Listening for Jesus (Sermon for Easter 4)
This is my sermon for April 26, 2026, at Ebenezer and Black Creek UMCs. The texts I used today include Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-26, 31; Psalm 100; Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10.
1. Introduction: The Familiarity of the Voice
In an era defined by a relentless cacophony of digital
alerts and competing narratives, the act of spiritual discernment has moved
from a quiet luxury to a strategic necessity. Recognizing the voice of the
divine is to be a practiced familiarity. It is akin to the immediate,
instinctive recognition of a loved one’s call across a distance. To hear the
voice of Jesus is to identify a singular frequency amidst a noisy world that
constantly seeks to drown it out.
When I think about voices one of the things that comes to my
mind is an experience I sometimes have. Don’t have it all the time, but every
now and then I have it. Just often enough that that that that makes me think
about it and reflect on it. Every now and then, as I’m going to sleep, there’s a
period between being awake and being asleep. There’s a period right in the
middle that we might refer to as liminality. You know, right at the edge of the
border. Sometimes when I’m in that liminality, I hear my name being called: Alan.
Alan. And more often than not, what I hear is the voice of my mother. She died
a couple years ago, but I still hear that voice calling out to me. Alan. Alan.
She never says anything else. I don’t know what it is that she might want to say
to me, but I recognize that voice as hers. Or consider perhaps when you’re in a
crowded room, you know, maybe in the fellowship hall and people are turning
about and getting food or getting something to drink and you’re walking around
and you’re looking for somebody and you don’t see them in front of you, but
suddenly you hear their voice and you recognize it immediately and you turn and
there is that person you were looking for because you recognized their voice.
In the same way out of all the competing voices that we hear in our lives
today, somehow out of that we are expected to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd,
to hear the voice of our Savior, to hear the voice of Jesus calling us by name.
Today, our allegiance is a commodity competed for by various
voices. Phones, social media feeds, and 24-hour news cycles represent a
competitive landscape, each vying for our attention and our follow-through.
Without a practiced ear, we risk being swept away by the loudest current. The
biblical metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep provides the necessary
framework for this anchor. It reminds us that to follow effectively, one must
first know the voice of the one leading.
2. The Searching Shepherd: God’s Proactive Grace
A fundamental shift occurs when we realize that the
Christian life is not defined by humanity’s frantic attempt to reach God, but
by God’s proactive search for humanity. This is the bedrock of Christian grace.
We often misidentify religion as a ladder we climb; in reality, it is a
response to a God who has already descended. Faith begins not with our seeking,
but with our acknowledgment of a presence that has already surrounded us.
This proactive pursuit is anchored in the prophetic
tradition. In Ezekiel 34:11-16, God is portrayed as the searching shepherd who
vows to seek out the lost, the strayed, the injured, and the weak. The prophet
Ezekiel, writing long after the reign of King David, points toward a future
Messiah—the heir to David’s throne. This “Good Shepherd” is the fulfillment of
the Davidic promise. We recall the stories of the young David, who protected
his father’s flock with a simple sling and staff, fending off the predatory
lions and other threats. Jesus is the fulfillment of that protective promise.
He does not wait for the sheep to “clean up” or find their own way back to the
fold before offering care. He meets them in their brokenness and in their
wandering.
Theologically, this represents our understanding of
prevenient grace: the conviction that grace is given to every person to enable
their response, and that grace comes before our listening. As Psalm 100
suggests, we are sought by God before we ever have the capacity to respond to
him. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture by virtue of his creation
and his initiative. Therefore, our spiritual task is not to find a distant God,
but to listen for the one who is already calling us back from the places where
we have strayed.
3. Known by Name: The Intimacy of the Call
The call of the Good Shepherd is strategically personal. It
is with an intimacy that Jesus does not call out to a nameless collective, but
to his flock of people with specific stories, struggles, and failures. To be
known by name is to be fully seen.
Human attempts to identify one another are often flawed and
prone to error. Consider the administrative or social misidentification common
in professional life. The name “Ples”—a family name from my mother’s side—is
unique and often confuses those unfamiliar with it. During a sacred moment of
ordination, Bishop Cannon became so flustered by this middle name that he
hallucinated the first name. Looking at “Alan” out of the corner of his eye
while obsessing over the pronunciation of “Ples,” he laid hands on my head and
announced, “Ralph Ples Swartz, take thou authority…”
Similarly, during my hospital chaplaincy in Greenville, the
head of the program insisted on calling me “Al.” Despite repeated corrections
that my name was “Alan,” he never listened. I hate being called Al. My parents
named me Alan, not Al.
In contrast, the Good Shepherd makes no such mistakes. He
calls us by name in a way that reaches into our deepest identity. As noted in 1
Peter 2:19-25, he is the “Guardian of our souls,” a title that implies a deep,
protective knowledge of our true selves. This is the profound significance of
the call: God knows our temptations, our weaknesses, and what we have failed to
do, yet he still calls us by name. This total knowledge does not lead to
rejection, but to a specific invitation to follow him into a new way of being.
4. The Way of the Sheep: Discipleship in Community
Listening to the Shepherd is not a passive or strictly
internal experience; it necessitates a mandate for a response and a specific
lifestyle. Discipleship is the practical outworking of “hearing.” If we truly
recognize the voice, we must move where it leads.
The early church, as described in Acts 2:42-47, provides the
blueprint for this responsive lifestyle. The first followers did not interpret
hearing Jesus as a private, individualistic endeavor. Instead, their “hearing”
resulted in concrete actions:
- Sharing
resources and possessions with those in need.
- Devoting
themselves to prayer and the apostles’ teaching.
- Breaking
bread together in their homes.
- Proactively
caring for the poor.
This communal aspect is vital. The Gospel argues against the
modern, individualistic “me and Jesus” mentality. You can’t be a sheep all off
by yourself. To hear the voice of the Shepherd is to be led into the “fold”—the
community of faith. Furthermore, this path includes the hard word found in 1
Peter regarding the endurance of suffering. We are called to endure hardship
patiently and, critically, to not retaliate, trusting instead in a just ruler.
Following the Shepherd does not guarantee the absence of hardship, but it does
guarantee the presence of the one who goes ahead of us. In this community, and
under this leadership, we find the “abundant life” and the “pasture” promised
in John 10.
5. Conclusion: Cultivating the Discipline of Listening
Distinguishing the Shepherd’s voice from the “lies of the
world” and the clamor of “social media influencers” requires a practical, daily
discipline. In a world where voices compete for our attention to generate
profit or power, the voice of Jesus remains steady, but it often requires us to
quiet the surrounding noise to hear it clearly.
The mandate for the coming week is simple yet
transformative: cultivate a daily morning practice of quietude. Before the
demands of the day or the phone intervene, ask a simple question: “Lord, what
are you saying to me today?” This practice transitions listening from an
occasional event to a habitual state of being.
We are sustained in this discipline by the theological
assurance of Psalm 100:5: the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness continues across all generations.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
Closing Prayer Living God, your holy word calls us
into new life. Strengthen us to live what we have heard, to follow the voice of
our Good Shepherd, and to share the grace you bestow upon us with others. All
this we pray in the precious and holy name of Jesus, our Good Shepherd. Amen.
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