Called to be People Whisperers

5 Pentecost, Cp7, June 23, 2013   

Isaiah 65:1-9 Psalm 22:18-27

Gal. 3:23-29   Luke 8:26-39

  One of the things that has happened in Christianity due to its success is an attempt to reduce story and narrative to teaching, philosophy and theology.  And in the process of making a narrative into propositions of truth or falsity, the entire nuance of the story truth is lost and people are left arguing about doctrines, belief and faith statements.

  In the way that I approach interpretation, I look for the great principles or structures that seem to be the motive of the Bible stories and then I look for a contemporary corresponding example to illustrate and make it come to relevance for me and some others who for better or worse place themselves to overhear my talking mind in my sermons.

  A recent cinematic and cultural phenomenon has come to be called “horse whispering.”  And now we have “dog whisperers” or “pet whisperers;”  these are people who in their practice seem to have such a “way with animals” that they have a calming effect upon animals but also even have a liminal crossing over participatory state of seeming empathy to make them claim specific communication with animals.

  And from this notion of a “whisperer,” I have frequented to use this a metaphor for the psychiatric healing ministry of Jesus.  I would call Jesus, the ultimate people whisperer; ultimate because of the accounts of the effect that he had on a host of people in a variety of conditions and that this whispering effect of Jesus has extended beyond his life in his body here on earth.

  It must also be honestly noted that the whispering effect of Jesus did not have universal effectiveness; there were religious people who were angered by him and not effectively whispered by him.  And then there were those Roman local officials who were not whispered either, since they are the ones who carried out his crucifixion.  So even the whispering of Jesus was limited in its effectiveness; the condition of receptiveness of the whispered was also important.  Certainly a horse whisperer is probably not omni-competent to be able to tame all horses which is why horse whispering probably needs many practitioners.

  Whispering pertains to a style of how to be with people; I think the wisdom of the style of how to be with people in the very best way is the loving intent behind the Holy Scriptures.  And we find many personalities and many kinds of whispering and many story details of how and when it is done.   The mistake of some biblical interpreters is to make cultural details absolute and miss the big “whispering” principle.  This would be like a modern doctor determined to continue to practice bloodletting as a valid medical procedure because some physicians in the past thought it was an effective treatment.  A physician who practiced bloodletting in the past thought that he or she was practicing care for the patient; the motive of care is the principle, not the detail of bloodletting.

  Whether Elijah, Jesus or Paul, they in their own ways had come to be “people whisperers” and they did their whispering based upon the fact that they knew themselves first to be whispered by God in such a profound way that this divine whispering impelled them to whisper people.

  People whispering might be said to be a graceful way of engaging another person toward their well-being in their body, soul and spirit.

  Elijah, Jesus and Paul believed that people whispering involved building a community around a relationship with God which was not just about clergy arguing about religious doctrine and having a means of income from a religious profession; people whispering had to do with the art of living together, the art of having a life orientation characterized by faith, love, hope, patience, courage and self-control.

  I believe that it is a main calling in everyone’s life to be a people whisperer; namely, how can we learn to be better at gracefully engaging people for their well-being.  Family, society and parish life requires that we do whispering.  Parents have to spend sleepless nights whispering a baby who will not be comforted.  They have to whisper their children in persuasive ways towards personal excellence.  In our lives, we also are blessed if we can experience very individual and personal whispering by being befriended by someone who seems to have a gift of “having a way with us” such that we let down our protective guard to allow oneself to be ministered to in unique and special ways.  There are all sorts of people whispering that needs to be done in this world; if there is failure and turmoil in our world, we might rightly blame that there has not been enough match-making that has occurred to achieve compatible whispering to occur between the parties that truly could benefit with mutuality between the whisperer and the one to be whispered.  We understand that Jesus left this world in his bodily presence because in being in us as the risen-Christ, the whispering work of God is expanded.  Jesus of Nazareth could not effectively whisper everyone; he left the legacy of the art of whispering as the way in which people are to be together.

  We could decry the lack of serendipity in the failure for the whisperers and whisper-needy to be matched.  Elijah, Jesus and Paul came as those who were whispered by God and so went forth to whisper others and to promote communities that would be committed to the whispering care of others in this world.

  And that is why we have the church; not to have an exclusive club with strict rules for membership.  We have a church in order to remind ourselves about the greatest human dynamic of all.  Being whispered and learning to whisper.  We learn to be whispered in integrating the care of others as well as integrating all of our life experience into a usable personal database to be made evident and available to whisper the people whom we are called to be with in graceful and caring ways.  The nuances of whispering are endless and most of it happens in very un-self-conscious ways.  A smile, a gentle encouragement of a child, picking up trash in the street and unwittingly being noticed by a neighbor a block away; there are endless modes of whispering.

  Today, let us be like Elijah; find the still small voice of God’s whispering presence.  Let be like Paul in finding good reason for different people of different backgrounds to love each other in a faith community.  And while we may not be trained in the ancient medical art of exorcism, we do have the ability to be a calming and peaceful presence to the lives of many people in our lives.  And we don’t have to do so by upsetting the pork futures in our locations.

  The psalmist wrote, “As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs after God.”  This expresses the beginning of whispering.  We long for that which is More than Us as a way of learning to integrate everything that happens to us in the wisdom of learning a life orientation, a life art to learn where things go and fit in our lives.

  My prayer for all of us is that we would receive and know ourselves having been whispered by God, by Christ, by the Holy Spirit, and by significant people who have been in our lives.  And from having been whispered we too have taken up our calling to whisper others in knowing and unknowing way, since to know Christ and to be in Christ is to be in a community of people who are committed to “people whispering” in this world.  Amen.