We now enter ordinary time, having last week completed the celebrations of the Easter Season, with the Feast of the Trinity. A Feast not part of the Easter-Pentecost cycle, but rather a feast that introduces the season which follows. On trinity Sunday, we celebrate God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it is to triune God that we relate in ordinary time.

Over the coming weeks, we well look through the various passages set down as the regular readings, and I hope discover in them a new and renewed understanding of who God is and what he is like. In the strictest sense of the world, I plan to use the teaching times as an opportunity to explore Theology - that is the way we look at God.

In the two passages from today's readings, which I read at the start of this sermon, there is a common thread. God is involved in human affairs. He directs, he calls and he sends. Think of the hymn that we sometimes sing - "Thy hand O Lord has guided, thy church from age to age".

Abram was told GO, Matthew FOLLOW. But in both cases, the sense is very much that the God of the Universe, who made heaven and earth, came down to engage with humanity. Is this not the message of Christmas, but it is something that begs a response. If God, our God wants to relate to us, then ought we think about responding. But that is something for another day and another audience. I am assuming that you have made that response, as this is why you are here!

Today, I would like to think about one simple thought. About one simple proposition: that God will guide us. God who sent Abram and called Matthew, will also do the same for us. Do you believe this? Or do you believe that God's guidance is restricted to the super heros of faith?

I know as I grew up, there was a tremendous emphasis on the heroic. The names we read in the bible, both in the Old and in the New Testament, were the heros, they were God's chosen ones. But this is wrong and shaky thinking.

Consider the proposition. God's faith heroes, did not receive guidance because they were Faith Heroes, but rather it is there response that makes them Faith Heroes. If Abram had not obeyed the command of the Lord, then would he be remembered?

So it is response that creates the faith heroes. Remember the young man who came to Jesus, asking for eternal life. We do not know his name, because he could not relinquish his possessions, and so walked away.

Perhaps my dreams are a little over the top, but I would like a church of faith heroes. By that I mean, I would like to look out and know that those are in my care, could hear voice of the Lord and could respond. You see it is not necessary that this faithfulness be expressed in terms of great things for God - like writing a Gospel or founding a Nation. Rather it is in the little things that this greatness shows.

But perhaps I am jumping ahead a little! We must begin with the first stage. We must start with the assumption that in the character of God, he has the desire to lead us, guide us and send us. If this is so, then, he must be communicating this with us. So the first stage is to become a people who listen, both as individuals and as the church as a whole.

Listening is not an easy skill, as Elijah found in the cave. The voice of God was not in the earthquake, the whirlwind or in the fire, but it was a still small voice, that whispered. To hear God, then, is not an easy thing. Yes, I know that sometimes God will go to extraordinary lengths to get our attention, but in general terms his communications fall on deaf ears. (Rather like have children and asking them to fill the wood box).

To listen then, is to make the effort to hear. We begin with the understanding that God will make known his will. - that he is trying to communicate, and when we get rid of the distractions, perhaps he will get through. Maybe this is a good time to reflect on whether God has spoken to you, and you have heard his voice.

Over our time together, I hope to be able to explore ways of listening more fully, but for today, I would like to just list some ways that he can speak.

There is the audible voice, and the thought that is planted within. The Scriptures or other Christian material that demands us to act or the word of a friend. There is the certainty of direction in the place of prayer and the heart wrenching response to injustice and inequity.

But to hear is not enough. Heroes are made by action, or reaction. Abram went, Matthew follow in response to God's guidance.

Let us then take the time to seek God's guidance and to pray for courage to act. We must take care, that we don't fall into the trap of believing that this is the province of the priest. God will guide us together and it is as we together seek to discover his will, that we can move forward. My role is nor to tell you what to do, (or what I want) or to seek guidance for you, but rather to help you find that guidance for yourself.

It is now the last month of the financial year, and as we prepare to move into a review during the annual meeting, then I ask you to join me in seeking guidance for the parish. Would you commit a small time each day to sit in a quiet place, and ask God to speak to you in his still small voice about our future together and your part in the process?

Let us together, you and I, commit ourselves to wait on the Lord.

AMEN.