ken wilson online

So I need to explain something. I’ve been to the same place for vacation for the past 28 years. I know, boring as the post office. Which is exactly the way I like vacation. Maybe as a result, vacation clears space in my head. Maybe for God to speak. Several years ago, I’m guessing now but 1998 or 1999, I’m praying on vacation and a voice gets through saying, “Pay attention to what I’m doing among liberals.”

Believe me when I say that I didn’t expect to hear anything of the sort when I heard this. Also believe me when I say that I’ve spent well over thirty years of my life listening for the voice of Jesus. And I was as sure as I’ve ever been that this was his voice. And that I had little idea what was meant by such a message.

At the time, I suppose I had been paying attention, if anything, to what God wasn’t doing among liberals, or maybe to what the devil was doing among liberals. So this was a message out of left field spoken into my right mind, so to speak. No, it wasn’t out of left field, center field, or right field. It was out of home field. But I’m allowing this lame metaphor to lead me from what I’m trying to explain.

So years have passed since then, and I notice that this voice that I have taken to be the voice of Jesus….actually that’s understating it and what I mean to say is this voice that I believe to have been the voice of Jesus, or maybe better said, what I cannot doubt despite efforts to the contrary to have been the voice of Jesus, has born out. That is to say, this voice has adjusted my perceptions.

Like when I was at a retreat with some of the top environmental scientists a few years back and I saw their flat out love of nature and their concern for what human beings are doing to disregard nature, I saw their love as something Jesus was doing among them and I paid attention. There have been other things as well. And whenever I mention these things, there’s often a little hornets nest gets agitated. Maybe you’ve noticed.

I understand the agitation, having occupied the social-cultural-spiritual space from whence it comes for many years. I’m entirely sympathetic to the agitation. It comes from the view that liberal is Christian unfriendly and conservative is Christian friendly. There’s plenty of evidence for the view if you’re looking for it. It’s just that this little vacation message was telling me to look for something else than what I had been looking for. Or more specifically, to pay attention to something that I had trained myself not to pay attention to. “Pay attention to what I am doing among liberals.” Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? Unless it doesn’t.

Just that, nothing else. No elaboration per se. Not, “Become a liberal rather than a conservative”–no, it wasn’t even in that ballpark of meaning. Not, “Pay attention to what I am doing among liberals and ignore what I am doing among others.” Certainly not, “Pay attention what I am doing among liberals and stop paying attention to your wife.”

But for all that wasn’t said, there was plenty that was said in that message. Pay attention. Pay attention to what I am doing. Pay attention to what I am doing among liberals.

But I’ve noticed that often when Jesus speaks, his speaking–as much as we say we want to hear him speak–is also a testing. We want the speaking more than the testing. Maybe this is why he doesn’t speak as often as we would like.

“Whose voice are we paying attention to rather than the his voice?” is a good test question. We come to faith in Jesus and quite properly we attach ourselves to others who also have faith in Jesus. That’s part of the Jesus faith in fact. We get him and we get his friends, whether or not we like them at the time.

Attaching ourselves to his friends, we sometimes–and who can blames us? it’s inevitable, we’re just humans, after all–confuse their voice for his. We hear warnings from his friends, warnings about the dangers lurking in various movements and groupings and political parties and cultural institutions. This happens without our even being aware of it happening–it’s that powerful and pervasive. It embeds itself in our assumptions, this warning. And then you, or at least in my case, I, hear something like, “Pay attention to what I’m doing among liberals.” And it becomes a kind of test.

Like Peter and John and James underwent up on that mountain. Jesus was praying and they were with him. His face got dazzled and they got sleepy. But then they become wide awake and alert and see Moses and Elijah–yes of “the Law and the Prophets” fame–standing with him and his glory. Moses and Elijah begin to depart and Peter says, “Lord, let’s not break up this party! It’s just getting interesting!” and then a cloud covers them all and scares them as such clouds do, and a voice comes from the cloud saying, “This is my son, my chosen. Listen to him!” After that, there is Jesus only.

No I’m not saying that what happened on vacation several years ago was as vivid as that. But I’m saying that if we believe Jesus to be living, not dead, then we believe he has a voice, and he is entitled to use it. And what’s the point of counting ourselves as his followers if we don’t at least have the hope of hearing his voice so that we can listen to him?

This transfiguration event is meant to shake us up like it shook them up. Listen to him. Pay attention to him. Moses was pointing to him. The prophets were pointing to him. I am now pointing to him. So listen to him. Don’t chase after Moses or Elijah when it’s time for them to go and he’s standing here before you.

Tags: environment, Jesus, prayer, the divine hours, vacation

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 7:49 am and is filed under beyond conservative-liberal, jesus freak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.