this we forget the origins of where we came from and who we belong to.

Next is the Psalmist who talks of God's voice being present everywhere in creation. God's voice is powerful in the thunder, in the waves, in the breaking of trees, in shaking the creation, and all worship God because of this. There is a power in the created order. A power we cannot fathom. This week I watched the birds come and go, flying past and realized how fleeting our concerns are. How irrelevant our want of control upon one another, upon this earth, because no matter what we do, even if we destroy one another the created order will not cease. The seasons will come and go. The plants will sprout once again. The snow will come, the rains will fall, the rocks will stay, or erode, or push up and we will be gone. So what is the mark we want to leave?

What legacy will we make or can we make. We are supposed to reason, to be smart, yet we forget God's power is not ours. It comes in the stillness of the air, the mighty storms, the slow rain, and the softly falling snow. This power does not destroy us, has not stomped us out, did not come back from the grave to punish us and yet we somehow believe power or control makes us more God-like. There is only one God. It is not us, it is not an individual, it is not in the powers of this world, as we have seen over and over in the Bible. Maybe this is why the Psalmist points to it this morning. We did not create the world, God did, and it was good.

Lastly, Jesus comes to John. Jesus as God's son, humbles himself to do what is right and necessary to go to John. Did Jesus need repentance? Did Jesus need to be baptized? According to John he is not even worthy to untie his sandal, yet Jesus comes. Because he knows God's power doesn't give him the right to flaunt it. God's power doesn't mean doom and destruction to the people who are destroying God's chosen ones. Instead it means to recognize our belovedness with one another.

The heavens break open and Jesus is claimed as beloved by God, and God is pleased. Pleased because of the choice? Pleased because Jesus doesn't claim superhero powers and abuse them? Pleased in the offering of Jesus' own life in service. Not in Lordship, not in power, but in serving others. Philippians 2:5-11 states this and we say this often at times of celebration in the church. Jesus surrenders himself to be servant of all, even to death on a cross. Not for worldly power, not to come and storm the capitals of this world, but to come and be invited in to storm our hearts, so we may know we serve others because care for one another is what God has taught since the beginning.

Creation cares for itself in sending out seeds, in connection with the seasons, in living together to help create a balance for biodiversity and thriving ecosystems. We are to have this same care. To be present to one another. To make sure, progressive or liberal, one another has what it takes to thrive in a diversity of colors, beliefs, concerns, and structures. No, it doesn't mean we set forth to condone things which are wrong and unjust, it means we don't make one another out to be evil though when our only crime is seeing the world through a different lens. Only in a diverse community may we thrive. We must keep recognizing the dust of creation in one another and know we are only human, not gods. We make mistakes and we are meant to lead others in finding the belovedness.

Our Presiding Bishop this week put it this way. Ask Nelson Mandela, ask Desmond Tutu, ask Ghandi what it meant to forgive and reconcile so they could walk the way of peace. It costs us, but the rewards are a freedom which cannot be snuffed out. It is the freedom of love which Christ showed us in the cross. Willing to die, willing to rise again and not seek vengeance, but to be reconciled to the disciples and show them how to do this work in a world which doesn't understand this kind of love. This is the choice which lays before us, the choice we claim in our baptism. Will you join me in the hard wood of love and help heal this hurting world?