Waiting for a voice. . .

The world seems intent upon governing by poll.  Business seems to hang upon every survey it can invent both those who are its consumers and those who are not.  Morality tries to find consensus of opinion but ends up tolerating nearly everything.  Even the Church believes that the world will respond if we offer them our ears and listen to their point of view and preference.  What fools we are.  Do we really believe that everything hinges upon listening to those not yet of the Kingdom or are we so desperate that we simply ape what the world around us is doing in the hope that it might make us relevant again?

The world is not waiting for yet another group to promise to listen to its concerns and people are not withholding their faith because they feel they have not been heard by the Church.  There are too many who already hang on their every word or whim.  The world is awaiting a voice.  The world is looking for a Church built with conviction upon what God has said and bold enough to present this truth without apology or embarrassment.  The world is not withholding their attention or their faith because they have not been heard but because the Church has too often failed to speak with courage and confidence the Word of God that endures forever..

The world and people are filled with uncertainty.  They do not know where to turn.  They live in a world which seems devoid of real meaning and purpose.  They put on identities like a change of clothing only to cast them off disappointed because they do not fit.  They cannot trust their bodies or their emotions and yet are told to turn inside themselves for answers, meaning, and purpose.  They are connected digitally but ache with longing for a personal connection and are captive in prisons of loneliness.  They have watched marriage turn from the norm into an exception, children from blessing to burden, and the family broken by divorce, infidelity, and individuality.  They have traded real intimacy for pornography and an idealized sexuality which is both perverted and false.  They have been told the artificial intelligence is smarter then than people and the only hope for the future.  They have trusted technology and been disappointed by the failed promises of newer, better, faster, and more entertaining screens.  They have become consumers of information as well as material things but no longer find satisfaction in what they have.  Death has become normal and yet they fear death and long to know that there is something which lasts beyond the grave.  In the end, life has become fragile and transient and anticlimactic in a world of so many broken promises.  Then the Church comes along to say "we hear you" and expects that to make the difference.

The world is not looking for a God with big ears but one with a strong voice to cut through all the disappointment and overcome all the disillusionment that seems to define our every day.  The world is waiting for a Church which will stand up and sound forth with truth that endures forever and the powerful voice that speaks and something actually happens.  Why else would a liberal world be so attentive to an Islamic voice which conflicts so profoundly with the values the world esteems so highly?  The world is hungry to hear someone who speaks something other than a weak and faint echo of their own words and choices.  This is our opportunity.  We have the voice of God in His Word, not some static voice from the past but the living voice that speaks forgiveness, life, and salvation into the emptiness and noise of our world.  We worry more about being winsome than welcome, friendly than faithful, and offending rather than calling to repentance.  It is no wonder that our pews are empty and our churches passed by in pursuit of other things to give meaning and purpose to life.  But it does not have to be this way.

The world might be happy if someone could make their load lighter or give some direction in time of uncertainty but it would find redemption and rebirth in the promise of the God incarnate who came down from heaven to confront our sin when we would not and to offer Himself in a sacrifice we could neither supply nor afford.  His path of salvation led Him through death to life everlasting and will lead those who hear His voice to walk with Him the path of everlasting life.  But we need to stop acting as if God has called us to make the worst of things in this moment a little better and start manifesting the eternal Kingdom amid the pain and suffering of this life.  This cannot happen by borrowing the voice of the world or proving to be a faint echo of what everyone else is saying.  This can only happen when we rediscover the voice of Him who speaks and the sheep hear, recognize, and follow.  Only then will we have something of substance to offer a world in need, listening for the sound of its Master's voice.

Whether you call this the synodal way or you vote yourself into a position of authority over the Word of God does not matter.  What does matter is that the world is not waiting for us to put on our listening ears or a God who is attentive to the sound of our own opinions, but to speak forth the powerful Word, giving absolution to the guilty, life to the dead, and hope to the hearer.  A listening Church is silent -- silent when the Lord has called us to address the world with His Word of life.