Prayer:  Open our hearts and minds, our ears and eyes and most importantly our wills so that we may learn more of You.  Amen.

I have entitled this topic in our series From Head to Heart, The Owner’s Manual.  By “The Owner’s Manual” I am referring to the Bible.  Of course, the Bible is not a “manual” in the way we usually understand it today.

When I worked at a car dealership, we had access to a host of manuals.  In the parts department, we had a series of binders that contained pictures of various sections of cars and trucks that showed us how each piece was put together.  Each of the various parts of that piece was labelled so that we could find its proper name.  This took a lot of guess work out of ordering replacement parts.  In the service department, they had a series of manuals that showed them how the pieces fit together and also gave detailed instructions about dismantling and re-assembling the various parts of vehicles.

In the United Church, we have a document called The Manual which is a detailed breakdown of how every level of church government should work.

Normally we think of a “manual” as a detailed set of “how to” instructions written in a step by step fashion.  The Bible is not written that way at all.  The Bible is a collection of histories, stories, poems and speeches all designed to inform us something of God, of humanity or of the relationship between God and humanity or amongst humanity.  Although some of these writings contain sections that are systematic treatments of certain topics (Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Romans and Corinthians to name a few), as a whole, the material is not presented in a systematic treatment of topics.  So, if you are looking for information dealing with a specific issue, unless you already know where that information can be found, you will not likely find it.  And, even then, if you do not have an understanding of the particular context of that information or the attitudes behind that instruction, there is a reasonable chance how you interpret it will not be completely accurate.

When we considered Entering a Relationship with God, I said that we can gather with the church for many years and never come to understand that we can have a personal relationship with God; that is very possible to hear all the right words but never hear the message behind the words.  This is also true of the words and message of the Bible.

I have spoken to you about the Bible several times in the last ten years.  I have addressed the Bible from different perspectives.  Today, we will consider it from a very different one.  Today we will consider “canon.”

Cannon, spelled “c-a-n-n-o-n” is a tubey thing that shoots stuff, but what does the word canon spelled “c-a-n-o-n” mean?  Primarily it is “a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged” and by extension “any list or collection of items meeting that standard.”  The various writings that make up our Bible are considered “canon.”

The collection forming the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament met the following conditions:

1. They had to be written in Hebrew, with a few exceptions being made for Aramaic sections of Daniel, the writings of Ezra and Jeremiah 10:11 (Larue, Gerald A. (1968). Old Testament Life and Literature. Allyn and Bacon. pp. Ch. 31.) The rationale being that Hebrew was the divine language whereas, Aramaic the common.
2. The material had to be widely accepted within the Jewish community. For example, the scroll of Esther was commonly used at the Feast Purim making it possible for it to be included in the canon.   However because the scroll of Judith had no such widespread support, was not acceptable.

This condition also spoke to the notion of the writing being special, something that had the power to lead people closer to God.

3. Any scroll being considered, had to, in one fashion or another speak of one of the great themes of the Hebrew faith such as the Covenant (the contract between God and the people) or Election (God choosing them as God’s people.)
4. And the original had to be penned during or before the time of Ezra (the return of the exiles from Babylon.)

Christians accepted the books of the Hebrew Bible as scripture.  As for the books contained in the New Testament or Christian Scriptures, the main criteria was that of being “God breathed” or inspired.  In early Christian circles the notion of being “God breathed” meant that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings may be designated in some sense the word of God.  This is something like the Jewish notion that since Hebrew is a divine the language the Hebrew Scriptures are the very Word of God and thus have the power to lead people closer to God.  In addition, these writings had to:

1. Be the writings of the early apostles which included Paul and Jude.
2. Had to be written or completed in their final form sometime before 150 C.E.
3. Be widely accepted as worthy of being read out loud in a gathering the church.

As you can see, these sets of criteria are very similar – both assume the writings are the “word of God”, both assume that the special nature of these books was well recognised by the communities of faith and not just the clergy, and both assumed that there was an expiration date on what could be considered as “canon” thus unofficially stating an end date for what is commonly referred to as “revelation.”

But I think we also need to consider what happens to people when they take seriously that the Books contained in the Bible are themselves a “canon,” that together they set a standard for our relationship to God, one another and ourselves.  It is true that there have been widespread disagreements about how we understand the words of what we call scripture and terrible abuses perpetrated in the name of scripture.  However, for the most part, those who have taken more seriously the message of the Bible rather than the just the words of the Bible, have seen hearts and lives transformed and great, seemingly impossible things have been accomplished.

The second school that God has established for us to judge whether the voice we are hearing is that of God or the voice of another else, is the Bible.  But it is hard to use this tool if we are not familiar with it and it is hard to be familiar with it, if we have never read and are not continuing to read it.  As well, it is difficult to know the message of the Bible if we only consider the words of the text.  The Bible can be sourced as the basis for almost anything.  The words of the scriptures must be understood in light of the great themes of the Bible which we can only really come to see by setting aside all our preconceived notions and allowing the Holy Spirit to help us get past the words that are used.

What follows is a brief list of some of those themes.

1. God always chooses what is best for humanity. Sometimes, this means that the “needs of the many outweigh the needs on the one” to quote Mr. Spock from Star Trek.
2. God will never force us to accept God as God
3. God choses to work in, through and on behalf of those who are willing to accept God’s attention far more so than those who are not.
4. Being one of God’s chosen does not exclude us from evil. In fact, it could also be said that while those in a personal relationship with God are subject to greater blessings and privileges, we also subject to greater suffering and responsibility than those who have not accepted God as God.  Why?  Re-read item #1.
5. Being one of God’s chosen does mean that in the end, everything will be ok and in the meantime God supplies all our needs.

The best way to approach reading the Bible is systematically.  Set aside time each day and read a predetermined mount.  For example if you read about 6 chapters a day, you will complete the entire Bible in less than a year.  Actually, assuming there are more or less 1190 verses in the Bible depending on the version, if you were to read 6 chapters each day, Monday through Friday (or any other 5 days,) it will take about 334 days or 48 weeks to read the entire Bible.  This gives you 28 days of “mulligans” to get caught up when life doesn’t go according to plan.  (You can also complete this challenge in 30 days if you read 40 chapters a day.)  There are different approaches people take but if this is the first time attempting to read the entire Bible I would suggest the easiest and by far the most difficult approach.  Begin at page 1 and read it to the end.  This is the best way to see how the message unfolds, grows and is shaped.  Of course, this also means spending several days in a row reading lists and the like.  But know this, those lists are very important.

A concern of some may be that they have tried reading the Bible in the past and it just made no sense.  To that, may I suggest two things.  Before you begin to read each day, pray and ask God to show you God’s heat.  When you read, don’t worry so much about understanding it with you head, that will come in time.  Rather, let your heart be the focus of understanding.  Sometimes if instead of asking, “What is going on?” (facts we interpret with our brain) we need to ask “Why is this going on?” (motivations we sense in our heart.)

Next time, we will consider From Head to Heart: Following in the Footsteps, the third on our list of ways through which we can use as an aid to discerning whether the voice we ae hearing is that of God’s or another.

Prayer:  Open our hearts and minds, our ears and eyes and most importantly our wills so that we may learn more of You.  Amen.

Two weeks ago, we began taking a look at a series of topics for our consideration which I entitled, “From Head to Heart.”  We started with “Entering a Relationship with God.”

At that time I said to you that we cannot initiate a relationship with God, we can only respond to God’s advances.  I also suggested that entering a relationship with God is, on many levels, not that much different than entering a relationship with another human being.  All that is required is picking up on the conversation that God has already started with us through the Holy Spirit.  However, this conversation cannot be a “now I lay me down to sleep” monologue although, it may certainly start there.  It has to move to a meaningful conversation one that is honest and self-revealing and one that pays attention to God’s side of the conversation.  There is an expectation on God’s part that at some point in time, we will repent: that is, change our ways.

Last week we looked at some ways in which God speaks to us.  Often God speaks to us through words and thoughts that for the most part come from inside of us.  Something that I did not talk very much about if at all, is that God also uses a mechanism that is commonly referred to as a “burden” that is, we find ourselves with a desire to do something we don’t know now to do, are afraid to do or, are unwilling to do.  This may be something small or, it could be something quite large.  This burden will stay with us until we either do it or, the time for doing it has passed.  I suspect the reason why it is called a burden is because until we act on it, it weighs heavy on us.

Today we are going to begin looking at how we discern, how we go through the process of deciding if what we are hearing is God’s message to us or just our own imagination run wild.

Prayer: God who knows our heart and empowers us to see what cannot be seen, allow us the experience of meeting Jesus and through him, establishing and growing in relationship with God.  Amen.

In 2006 The United Church of Canada adopted a fourth statement of faith.  This one, called “A Song of Faith,” is far more poetic than any of its predecessors.  The opening stanza reads this way,

God is Holy Mystery,
beyond complete knowledge,
above perfect description.

Yet,
in love,
the one eternal God seeks relationship.

So God creates the universe
and with it the possibility of being and relating.

God tends the universe,
mending the broken and reconciling the estranged.

God enlivens the universe,
guiding all things toward harmony with their Source.

Grateful for God’s loving action,
We cannot keep from singing.

But Houston, we have a problem.  Actually, we have several problems that result in us being overwhelmed with messages that are harmful in hearing God’s side of the conversation and are destructive to our relationship with God.

Modern English is not always a precise language that is often used sloppily and is becoming increasingly more so with the advent of texting.  For example, English does not make a distinction between “you” singular and “you” plural.  “You” can mean one person or a whole group of people.  So, when we read “you are the temple of the Holy Spirit,” it is easy for us to conclude that this is referring to individuals, which is true but in this case only by extension.  Primarily, the meaning of this passage is that the Church, the Body of Christ, is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, in the New Testament, it is better to assume, unless the context demands otherwise, that whenever the word “you” is used, the passage is directed towards the group not an individual.

The second problem is what the Bible refers to as “the world”.  The “world” can refer to the earth and all that is contained therein.  The “world” can refer to all the people in the world, as in John 3: 16, “for God so loved the world.”  But the term “world” also has a much more sinister meaning.  It refers to the values, systems, assumptions and ideas used to promote the idea that God is not or, that God does not matter.

Do you remember the jingle from McDonald’s a few years back, “you deserve a break today?”  And what about the commercials on TV that tell us that if we want to have significant relationships we need to use the right toothpaste, deodorant, drink the right kind of alcohol, use the right websites and the list goes on, and on, and on.  We are constantly being sold a bill of unhealthy goods based on the notion that we are the most important individuals in the world.  We are surrounded by a constant bombardment of ideas, of pictures, of movies and videos, of songs that promote the growth of our selfishness and short-sightedness.

The third problem that I’ll mention today has to do with our shrinking world due to the advancements in travel and in the technology of communication.

If we want the answer to a question all we have to do is go on to our computer and type the question into Google or Bing or some other search engine and before you can count to one you’ll be given a selection of thousands upon thousands of potential answers.  But where do these answers come from?  Are they the results of years of study and investigation or are they a thought that dropped into someone’s head that really knows little to nothing of what they’re talking about but had a few minutes to express their thoughts online?  We see what is supposed to be news from all over the world but increasingly news is entertainment and entertainment demands our reaction. So, what passes is news is often sensationalized or basically propaganda promoting someone else self-interest.  Families used to live their lives within a small area.  Now families are strung around the world, straining family ties and encouraging a sense of isolation.

I could go on, but we need to stop here and take a look at God’s intention.

In the opening pages of Genesis where it talks about God creating the world, on days one through five God concludes God’s work with a comment that it was good.  But, during the sixth day when God created the first human, God concluded that it was “not good for man to be alone.”  Of course, “man” is not referring to gender (male or female) but rather a species.  God’s solution was to put that first man asleep and to divide that very first human into two genders so that they would not be absolutely unique, alone or self-sufficient.  As male and female, “man” now needed one another both for survival and for propagation.  In the end, because it was not deemed “good” in God’s eyes for man to be alone, God gave humanity family.

When humanity had become so hardened to God’s voice that God decided it was time to start again, God made provision for Noah and his family.  When humanity had once again become so hardened that God decided once again to start over, God chose Abram and by extension his family to learn the ways of God.  That family became a nation and that nation became the face of God on earth, or at least it was supposed to be.

If God does not think it best for us to live in isolation from others of our kind, what makes us think we can?

When God by the Holy Spirit, pats us on the shoulder and says “hi,” waiting for our response, God has already prepared a family into which we will be born so that we might be nurtured and protected.  We are to be surrounded by this family so that we can learn and grow and so that we might become as an individual, and as a family, all that we can be.

Since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and by “we” I mean the church, from local congregation to National denomination, to the church universal, and since it is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes, who teaches us the things of God and empowers us to do God’s work, one of the four main avenues of helping us to discern whether or not the voice we are hearing is God’s voice or another, is through the Council of the church, most often, our local congregation.

Over the course of more than forty years of being actively engaged in a conversation with God, I have heard countless people say that they do not need to go to church to be a Christian.  May I point out some of the problems with that statement?

The first issue is that Christians do not “go to church.”  We are church!  We participate in a gathering of the church and we do so to learn, to grow, to share one another’s burdens and joys and to experiment with the gifts and talents that God has given us.  It is within the context of “church” that we are best able to carry out the mission of God in our time and in our place.

The second issue is that the church is made up of people, each with their own frailties.  Now, I already know the objections that people have to statements like that above.  “Some of the worst people I have ever met our church people.”  “Most church people are either liars or hypocrites or both.”  “Most church people are mean, or get involved in activities for the sole purpose of gaining power.”  Again, the list goes on.  I also want you to know that I have never been so betrayed or hurt as deeply as I have by those who are part of the church.  And many of those hurts have come from people for which I had great respect.  It would have been easy, really easy, to walk away and never be involved in a body of believers again.  But, somewhere along the line, I picked up a few lessons.

One of the lessons I learned is that God uses all kinds of circumstances and all kinds of people to work in me the process of becoming more like Christ.  Not that I am perfect, far from it.  For a moment, consider God’s process of conforming us to the image of Christ similar to a sculptor standing in front of a block of granite.  The sculptor’s job is to knock away all of the stone that is not part of the image that lies deep in that piece of granite.  And so they start by examining very carefully the stone.  They are looking for the grain and flaws.  The sculptor needs to know in advance what effect his tools will have on the stone.  A sculptor may start with a saw but will quickly turn to a broad chisel and hammer, knocking off big chunks.  Once the big chunks are removed, the tools change.  Instead of a large chisel, a small one and instead of a large hammer, a small one and instead of smashing, the movement needs to be that of chipping.  But even that is insufficient.  The tools need to change again.  The hammer and the chisel are replaced with an abrasive; something that will grind down the little pieces remaining and make the finished surface smooth.

Out of this lesson comes another: those people whom I thought did me great harm actually worked for my good.  Regardless of their motives, regardless of how frail their humanity, God used them as instruments in the process of chipping away or sanding down those parts of me that needed to go.

In the passage that we read from the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about how those who are his followers knowing and responding to his voice.  It also says that because they are his followers they do not need to worry because they are secure in his hands.  I believe that with all my heart but we have also talked about the whole notion of repenting, of making course corrections.  Basically those course corrections can be categorized as doing God stuff God’s way rather than doing what we want, when we want, where we want, why we want.  Our priorities become consistent with God’s priorities.  So I’m not going to say that’s impossible to be a Christian and not participate in the various gatherings of the church, but I will say to you, there is so much more to our Christian walk, there is so much more to our faith, there is so much more to our joy when we acknowledge that God has our best intentions at heart, both collectively and individually, when we do “not neglect our meeting together.” (He. 10:25 NLT)

One of the ways that we learn to discern whether or not the voice we are hearing is God’s voice or another voice is to share our experience with others and asked them their advice and to listen as they share their experiences with us.  Some lessons can only come through experience.  Learning to discern God’s voice does not happen overnight.  It is a learning experience and one of the classrooms in the school that God has set up for us is that of the local congregation, the local church.

Next week we are going to consider a second mechanism available to us to help us to decide whether or not the voice that we are hearing is God’s voice or not – The Owner’s Manual.

Prayer: God who seeks us out, desiring relationship with us and healthy relationships for us, help us to set aside our own agendas and submit to yours.  Amen

Prayer: God who knows our heart and empowers us to see what cannot be seen allow us the experience of deepening our relationship with you through Christ.  Amen.

Last week we gave some thought to entering a relationship with God.  I suggested to you that entering a relationship with God is similar to entering a relationship with another person in that it simply means entering into a meaningful conversation.  A conversation is two-way communication, not a monologue.  A meaningful conversation is one in which there is a sharing of more than just facts.  It is personal.  It is self-revealing.  A meaningful conversation opens the door to change and growth.

When we are speaking with another person we employ a lot of tools that we have learned through experience to help us better understand what is being said.  We see that person with our eyes and/or hear their voice with our ears.  We consider their body language, their tone of their voice, the emotions behind their voice and the expression on their face.  If we are listening, truly listening, when we have uncertainties about what that person is trying to say to us we have the opportunity to ask questions, to probe until we are satisfied that what they are saying is the same as what we are hearing but, what about our conversation with God?  We can’t literally see God’s face, or body language and it is very difficult to grasp the tone of voice or the “emotions” behind the voice.  Better yet, how do we even know that this is God’s voice that we are hearing?

In our readings this morning (John 21:1–19 and Acts 9:1–6) there were accounts of two conversations that involved Jesus.  Both were initiated by him.  One seems to be a very quiet conversation, while the other, seems to be quite “loud” but not necessarily due to volume.

In the John passage, after Jesus serves seven of his disciples breakfast, Jesus singles out Peter and asks him three times if Peter loved him.  Three times Peter responds, “Yes!”  This was a very important conversation for Peter because Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times in the hours following Jesus for arrest just as Jesus had predicted and Peter denied he would do.  Peter’s denial was based in fear, fear that if he was associated with Jesus who had just been arrested and was now standing trial, he too may be arrested and suffer the same all too obvious consequences, losing his life.  When Jesus responds to Peter’s “yes” by asking Peter to take care of Jesus’s followers, he is in reality asking Peter to lay down his life in service of others.  I find it interesting that the tone of this conversation would appear to be very calm and friendly.  There is no hint of anger or judgment.  Jesus does not bring up Peter’s threefold denial; he simply asked Peter three times what Peter was prepared to do now and going forward.  Is this not Jesus asking Peter if he was willing to repent, that is, changes conduct?

In the reading from Acts there’s a young rabbi named Saul who has taken it as his personal mission to root out and destroy the following that had built up around Jesus.  He is on his way to Damascus to hunt and arrest Christians so that they can be taken back to Jerusalem for trial.  In the course of his journey Saul is stopped dead in his tracks.  There is a blinding light and there is a voice.  Because we were not there we do not know if this was a loud voice, an angry voice or a quiet voice but we do know it was a questioning voice.  That question was, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  Personally I tend to think that this voice didn’t need to be loud or angry.  God did need to stop Saul in his tracks and get his attention because Saul was a very passionate man, a driven man determined to do whatever he set his mind to.  The voice was loud enough for it to be heard by those on the road with Saul but I get a sense that what made this message loud was not the strength of the voice but the brightness of the light.  Again, there are no recriminations here.  Jesus asked Saul why he’s doing what he’s doing, identifies himself as the one who Saul is persecuting and then asks Saul to repent; to change his conduct.

In both these cases it was easy for the people involved to know to whom they were speaking.  In one way or another both Simon and Saul, who became Paul, were standing face-to-face with Jesus.  Wouldn’t it be nice, when the easy, to hear God’s voice if we found ourselves in similar circumstances to either of these two? But does that happen today, to us?

I want to ask those who have been in conversation with God for a long time what is it that causes you to suspect that God is talking?  What is it that tells you that you need to pay attention?  Does God always communicate God’s side of the conversation in words?

My personal experience is that often God does use words but they are not loud: most often they are more like whispers and if they have any volume, it is more like the highlighted text I use in the announcements.  Bold text, italicized text and underlined text makes it easier to notice and remember.  God’s words are not condemning although, they can be questioning or challenging.  And they do not come from outside usually they come the inside.  Of course that often makes it hard to know if they are God’s words or just my own thoughts.  It’s also my experience that God speaks at the most unexpected times.

But God doesn’t always use words.  Sometimes God will show us things, often subtle things.  Something will stand out in a movie I’m watching or in a book I’m reading or in a conversation in which I am engaged or simply overhearing.  Sometimes the actions of someone will take on an exceptional importance.  Sometimes I will just find myself with the urge to do something good.  Sometimes, God speaks through a thought or impression that we should do something specific like befriending someone or beginning a ministry or saying something to someone. The truth is God can speak to us at any time, in any place or circumstance, whether it is during our waking hours or in our dreams.

I would hope that as we are thinking about having a conversation with God, we are in one way or another, linking it to prayer.  And by prayer, I mean a time when we set ourselves to be alone and focus our thoughts, our concerns, our hopes and wishes, our dreams and our burdens on God.  Having a time of prayer every day is important.  How can our conversation with God be increasingly more meaningful if we do not spend time in conversation with God?  However, there is another way.

Very early in my Christian walk I came across a concept of “practising the presence of God” and it’s something I’ve been doing ever since.  Basically, “practising the presence of God” takes prayer beyond a set time.  We talk about how God will never leave us for or forsake us, about how God is always present with us and so, why should we not act accordingly?  From the time that we awake until we close her eyes and drifted off into sleep, and some will say even in our sleep, we can be carrying on a conversation with God.  Yes, at first it is a little awkward when for instance, you’re driving down the road and talking to God just as if God was sitting in the passenger seat or if you are doing housework and carrying on a conversation as if God was in the same room with you, which of course God is.

Okay, we’ve talked a lot about how we hear God’s side of the conversation but, how do we know that voice is actually God’s voice?  I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I may trust God, but I do not always trust myself.  I’m not always sure that when I hear God’s voice that I have understood that voice correctly or whether that voice is actually God’s voice or has originated someplace else.  So what can we do?  Over the course of the next four weeks we are going to take a look at different avenues that people employ to rightfully determine whether or not the voice that they are hearing is in fact God’s voice. Not only that but, these four avenues actually help us to deepen our relationship with God and so they are very important. It is one thing to enter a relationship with God, it is something completely different to grow in that relationship. Too often people treat their faith the way that so many now treat weddings. They are eager to spend a lot of time and money on the wedding but simply don’t care enough to invest anything in the marriage.

Prayer: God who desires that we live in harmony and in communication with you, help us to be attentive to your whispers, shouts and impressions.  Amen.