Saturday, September 25, 2010

Luke 16:19-31

He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'

              16:31 (NRSV)

The Voice

I go into a bookstore with the idea there's some book calling my name, although I have no particular title in mind. I walk through the door, look around, and am instantly overwhelmed by the volume. Decisions: sleaze or substance? technique or romance? sci-fi or building decks? It's too much. I cannot move. I wonder how many other poor souls are caught in this vortex while dawdling around “New Arrivals”. After a bit, I decide the same way I did last time and the time before (Come to think of it, when was the last time I bought a book in a store?): I wander to the espresso bar, order a cafe latte (two shots, please) and cranberry muffin and let the literary chaos recede to ambiance behind my caffeine and sugar high. But it works the other way, too: being in the same room with such a repository of print somehow makes the coffee taste better. And yes, some book out there is still calling my name. Just not off of any of these shelves.

A person's whole life can get stuck on the question of what to read, or, put differently, which author's voice to indulge. As stewards of our lives we have a certain obligation to make good choices. There is, after all, only so much time even for the most disciplined reader. The voices we listen to matter. 

Jesus' parable ups the ante on our listening choices. God's voice makes its way in the flesh and blood voices of everyday life. The story reports that the rich man could have responded to God's summons at any time - if he wanted to. God did not trick him into hell. The kingdom reversals of the gospels are descriptive of certain tendencies, not prescriptive of some immutable law. The reversals are a sad commentary of the human tendency to misuse gifts. If we can generalize on the story, God's summons is always, somehow, obvious. More obvious, in fact, than our ability to recognize the resurrected dead! If the right words aren't good enough, nothing else will be. For me, those words – the calling voice of God – reveal themselves, often, in a conversation with a friend who loans me a book that turns out to be a great read. (I have been known to return his books all marked up and have to buy him another. I know better. I just get lost in the conversation with the writer.) The voice of God usually comes about through conversations, recommendations, and prayer (community). It is there that we are guided to the Voice that can determine our destiny.

The Voice is not a consumer choice from a billion offerings on the market. It is a summons. As Brian Sibley recounts in Through the Shadowlands of C. S. Lewis' process of surrender to God, "the demand was not even 'All or nothing' . . . the demand was simply 'All'"*. The sad thing about the rich man in hell is that, by living for himself, he had willfully turned his back on the All, explicitly and consciously, which included the vital relationships with the people with whom he might have shared his life, especially the unseen poor. The All, the Voice, was etched on his soul - the very image of God. By rejecting the Voice the man was dead before his organs failed, as if he had simply decided not to breath. The hell scene is merely a postmortem report.

* Brian Sibley, Through the Shadowlands, Revell, Grand Rapids, 1985, pg. 50.

© 2010 Andy Gay