Revelations From the Sanctuary Floor

by Casey Thompson

The Voice of God

I cannot say when I became a Christian. I can claim, as I often do, that I was marked by grace before my birth, made Christ's before I began to crawl, but in the religious fervor of Texas, that answer was never crisp enough for my interrogators. I have only a forgotten baptism, an infant baptism no less (this hardly counts in those parts), which my parents do not recall, in a church we rarely attended, in a city we moved from when I was eight. It seems the only one who remembers when I became a Christian is God. When were you saved? It's a menacing question for a teenager in Texas, one that wants an answer, a specific one, about the time you let Jesus into your heart. You'd hear it in the cafeteria if you wandered into the wrong set of tables, or at the football game on Friday night, blindsided in the bleachers from the back. I hated that question. I didn't know how to answer it then. Jesus had always been in my heart, just like my mom or my dad, folks who were wise enough to start loving me before I reached an age of decision, before I could say, sure, ma, I think you probably ought to love me. So it never occurred to me that I should open my heart to Jesus. You just don't open the door for folks who are already sitting on your couch in the living room with their feet up on the coffee table.

I don't have the mountain top tale, but what I have will do.

I can tell about the first time I knew I would work for God though. I have told few about it. It's too cliché. It's the type of story I would smirk over if someone else told it. Later in my life, God would beckon me with a greater sense of irony, a more underhanded prodding toward my call, but perhaps God knew that at fourteen, I couldn't handle too much subtlety. God laid it out in a straight-forward way — without room for negotiation.

One Sunday afternoon, when any clear-headed fourteen year old would have been watching the Cowboys, I was sitting alone on my parent's bed, praying. My prayers have never been sophisticated, never high litany or run-through with spontaneous poetry, mostly they just consists of thank yous, prayers ripe with good protestant gratitude. That day, thank yous did not seem enough, so I added my I love yous. I said them over and over. I love you, Lord.

I was surprised when I heard God speak back. Feed my sheep.

I looked up like a startled cat. No one was around. Just an aura of mystery now in my parent's commonplace bedroom.

That's how it happened. Three easy words, "Feed my sheep," my call — perhaps my auditory hallucination — that has driven my life of imperfect faith ever since.

I tell people at Idlewild that the Christian life is in continual discernment. It's a leitmotif of my ministry with them. I say it so often they probably tire of it. One day I'll walk into a room to teach a class and they'll start chanting "Dis - cern - ment! Dis - cern - ment!" and I'll draw from that subtle clue that they're ready to hear something new.

I say it so often though because it's true.

Rarely does God let loose with a torrent of words that will map out our lives. We don't hear, "Sally, it's time to retire" or "Jason, your anger has served its purpose now". In my own history, it's those three words, "Feed my sheep," nineteen years ago, and a profound silence ever since.

Instead, slips of liturgy will return to us as we cook eggs on Monday morning or we'll wonder why we keep singing that third stanza of "God of Grace and God of Glory" every time we tie our shoes. When we make our prayers, we'll hear feelings and speculate about how to interpret them. We'll be haunted by a passage from Mark and dither about trying to figure out why.

While I still covet such straight-forward three-word statements from God— pray more often, cancel the class, buy the property, preach against war— I see the great wisdom in the hidden leadings of the Spirit.

We must be attuned to the Spirit around us to hear them and we must be diligent in prayer and study to unravel them. In short, in order to discern God's calling to us, we must draw closer to God.

That answer may not be crisp enough for those who need straight-forward answers, but I've discovered that if Jesus is sitting on my couch with his feet up on the coffee table, then it'll do for me.

Casey Thompson is an Associate Pastor at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN.