The dinner party had gone well. It was the kind of evening when good food was matched by rich conversation and warm cheer. As the dishes were being cleared and cream was being stirred into after-dinner coffee, the conversation took a more serious turn.
The guest of honor was a church leader from central Europe, the Soviet Union had come apart only months before, and the table was filled with eager questions. How had the church in his country fared during the long Soviet frost? What changes were occurring now that the warmer winds of democracy were blowing across central Europe? What wisdom did his experience bring for the church in North America?
He spoke slowly -- even cautiously -- at first, measuring his words, weighing their risk, a man unaccustomed to candor among relative strangers. Gradually gaining confidence, he spoke of dramatic shifts in the social and political climate of his region, of the church made strong through hardship and persecution. Indeed, with an eye cast toward the American religious scene, he observed that possibly the greatest threat to the church in his own land was the temptation to relax its guard in the new atmosphere of freedom, that the church could lose its sense of call by falling into an easy alliance with a seemingly friendlier culture.
He told about the days under totalitarianism, how the church was officially tolerated but always uundermined and repressed, how the clergy were always monitored by secret agents who had infiltrated their ranks. "We would have a meeting about some matter of church business," he said, "knowing for certain that not everyone seated at the table could be trusted; some of the 'ministers' present were, in fact, government agents." He paused for a moment and then added, "But even though these government spies were careful never to betray their true identities, we could always tell who they were."
"But how?" someone asked. "The voice," he replied. "The voice. Something in their voices would give them away."
The voice. The words may have been smooth and well-chosen, but there was something in the texture of the voice that disclosed the agent of deception, the wolf in sheep's clothing. There was something in the voice that revealed the distinction between the true and the false, between the dependable and the treacherous. "Something in their voices," he said, "would give them away."
In a similar way, Jesus himself said that his own followers could divide the trustworthy from the untrustworthy by the sound of a voice. "They are like sheep who will not follow a stranger," he said, "because a stranger's voice they do not know. The sheep know the voice of their shepherd, and they follow only him." Because they belong to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, they respond faithfully to the sound of his voice and his voice alone.
What is it about a voice that signals a trust? What is there about Jesus' voice that beckons his own to follow? The world is cluttered with voices competing for our attention. A cacophony of voices shout for our loyalty, urge us to get into step and to join the followers of this or that bumper-stickered cause: "Have you hugged your child today?" "Support the NRA," "Christians for Choice," "Pro-life Christians," "Save the Rain Forests," "Buy American," "Question Authority," "Promote Family Values," "Fight Taxes," "Worship Next Sunday," "Work for Justice," "Boycott Lettuce." Jesus' voice may sometimes be heard above these clamoring voices, and it may be heard in some of them, but Jesus claims that his followers will surely know his voice when they hear it, that they will be able to distinguish his clear and true call from the false tones of strangers. But what makes this so? What is there about Jesus' voice that is unmistakable to his followers?
Part of it, of course, is familiarity. Even a young child, the crib surrounded by whispering and beckoning voices, turns and brightens at the sound of the one voice most familiar, the one voice most trusted, the intimate voice of the mother. Or again, two people meet, seemingly for the first time. They are cautious, wary, as strangers are at initial encounter. But then one speaks a word of greeting and there is the flicker, then the flame, of astonishing recognition. "Is that you?" exclaims the other, arms opening for an embrace. "Is that really you? How many years has it been? How we've changed, you and I. I didn't recognize your face, but your voice ... I would know your voice anywhere."
Just so, Jesus' followers recognize his voice because his voice is familiar. They discern its cadences; they remember its reassuring rhythms. Over and again, in times of distress and pain, when they have not been sure that they could take one more step along the pathway of suffering, he has spoken comfort to them: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27). Many times when their faith has faltered and their vision grown dim, he has reassured them: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). When they were uncertain of life's purpose, confused about what makes life good and true, he has called them anew: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). Even when they have stood at the rim of death's canyon, staring with grief into its violet depths, over and over he has spoken to them of hope: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live ..." (John 11:25).
At every bend in the road, in every predicament along the way, they have felt Jesus' presence and have heard his familiar words; all the days of their lives he has been the Good Shepherd, and they know his voice. In the flurry of voices that fill the world, the followers of Jesus listen for the sound of the voice they know best, the voice that speaks compassionately, mercifully, lovingly and hopefully. When they hear this voice -- but only this voice -- they follow; they do not respond to the voices of strangers, the voices of bitterness, judgment, hatred and strife.
But it is more than familiarity that causes the followers of Jesus to recognize his voice. Jesus "calls his sheep by name and leads them out." The voice of Jesus speaks personally and commandingly. The voice of Jesus is not spoken over a public address system, making a vague general announcement for all the world to hear. The voice of Jesus speaks to each one, lovingly calls out each name, summoning each and every person to follow.
Not long ago a friend told me about a church drama troupe that presented, as a special event on the weekend before Christmas, a "dessert and drama" production of Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol. The church fellowship hall was transformed into a theater, folding chairs clustered around tables, all facing a makeshift stage fitted with painted backdrops of the tenements and sooty chimneys of nineteenth century London.
When the audience gathered and were handed their programs, some were amused to note that the part of the tightfisted Ebenezer Scrooge was being played by the chairman of the church board, a gentle man of quite un-Scrooge-like generosity. They were impressed, though, by the skill and energy he brought to his part. He growled his way through the opening scenes, ringing out every "Bah! Humbug!" with miserly ill will. He shivered with fright and dreadful self-recognition as he was encountered by the series of Christmas ghosts.
The final scene called for a transformed and jubilant Scrooge to chase the shadows of the remorseful night and to greet the light of Christmas day by flinging open his bedroom window and bellowing festively to the startled city street below, "Me-e-r-rr-y Christmas, everyone! Me-e-r-rr-y Christmas!" Then Scrooge, wishing to bestow Christmas gifts upon the needy of London and looking for someone to help dispense his cheer, was to act as if he had spied a street urchin passing by. "Hey you, boy, you there!" the mirthful Scrooge was to shout, pointing vigorously at this imaginary figure. "Come up here, boy. I've got something wonderful for you to do!"
But something beautiful and unexpected happened. When the radiant and transformed Scrooge beckoned from the window "Come up here, boy, I've got something wonderful for you to do," a six-year-old boy in the audience, seated with his family who were members of the congregation, spontaneously rose from his chair in response to this jubilant and generous call and walked on stage, ready to do "something wonderful."
The actor playing Scrooge blinked in disbelief. There was now an unscripted child from the audience standing on center stage. What to do? The audience held its breath. Then the person of faith beneath the veneer of Scrooge took charge. Bounding down from his window perch, he strode across the stage and cheerily embraced the waiting boy. "Yes, indeed," he exclaimed, his voice full of blessing. "You are the one, the very one I had in mind." Then he gently led the boy back to his seat in the audience, returned to the stage and resumed the play. When the curtain calls were held, it was, of course, this boy, the one who had felt himself personally summoned from his seat, who received, along with old Ebenezer himself, the audience's loudest and warmest applause.1
Just so, the sheep hear and know the merciful voice of the Good Shepherd, and when they get up out of their seats in the darkened auditorium and bound upon the stage ready to follow, the Good Shepherd himself embraces them. "Yes, yes, you are the one, the very one I had in mind."
1. I am indebted to the Rev. Charles Williamson of Monroe, North Carolina, for this story.