I make videos sometimes to make available to share something I’ve come to discover about the Gospel as I live it. I sometimes look at the videos and laugh as I can’t help noticing that it looks amateur: scruffy with a 5 o’clock shadow, my used clothes on, a view of my small bedroom or a simple wooden shed, filmed at a time that I finally could work out the space and finish the preparation. It’s not like the pros with the expensive tools you’ll see on YouTube. But I wouldn’t want to change it. Because it’s authentic to me. And God speaks out of authenticity.
Now, if you’ve gone to church a lot, you might have gotten used to expecting God to speak from someone inside a glorious building behind a pulpit, with expensive, beautiful holy garments, in the middle of formal, planned out liturgy. And you would be just like all people raised well in their religion – welcome to the human race! You’d be just like the disciples and the crowds that Jesus had to explain John the Baptist to, because it wasn’t obvious. The prophet isn’t in the nice clothes in the palace – it’s just the opposite.
If you want to hear God, there’s only one place you’ll hear his voice.
In authenticity.
“What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you.” (Mt 11:7-9)
ALM 