Rev. Ted Huffman

The Voice of God

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I have watched the Cecil B. DeMille version of the 10 Commandments on television several times. I know that the movie was filmed in VistaVision and was intended to be watched on the big screen. Back in 1956, movie theatres were larger than the smaller rooms in today’s multiplexes. But somehow, watching it on television gives it a different look. I think that the first time I watched the movie, I was viewing it on the small black and white television set that belonged to a neighbor in our seminary apartment building.

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There are some great scenes in the movie. Charlton Heston as Moses, faces off with Yul Brynner as Pharaoh. The movie is over-produced, over-acted and in many ways over the top. It made a lot of money for the producers and was a box office success. But it probably isn’t the best way to teach the fundamental truths of the Bible. Although the exodus is a great narrative story, part of its power lies in the simple fact that our people have preserved it as an oral tradition. Adding visual effects limits the imagination in some ways and attaches a bit too much authority to a single interpretation. The Bible commands us to tell this story every year and such a commandment encourages a fresh examination of the role of the story in our lives. Watching a movie just isn’t the same thing as freshly engaging the stories and traditions of our people in the light of contemporary realities.

My favorite scene comes early in the movie. It is the exchange between God and Moses at the burning bush. Visually, the movie doesn’t depict the scene the way I imagine it. In a way, I like the scene from the animated film, Prince of Egypt, better. However, as Moses approaches the bush the voice of God comes from the bush. Although they have done some sound editing, it is pretty clear that the voice of God is Charlton Heston. If you close you eyes (or if you are watching a grainy black and white television set) it is easy to imagine that Heston, playing the part of Moses, is talking to himself.

Actually, that isn’t a bad image for the voice of God. Certainly God is able to speak in any language with any voice. Why not use our own voices to communicate with us? I often experience God as a little voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my own.

How do you imagine the voice of God sounds?

o God
I think that a booming bass voice might be a common way to think of God’s voice. Perhaps James Earl Jones would have the right sound. I’m thinking that not many people hear God with a high-pitched voice such as Pee-Wee Herman. Maybe the voice has a bit of gravel like George Burns. Writer Karen Spears Zacharias, author of “A Silence of Mockingbirds: The Memoir of a Murder,” wrote that she thinks that God’s voice might sound a bit like Garrison Keillor, host of “A Prairie Home Companion.” Her father died when she was very young, so she doesn’t remember his voice. She has, however, listened to Keillor on Public Radio for 25 years and his voice seems quite authoritative to her.

That might have worked for me except that once, several years ago, I went to a live performance of Keillor’s radio show, so I have seen what he looks like. It was, frankly, a shock to me. I had known him from radio and I had allowed myself to imagine him much differently than he actually appears. I don’t know, I guess I thought he might be a bit shorter – perhaps a bit like me. Ah well . . .

How about Yoda from Star Wars? The slightly altered word order might be expected from one who knows all of the languages of humans. Again the visual doesn’t work for me. I’ve watched the movies. Yoda doesn’t look at all like the way I imagine God.

When I was younger, not long after my father died, I would regularly hear is voice in my mind. He taught me to fly an airplane, and when I was flying my own plane and running through checklists, I found that I often spoke to myself in his voice. This experience seems to have faded as the decades passed. I no longer have an airplane and I don’t fly as pilot in command any more. And there is also the factor of time. Add to that the simple fact that my own voice isn’t much different from my father’s. It may be another case of hearing my own voice.

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The voice of God is an interesting speculation. I have no doubt that people experience it in many different ways. None of us has a complete understanding of God. I guess I’m not too concerned about how God sounds.

Being a reader, I experience God’s voice through the written word far more often than I experience God as an auditory phenomenon. God speaks in many ways: through dreams, through experiences, through loving actions of others, through traditions, through sacrament and through the written word. I read scripture daily. I study it regularly with colleagues and friends. I read a lot of books that are about the Bible, providing commentary and theological insight. There are a few great authors that I have met face-to-face. There are far more that I have never met and that I will never meet. I know them through the words they have written. While I am certain that God used human hands to write the words of the Bible, I also am convinced that the truth about God comes through these words. I can come to know God better by reading and studying the words.

When I read to myself I suppose that the primary voice is my own, though I often experience it as the voice of the author bringing new ideas to my consciousness.

So I don’t worry much about the sound of God’s voice. After all, it may not be male. In most polls, people cite mothers and grandmothers as their greatest teachers of faith. Now there is a scene that would be worth an other re-making of the epic film. Imagine Charlton Heston approaching the burning bush as Moses, but this time the voice from the bush is his mother . . .

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