Our sermon text this morning is actually in three pieces, all found in the gospel of Matthew. The first one Jeremy read earlier, the actual Christmas story. The second two come from Matthew chapter 2. For the moment, we are skipping over the stories of the Wisemen coming to honor Jesus, and also the horrible story of King Herod destroying the male children of Bethlehem…we’ll pick back up with those next week.

Many years ago, way back when I was in college, I used to go up to St. Mark’s Cathedral almost every Sunday night for the Compline service, a very beautiful and meditative service where the choir leads from the back of the church.

One night, I was sitting next to the main aisle, and the service was just beginning, when a man walked down the aisle to the front of the church. He was disheveled, muttering to himself and fairly obviously struggling with an illness of some kind.

I watched him, fascinated as he walked around the front of the church, and then I could hear that part of his mutterings were swear words...he was clearly disturbed. After circling the front of the church, he started back down the main aisle. As he passed me, I felt inside of me a little voice that seemed to say “Go to the back of the church and talk to him.”

As I stayed rooted in my seat, I thought “Wow, what a strange thought to have.”

Then I sensed it again, slightly more urgent, and thought to myself, “Could this be God speaking to me?” I instantly dismissed it as ridiculous, thinking “What could I possibly have to say or do.” As I continued in my seat, the sense came again, even more urgent and I said silently “God, is this you? What could I do? I know nothing about mental illness…He’s probably dangerous. I know you wouldn’t ask me to do something so weird.”

This internal wrestling match lasted for 4-5 minutes. Finally, unable to shake the feeling that God was asking me to do something, I got up and walked to the back of the church. There was no one in the foyer, and I opened the door to the outside. There was a police car in the driveway, and they were just helping the man into the back seat. Apparently someone had observed his strange behavior and called for help.

I went back in and wondered: did I blow it? Had God really asked me to do something in a step of faith, and my delay had prohibited it from happening? In a state of confusion, I went to someone who was a more mature Christian than me, and told him the story. I think I was looking for someone to reinforce that my imagination had just gone a little wild. After listening carefully, and asking some questions, he looked me in the eye and said: “Dan, I think you probably blew it!” Not exactly the response I’d hoped for!

Does God really speak today?

Would it actually make a difference if he did?

We know so very little about Joseph. It’s interesting that one of the major figures of the entire nativity story, the husband-to-be of Mary and the one who would be a father to Jesus…never speaks. Never, in the New Testament does Joseph say a word.

One thing we do know about Joseph is that God communicated directly with him on several occasions. In Joseph’s case, it seemed to be in dreams, and often involved angels.

Now, I’m not giving a sermon on dream interpretation today, nor on the particularity of angels. Those are interesting topics, but the most important thing they communicate here is that Joseph hears from God. Joseph hears God’s voice, and responds.

Four times, Joseph hears God and responds:

1) “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife…You are to name him Jesus.”

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife…he named (the baby) Jesus.”

2) “…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you”

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.

3) When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go the land of Israel…”

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.

• Joseph…was afraid to go…to Judea, and After being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.

Joseph hears. Gets up. Goes.

The word that I couldn’t get out of my head as I read each of these little stories…was obedience. It’s what I’d like us to think about this morning. It’s not a very popular word today, actually. Which in some ways makes it that much more important. Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of the “what’s in it for me?” approach to faith. If something doesn’t strike our fancy, or stir our passion, or make us feel “called” or make me feel happy, or just make good common sense, then we don’t want to do it. Usually we don't do it. But Joseph. Joseph heard. And “Joseph got up and went.”

Henry Nouwen once pointed out that our word “obedience” comes from a Latin root, audire, (like “audio,”) that means “listening.” Listening is the first part of obedience. We try to hear God’s voice. To pay attention.

It’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? If we could just know what God wanted of us, if we could just hear God, it would be so much easier. But it’s not an easy thing. Well, at least sometimes it’s not easy.

Sometimes it’s easy to hear, just not easy to do. What does God want me to do? I have people ask me that a lot. Sometimes I just want to shoot back the words from Paul in I Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” That’s pretty clear, just hard to do. What does God want me to do? “Do justice, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Clear word, hard to do. So sometimes it’s easy to hear.

But sometimes it truly is hard to hear. How has God spoken to you in the past? How do we train ourselves to listen for God’s voice? To pay attention? The things that we often call “spiritual disciplines” all help train us to listen. Prayer (spoken and listening in quiet). Scripture. Fasting. The input of the community of faith. All these things are available to us, not as acts of reluctant ritual, but as ways we become familiar with God and learn over time to recognize his voice.

But what about those people who always hear God’s voice, telling them where to park or what to wear and it doesn’t seem to you it’s God? What about when the quiet voice inside of me is a guilty conscience, or a bad tape from traumas of the past that won’t leave me alone? How do we distinguish those from God’s voice? Those same disciplines, prayer, scripture, fasting, the community of faith help us know. God won’t contradict Himself. If we’re not sure we’re hearing correctly, we can:

• look in scripture
• ask others in the community of faith to pray
• check what we hear.

So listening is the first part of obedience.

The second part is acting on it.

“Joseph got up and went.” It strikes me there are a couple different kinds of obedience. One is the obedience of the moment, the short term. Listening for the promptings, the nudgings of God, for the quiet voice.

• “Go there.”
• “Talk to this person.”
• “Give money there.”
• “Ask if you can pray with them.”

The smaller things, perhaps, but not insignificant. If we’re not paying attention in the small things, we’ll never learn to do so in the large ones.

A couple years ago I wrote a Briefs article about an experience with a taxi driver who was sitting in his car down by Starbucks, reading. I had this clear sense that I should walk over and talk to him. No idea why. No idea what to say. But after lots of experiences like the one I’d had at St. Marks, I think I’m getting a little better at responding.

So I went over and knocked on the taxi’s window. He unrolled it and looked at me. I had no idea what to say, so I thought up something profound and brilliant like “looks like you’re reading a book.” “Yep.” I felt totally naked. “Well, I’m a big reader, what are you reading?” Well, that got us launched on a five minute conversation about books, at which point I said “Well, great talking to you. I should get going.” And he said “Yeah, have a nice day.” That’s all. No life-changing conversation,

I think I was obedient, I don’t know what it was all about. I suspect it was more about my training than something he needed.

I think God communicates with us, if we’ll pay attention. Will we hear wrong sometimes? Of course. Will we make mistakes? Absolutely. But will we get better at it?

Yes. Sometimes we’ll be surprised. Sometimes we’ll be blessed.

A few weeks before Christmas, Anne and I drove over to Magnolia to drop something off at a friends. We had just picked up our Christmas tree, it was tied on top of the car, and we had kids waiting for us to get home. Not much spare time. Our friends live on 25th, so it’s part way up this side of the first hill of Magnolia.

As we drove away from their house, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon, just starting to show signs of getting dark. At the end of the block I needed to make a left turn to come back to Queen Anne. There was something about the air, the sky that had some hint of promise, something going on. I felt this little nudge to turn right and go to the top of the hill. Why? I didn’t know. It felt like I would miss something if I didn’t.

So impulsively I turned right. When we got up to the top of the hill and looked west, the sun was just setting. The Olympics were out, some broken clouds were in the sky…but the color. It was one of those evenings. Pink, magenta, orange everywhere. It was stunning. At this point there was nothing we could do but drive down to the boulevard and drive home the long way, slowly, soaking in this amazing beauty of God’s creation.

“Go there. Talk to this person. Give money there. Ask if you can pray with them.” Sometimes obedience is a short-term, momentary response to hearing God when we are paying attention.

But there’s also a longer kind of obedience. It’s perhaps the less spontaneous and often less spectacular way that we live our lives as followers of Christ. It has more to do with patterns, persistence, and character that is shaped and molded over time.

Towards the end of my sabbatical last summer I was able to take some short trips to visit with some folks who have been mentors for me. One of them was Dale Bruner, down in Pasadena, a retired professor and teacher, and my favorite New Testament commentary author. Another was Eugene Peterson, a pastor and author over in Montana. I had an amazing time with each of them. I think I learned more things than I could even articulate at this point.

Both Dale and Eugene are in their 70’s now. They have had long careers of ministry and writing. They have followed Jesus for a good long time. Both are working on major books right now. As I asked them about their schedules, I was struck by how similar they were. Pretty regimented. Wake up in the morning. Get to the office. Put in some concentrated work. They do it on Monday. On Tuesday. On Wednesday. On Thursday. On Friday. Each day they do a little more, and a little more. What they do stacks on top of the previous day’s work. Their projects are several years in the making. Patiently, consistently working, they will someday present the church with some more amazing writing.

What struck me was not just “this is how one writes a book,” but “this is how one lives a life.” Fifty years now, Eugene and Dale have followed Jesus. Like all of us, up times and down, good times and bad. But pursuing God, listening, responding. In small ways, over time, God is at work. It accumulates. A book is finished. A ministry is built. A relationship is pursued. Character is shaped. A life is changed. An ability to be attentive to God’s presence is honed.

I bet you are like me. Most of the time we want the immediate results. We don’t want to just be as obedient as we can and trust that God is growing us and changing us. It’s not always so glamorous to just continue to pray for the colleague at work, to parent day in day out, to visit the hospital, to get up each morning to read the Psalms (even when you don’t want to get up, even when you don’t want to read), to clear out our schedules so there is time and space to breathe. But it is this kind of obedience that shapes us over the long haul. We become attentive to what God is doing around us. We learn to listen. We learn to trust God’s voice.

Peterson once called this the difference between being a spiritual tourist or a pilgrim. As tourists we scurry around, taking shortcuts, seeing as many sights as we can in a short time, not going very deep into anything or barely pausing to let it sink in, moving from guru to guru, program to program, book to book. But a spiritual pilgrim…is in it for the long haul. A pilgrim is on a journey towards God, on a path called Jesus Christ, that will mold and shape him along the way.

So we lean into this new year. In ways big and small, God will speak. I am confident of that. And in ways short and long, we will have the opportunity to be obedient, to respond to what God is doing. Maybe something as silly as talking to a taxi driver. Maybe something as routine as getting up to read a Psalm each morning, morning after morning. And when this year 2006 ends, may we be more and more like this guy Joseph, the silent one of the Christmas story who simply heard, got up...and went.