{"id":3431,"date":"2018-03-27T13:10:24","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T17:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stlydias.org\/blog\/?p=3431"},"modified":"2018-03-27T13:24:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T17:24:21","slug":"small-voices-by-angela-morris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/small-voices-by-angela-morris\/","title":{"rendered":"She Says Lent \u2013 Week 4: Small Voices, by Angela Morris"},"content":{"rendered":"

This sermon was preached at St Lydia\u2019s Dinner Church on Sunday March 11 and Monday March 12, 2018<\/em><\/p>\n

SAMUEL 3:1-10
\nNow the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, \u201cSamuel! Samuel!\u201d[a] and he said, \u201cHere I am!\u201d and ran to Eli, and said, \u201cHere` I am, for you called me.\u201d But he said, \u201cI did not call; lie down again.\u201d So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, \u201cSamuel!\u201d Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, \u201cHere I am, for you called me.\u201d But he said, \u201cI did not call, my son; lie down again.\u201d Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, \u201cHere I am, for you called me.\u201d Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, \u201cGo, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, \u2018Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.\u2019\u201d So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, \u201cSamuel! Samuel!\u201d And Samuel said, \u201cSpeak, for your servant is listening.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some important voices are hard to hear. They might be quiet, confusing, weak, or deceptively ordinary. They might be hard to hear because they speak truths that are painful or messy or threaten our comfort zone or hit a nerve we have been numbing. They might say things we know are true but have turned into items on a self-improvement to-do list we\u2019re currently avoiding. They might say things that seem too big to face.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Last summer, I got an email from a woman I know peripherally \u2013 like me, she\u2019s a tenor saxophonist here in NYC \u2013 announcing the formation of an advocacy group for women in jazz, and inviting me to join. I skimmed the email with a feeling of vague irritation, marked it unread, and let it sink into the shallow grave that is page two of my inbox.<\/p>\n

A couple of months later, I was at an Artist Residency in Washington state with five other artists I hadn\u2019t met before. Upon introduction, one of the artists asked, \u201cOh, you\u2019re a saxophonist? Maybe you know my daughter? She plays tenor, too.\u201d
\nYup. That would be the author of the buried email.<\/p>\n

But I was there to write music, to get away from the my normal life and the normal world with all its loud demands, the shouting voices demanding I justify my existence according to the terms of capitalism and adequate woke-ness and the canon of music history and innovation and just the right balance of ambition and cool.<\/p>\n

I was there to get away from, for example:
\nWow, a chick playing saxophone, that\u2019s hot!
\nBut, how do you make your living?
\nAre you the singer?<\/p>\n

and so on.<\/p>\n

So, I did not want to read that email, I did not want to spend my time at this retreat complaining about The Patriarchy, jazz or otherwise\u2026 or so I thought.<\/p>\n

At this residency, we spent most time on our own, working, but we came together every evening for a meal, and we often lingered, talking into the evening. Six people \u2013 at first strangers, and then friends, and then almost like family \u2013 at dinner together every night for a month.\u00a0 There were four women, including me, whose ages coincidentally represented each decade from 30s through 60s, a gay man in his 50s, and a straight man in his 70s who we\u2019ll call George.<\/p>\n

You know George. We all know George. George talked a lot. Loudly. Frequently over and through other people. While the other artists treated me as a peer despite our age difference, George told me, wow, he could be my grandfather. (But, like, a grandfather who still made some questionable comments about my appearance.) George is a non-fiction writer, and he just didn\u2019t seem to \u201cget\u201d art: he was always trying to justify or reduce his own work and our work to measurable terms of the market.<\/p>\n

George was more or less an embodiment of the things I was at the residency to avoid. He was, like the Man, man. Naturally, I want to stick it to the man.<\/p>\n

But in that scenario, when I most want to prove myself as a capable individual, everything freezes. There is this opaque, dense, hot feeling in my chest\u2026 my vision goes blank. My words stick.<\/p>\n

The loudness of the imagined argument between that guy who, explicitly or implicitly, says that I can\u2019t do it or I\u2019m not welcome because I\u2019m a woman and the \u201cme\u201d who wants to prove that women can be anything (even saxophonists!) is so loud that it overwhelms the the \u201cme\u201d who wants to learn\/grow\/make mistakes\/recover\/follow my curiosity and, like, make music!<\/p>\n

I recently learned that this phenomenon has a name: stereotype threat.<\/p>\n

Stereotype threat \u2013 that unique form of choking that proves you are exactly the thing you\u2019re trying to prove you\u2019re not. For example, In a Stanford study, a situation was designed to activate a negative stereotype about scholastic ability; the African-American students underperformed. When the same test was done without activating the stereotype, the African American students performed up to their abilities.<\/p>\n

When I feel like I\u2019m carrying the weight of my entire gender\u2019s reputation on my back, the load is too heavy to bear. Stereotype threat makes quote-unquote \u201csmall\u201d acts of sexual harassment that much more impacting, because they inflame the imagined, internal provoker \u2013 they are evidence for the truth of the loud argument that is overshadowing the quieter self.<\/p>\n

When I thought about George I had that feeling. A crushing feeling that I guess we can call also call dread: a chronic warning. On guard because my boundaries are being tested, and there\u2019s no way to know if George\u2019s similarities to dangerous men in my past are real or imagined.<\/p>\n

I played past incidents over in my mind, and I felt powerless. I should have been stronger: I should have reported, I should have quit, I should have yelled. As the residency progressed, I started to lock my door. I began to have dreams about George: George had a knife to my throat \u2013 he was taking away my voice.<\/p>\n

But surely I was being paranoid! Over-reacting.<\/p>\n

Why was I letting this guy bother me so much? Why did I have to be so sensitive all the time?<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

I felt those things, but I still didn\u2019t know what I was listening for. Then, it was October, I was back home, and people were tweeting #MeToo. And I was listening.<\/p>\n

Listening to women speak despite the twitter trolls, to hear those thousands of small voices clearly telling the truth.<\/p>\n

Saying what Le Tigre sings in the song On Guard:<\/p>\n

You can comment all day til dark.
\nYou can call me any name you want.
\nYou can look me up and down.
\nI won’t stop, no, I won’t fall apart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s the truth, and it\u2019s one I needed to hear. I needed to know I wasn\u2019t alone and that I wouldn\u2019t fall apart.<\/p>\n

I was listening to other women describe things that have happened to me, but which I hadn\u2019t wanted to name. Wanted to ignore because I didn\u2019t want to be the kind of weak or sensitive person \u2013 weak and sensitive woman \u2013 who would be affected by something like that. I was listening to other women describe how they hadn\u2019t reported, hadn\u2019t quit, hadn\u2019t yelled. And I understood that I was not alone. I didn\u2019t want to admit that part of me is invested in the status quo, the kind of manipulative power that women are supposed to settle for, along with the way my whiteness and accent and education give me access and perks and safety\u2026 Saftey that is contingent on following the Man\u2019s conditions. And they come at much too high a cost.<\/p>\n

The many stories of women, the voices of truth were pointing back to the reality that our workplaces, schools, streets, and churches need to change. We can\u2019t build our world on the Man\u2019s terms any more.<\/p>\n

In the same way that it took me a while to wake up to the truth that was being spoken, Samuel starts out confused, too. God speaks to Samuel with such an ordinary voice that it takes him a while to realize the magnitude of the situation.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get a bit of backstory of Samuel.<\/p>\n

Samuel is the son of Hannah. Hannah could not have children, but prayed and promised God that if she could finally conceive after so many years of being unable, she would give her child to God as a nazirite consecrated to the service of God. Samuel is that miracle baby, who is raised in the Temple serving the priest Eli.
\nEli\u2019s own sons, priests themselves, were no. good. They were eating the sacrificial meat \u2013 even insisting that people bring it raw so they could cook it to their taste \u2013 and, proving that workplace sexual harassment is hardly new, \u201cthey lay with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.\u201d Eli is warned, but he can\u2019t seem to stop his sons.<\/p>\n

So this word comes from God to Samuel, the nazirite, son of Hannah:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have told [Eli] that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli\u2019s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eli is going down.
\nThis message is uncomfortable for Samuel not only because Eli is a sort of father figure, but because he has to tell him what God said. Like, \u201cGood morning Eli, God says you\u2019re f-ed.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the truth is, God has a better world in store for Israel than one with priests like those sons of Eli. That is what Hannah trusted in when she gave her son Samuel to God. Hannah was willing to give up even the thing she prayed for because she had such faith in God to provide a different future, a future beyond the constraints she currently felt.<\/p>\n

When Hannah gives birth to Samuel, she sings this song:<\/p>\n

The bows of the mighty are broken,
\nbut the feeble gird on strength.
\nThose who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
\nbut those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
\nThe barren has borne seven,
\nbut she who has many children is forlorn.
\nThe Lord kills and brings to life;
\nhe brings down to Sheol and raises up.
\nThe Lord makes poor and makes rich;
\nhe brings low, he also exalts.
\nHe raises up the poor from the dust;
\nhe lifts the needy from the ash heap,
\nto make them sit with princes
\nand inherit a seat of honor.
\nFor the pillars of the earth are the Lord\u2019s,
\nand on them he has set the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pillars of the earth are the Lord\u2019s.<\/p>\n

If we are building on man-made pillars, we are not living in the truth. But, as humans, we are notoriously bad a knowing what\u2019s good for us. Soon after he hears his first prophecy, Samuel gets stuck mediating between with the people of Israel, loudly shouting for a king, and God saying, \u201cHey! A king is just going to take advantage of you and make your lives miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Israel says we don\u2019t care we just want to be NORMAL.<\/p>\n

Luckily, God knows how to get our attention, and God doesn\u2019t stop trying.
\nHannah\u2019s song foreshadows another song in the Bible, sung by the mother of another, even more miraculous son. Mary, mother of Jesus, sings a very similar song which has become known as the Magnificat. The mighty will fall, the small shall be raised. And that song announces Jesus as a new kind of king who\u2019s supposed to get us out of the earthly king business forever.<\/p>\n

The contrast between this new kingdom, the realm of God, and our own narrow views of authority can be seen at the end of Jesus\u2019 life. In his encounter with Pontius Pilate, Jesus encounters the kind of narrow fathoming my pal George was trying to do to art. \fPilate asks him, \u201cAre you the King of the Jews?\u201d And Jesus replies:
\n\u201cYou say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can we listen to Jesus\u2019 voice?<\/p>\n

Prayer transforms our dread and our numbness and our pain in a way which can be uncomfortable and even scary, but is revealing, and healing. Repenting \u2013 loosing the hold of the world\u2019s flaws \u2013 converts listening to allow for the truth to be heard.<\/p>\n

In case you were wondering: remember that email? I replied, I joined. I am listening, and I am praying.<\/p>\n

Asking God to look where I\u2019m afraid to look. Asking God to be with me while I dare to turn and face what\u2019s been following just behind my peripheral vision. Listening to the quiet voices I\u2019m prone to dismiss.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the Dutch priest and writer Henri Nouwen has to say about prayer:<\/p>\n

Prayer is a revolutionary matter because once you begin, you put your entire life in the balance. If you really set about praying, that is, truly enter into the reality of the unseen, you must realize that you are daring to express a most fundamental criticism, a criticism which many are waiting for, but which will be too much for many others.
\nWhen you pray, you open yourself to the influence of the Power which has revealed itself as Love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

At St. Lydia\u2019s this season we take time after the sermon to reflect and confess. We\u2019ll write our confessions, and hang them from the branches above.
\nI invite you to reflect on this question: Where do you have selective hearing around a small voice, inside or outside yourself?<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Angela Morris<\/strong> is a saxophonist-composer and other things in Brooklyn via Toronto. Her performance schedule and recordings can be found at angelamorrismusic.com<\/a>. At St. Lydia\u2019s, Angela coordinates music and liturgy, and curates a monthly experimental performance series called Brackish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Sermon Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Le Tigre. \u201cOn Guard.\u201d Feminist Sweeptakes, Mr. Lady, 2001.<\/p>\n

Nouwen, Henri J.M. With Open Hands<\/em>. Ave Maria Press 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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