After the Beep

When I called, no one answered; When I spoke, they did not listen.

(Isaiah 66:4b, with a reading of Genesis 3:1-10)

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, September 24, 2006

(Volume 1 Number 14)

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th Street, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

During the 1980s a marvelous gadget of convenience called the answering machine became commonplace in millions of American homes.  The proliferation of answering machines soon rendered universally recognizable the phrase, After the Beep.  So recognizable, in fact, that one may as well simply record, “Hello, this is you-know who, and we’re not you-know-where, so at the you-know-when leave a you-know-what and we will . . . well, you know THAT, too.”

For a time I collected interesting answering machine recordings.  I began doing that when I read a Readers’ Digest sidebar that told of a wonderfully Shakespearean recording a man in Nebraska placed on his home answering machine:

To speak or not to speak, that is the question!

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to leave a message after the beep,

Or to take up arms against a sea of answering machines,

And, by opposing, end them!  To dial, to speak, no more!

Thus answering machines do make cowards of us all!

Confession time.  I suffer from an affliction whose symptoms strike whenever I hear the Beep.  The Beep transforms me into a blithering babbling bungler of words.  I’ve left some of the dumbest, most non-sensical messages After the Beep, sometimes finding myself apologizing at the end of some of the messages I’ve left, wishing somehow I could reach through the phone line and magically retrieve my undeniable display of just how Beep Challenged I really am.  I’m generally calm when speaking to someone fact to face.  Relaxed and speaking in a natural voice, I’m fairly confident in choosing what I want to say and organizing my thoughts in the way I want to present them.  The Beep changes that.  After the Beep I am relaxed no more.  After the Beep my pulse rate accelerates.  After the Beep my confidence to speak is shattered.  That blasted Beep robs me of coherency, transforming me into a rambling verbal jellyfish.

Still, the answering machine has become a cultural well-spring of creativity.  Might you indulge me to share a few of my favorites with you?  One of my favorite categories of answering machine messages is that of college students, the young being of such keen minds.  For example, this recording was left by a student who, evidently, studied hard and played hard.  “A is for Academics, B is for Beer.  One of those reasons is why we’re not here.”

Then there’s Alex, a college student to whom most young men could relate.  “Hi, this is Alex.  If you’re bill collectors, I have no money.  If you’re my parents, send money.  If you’re one of my friends, you owe me money.  If you’re a beautiful single girl, money is no problem, so leave a message After the Beep.”

Perhaps you’ve seen this one.  “Hi, Dave’s answering machine is broken.  This is his refrigerator.  I’m not good at this so please speak slowly after the beep, and I’ll stick your message to myself with one of these neat magnets.”

Another of my favorites shows that we can be Beep Challenged on both ends of the Beep:  “I can't come to the phone now, so if . . . well, actually, I guess I CAN come to the phone now, I mean, like, I'm at the phone NOW, right, recording this message.  But I'm doing this NOW, while you're listening to it LATER, except for you I guess it's NOW, like, when you're listening to it . . . I mean, like . . . Goodness, this is so confusing.”

And finally, a recording left by a pastor.  “I’m not in right now, but leave a message After the Beep, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.  For a quicker response, please volunteer to teach Sunday School.” 

Most important among the advantages answering machines offered was the ability to “screen” your calls, an ability now vastly improved with Caller I D.  With answering machines arrived, we learned that we need speak only to those with whom we wished to speak.  For the first time since the advent of the telephone, answering machines gifted Americans with a little control over what happens after you pick up the phone and say “Hello.”  In fact, “Screening your calls” became a second phrase coined through answering machine technology.  For example, I love the message, “As you can see, we’re not at home.  So leave a message at the sound of the tone.  If you’re a burglar, we’re not gone at all.  We’re cleaning our shotguns and screening your call.” 

Ah, the liberty the answering machine gave the American worker.  There you are, it’s your day off, and just as you’re putting your new Pings into the car to play a round of golf, the phone rings.  No more must you suffer those moments of agonizing uncertainty, wondering, “Should I pick up?  It could be someone with whom I want to speak.  On the other hand, it might be the boss calling me in to work an extra shift, thereby nullifying my opportunity to play golf.”  It was decision time.  Answer?  Or, hide?  Answer?  Or hide? 

In truth, the “screening” of calls has been around for a long time, long before Mr. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.  Those first guilty of screening their calls are in the Garden of Eden.  In Genesis 3:8, the bible tells us that Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”  Decision time.  Answer?  Or, hide? “And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.” 

The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) translates voice, phones.  That Greek word for voice, of course, is the ancestor of our word, Phone.  We might say that Adam and Eve had a phone call from God.  Would they answer?  Or would they hide?  They chose, as we know, to hide.  One might say they let the answering machine pick up the call.  God begins to leave a message.  “And the LORD God called unto Adam, ‘Where are you?’”  In other words, “I know you’re there.  Pick up the phone, Adam.”

Karl Barth was fond of saying that all human history began in our being Addressed.  The Garden of Eden story makes us think immediately of the clothing of the Undressed Human, nakedness and fig leaves among the most easily recognized elements of the narrative.  I might suggest though, that far more vital to the narrative of human beginnings than the Clothing of the Undressed Human, is that of the Calling of the (potentially) Unaddressed Human.  I say “potentially” Unaddressed because with Adam and Eve having fallen, a divine dilemma came into play – do I turn away, leaving my creatures Unaddressed?  Or, do I seek them, Address them, make the initial move toward re-establishing the relationship which has been broken?  “Adam, where are You?” is answer to that divine dilemma.  So I think Karl Barth correct – all human history began in our being Addressed.  The Calling of the Unaddressed Human is a token of the divine desire to know us and to be known by us.

Does not that initial call to Adam still echo on the periphery of our self-awareness?  It is in the recognition of this Call that our self-awareness evolves beyond self, allowing us to tap into our innate sense of belonging to Something Other, to Some One radically different than ourselves, a Voice greater than our own, the Transcendent.  I think Christopher Bamford accurate when he writes, “to live itself is to be called.”  The creation narrative, then, explores an essential element of our humanness, that which makes us fundamentally different from all of creation – we hear a Call to Something Other, Something Higher, to One who says, “I Call, and my cry is to all that live” (Proverbs 8:4).  Humanity is not, at last, Unaddressed. 

The philosopher, Rene Descartes, famously said, “I think, therefore I am.”  I prefer, “I am Addressed, therefore I am.”  In other words, “I sense the Call of Something Other, therefore I am.  I am, because Something Else is.”  This is the universal yearning for the Transcendent, a fact which is, for me, the best evidence of the existence of God.

Our humanity is preceded by a “Thou” who addresses us.  Now, this may be, for us in church, an unsurprising perspective, laden with indisputable truth.  But make no mistake -- this idea of “The Addressed Human” is at odds with much of the prevailing philosophy of self.  Secularism is bold to declare (in the words of Bishop William Willimon), “I am who I am, Captain of my fate, Master of my soul, detached from anything Other.  I am independent, free, and, most emphatically, Unaddressed.”  A secular culture, then, Glories in being Unaddressed by anything other than our imagination or our ingrained religious prejudices.

Our tradition and faith, on the other hand, glories in being Addressed.  Noah makes an ark in response to the Call.  Abraham goes from country and kindred in response to the Call.  Moses faces down Pharaoh in response to the Call.  The story of people of faith throughout history suggests that we are not, in the fullest sense, human, if we are Unaddressed by this great I Am.  

Walter Brueggemann rightly points out that what we call “spirituality” is mostly a matter of coming to terms with this Addressing.  When one becomes interested in Spiritual Formation, what is one saying but that we want to sharpen our awareness of the avenues by which the Call is heard in our daily lives?  We yearn for those moments of spiritual acuteness, moments when the soul is uniquely open to this Call.  In these times, our longing for the Means of Grace increases – worship, fellowship, bible study, experiencing the sacraments, meditation and prayer.  These Means of Grace become, as it were, hearing aids, amplifying the volume of the Voice, so that, being Addressed, we can more clearly hear.  Spiritual formation is an intensifying of our hunger for the Call, for knowing ourselves to be Addressed, so that we might say with the psalmist, “As a deer longs for the flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).  

Now, it remains for me to point out that, at times, the tables turn and it seems, not that we are screening God out, but that God is screening us out.  I love the Dennis the Menace cartoon that shows Mr. Wilson nervously peeking out at Dennis from behind his living room drapes, obviously not wanting the little nuisance to bother him.  Dennis is standing out on his wagon, leaning over the front yard fence and shouting, “Mr. Wilson, your answering machine isn’t working.  It says you’re not at home!” 

Sometimes we feel just like Dennis.  We know God’s home.  Our theology tells us that, though we can’t see God, we know he’s home.  Then why isn’t he answering our calls?  We pray and feel that we are being ignored.  “Maybe God is screening out my prayers,” we think.  We are not alone in wondering if God hears us?  This frustrating sense of uncertainty is a hallmark of the saints, from Job to Jeremiah and especially the psalmists.  For example, consider Psalm 88, “I call to you LORD, every day.  I spread out my hands to you!  Why, O LORD, do you hide your face from me?”  The psalmist is wondering why God seems to be say, “I’m not available right now.  Leave a message After the Beep, and I’ll get back to you when it’s more convenient.” 

I confessed at the beginning of this sermon that I dislike talking into answering machines.  They make me feel nervous, uncomfortable, disorganized.  Perhaps.  Could it be that’s the very reason our prayers are so often nervous, uncomfortable, disorganized?  Perhaps we suffer from an “After the Beep” syndrome when we pray. 

You see, when I’m leaving a message After the Beep, even as I’m speaking I am busy judging how the words I’ve voicing will sound.  Likewise, our praying can lose focus on the PERSON we’re talking to, and begin to focus on OUR words, instead.  When prayer becomes an exercise in judging how capable are our words, then it has lost its ability to connect us with the Transcendent.  That’s why, perhaps, the best prayer is wordless – meditative and contemplative, engaging the Voice of Silence.  Released from judging our own words, we are now free to enjoy the Presence of God.

Sources and notes:

The initial inspiration for the writing of this sermon was prompted by a sermon on 1 Samuel 3 by Bishop William Willimon, “Life as Dialogue” (Pulpit Resource, January - March 2003).  Willimon wrote, “To be unaddressed is to be no one.”  From this simple sentence, wanting to capitalize and explore this idea of being Unaddressed, this sermon was developed.

 “The Gift of the Call,” an essay by Christopher Bamford in The Best American Spiritual Writing (The Best American Series, 2005), edited by Philip Zaleski, Houghton Mifflin, 2005).

The Spring 1994 issue of PARABOLA offered many essays on the subject of “The Call.”  I was especially helped by “Invitation to the Soul,” by David A. Cooper, “Ear of the Heart,” by Norvene Vest, and “The Command Is to Hear,” by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.