Epiphany 2B
1 Samuel 3:1-20
Almighty God, whose
Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your
people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the
radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you
and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I
love to tell the story of Samuel in Sunday School and Children's Chapel. Our
youngest members don't seem to have any trouble relating to it. My mother, a
lifelong kindergarten Sunday School teacher, had a favorite story about this
lesson. A 5-year-old boy in her class once blurted out excitedly, "I heard
God's voice, too, last night!" When asked what God said to him, the child,
named Gray, proclaimed with love, mystery and awe in his voice, "God said
'G-r-a-y …. G-r-a-y….'" My mother especially loved to remind the boy of
that story when he was a grown-up church member, much too serious for such
things.
For us older folks, if only it were that
simple to hear God's voice, especially in Scripture, the "word of the Lord."
Just this Monday, I slumped in my chair
and grumbled to a friend, "God has gone out of the words!" Before the
world got to be so crazy, it used to be easier to sit with Scripture. It used
to be easier to hear the familiar, comforting words: salvation, hope, justice,
mercy. I would meet the beloved characters—Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mary his mother,
the bumbling disciples—and they would be like old childhood friends. These
days, however, I feel as if the hate-filled world has stuck a pin in these precious,
holy words. It has popped them like a balloon—I feel God's Spirit drifting
away, and the words falling hollow to the ground, limp and shriveled artifacts.
I feel as if some of our fellow Christians are using the beloved words to
promote hatred and injustice, day after day after day. And the rest of us are
trampling the shreds of the words underfoot, ignoring them in our rush to get
about our daily business. Why read the Bible when so much truth has been sucked
from its words? How do we hear the
voice of our God in these troubled times?
After my sadness on Monday, I stared
in amazement on Tuesday when I picked up the lectionary and read the story of
Samuel. I almost fell to my knees.
"The word of the Lord was rare in
those days," the lesson begins, as if the story were reading my mind. This
is the only time in the Hebrew Bible that this phrase is used. The story is set
during a deeply troubled time in the land of Israel. Change is shaking the old,
trusted foundations. The story takes place when the familiar government by
judges is about to give way to the unknown perils of monarchy. In the meantime,
chaos reigns. Eli, the trusted high priest, is old and failing. His sons have
filled the land with corruption and shame and greed as he sits idly by, doing
nothing to stop them.
As
the story begins, night shrouds God's holy temple in darkness. Eli is blind,
lying helpless in his bed, unable to provide God's vision and hope to the
people. Samuel is the little boy who has been given into the care of the temple
by his mother Hannah. In this story, he's still young. He's just an apprentice--a
teenage acolyte, perhaps, wondering when on earth to close the gates and
chafing under the weight of obscure rituals and sweaty robes. He must feel the
empty darkness of the temple and the troubles of the land, even if he doesn't
understand them. Even though he sleeps in the heart of his religion's holiest
place, he knows little of God.
"God has gone out of the
words," Eli must have sighed from his bed. "What's the point?"
Samuel must have been wondering in the darkness.
But wait! It wasn't all darkness and
gloom. The text says that "the lamp of God had not gone out." Even in
the darkness, God's light is burning beside Eli in his blindness. And God's
voice is calling young Samuel's name. Over and over again. Despite his youth
and his misunderstanding. The Word of God keeps calling.
When I sit in church, or when I pick
up the bible to read, I'm usually like Samuel. I announce proudly to myself:
"Here I am! Look at me, here in church! Look at me, reading Scripture! Aren't
you proud of me, everyone? Teach me something, God! Move me! I'm waiting! Make
it quick, because I have a lot to do today!"
I expect something to happen between me
and God, one on one. I think that God is supposed to enter the words for me and bring them to life. But that's
not the way it works in today's lesson, is it? Samuel needs Eli's wisdom before
he can recognize God's voice. Eli explains to Samuel that obedience alone isn't
enough. We have to open ourselves and listen with patience and expectancy for what God has
to say. We all need the wisdom and support of other human beings in our faith
journeys. The old and the young need one another. The strong and the weak need one
another. The educated and the innocent need one another. Because God speaks to
us all.
As a matter of fact, do you know why we Episcopalians
read so many lessons as part of our Eucharist? It's because we believe that
Jesus comes to us in Scripture as the Body of Christ, all together, just as he
comes to us in the bread and wine. We surround ourselves with the voices of the
Hebrew Scriptures, with the prayers of the ancient psalmists, with the
admonitions of the early Christian letter-writers, and with the good news of
the Gospels. We take all of these varied, swirling, sometimes confusing voices,
and we wait together for God to appear in our midst through those words.
Instead of "the Word of the Lord," perhaps we should end each reading
in the service with the words, "Speak, Lord, for your servants are
listening."
But there's another important piece. Our
lectionary leaves out the end of this story—an end that we need to hear. When
Samuel finally listens—really listens—to the voice of God calling him in the
night, the word that he receives is not one of cozy comfort. When Samuel opens
himself to God's word, God gives him a hard task. A task that is going to
change him forever. God tells him it is up to him to stand up to his mentor Eli.
He's told to proclaim drastic change, to tell Eli that God is going to take
away the power and authority that Eli and his sons have misused. Who wants to
tell his boss that she's fired? Who wants to stand up to power and oppose it?
We all know how dangerous that is. Look what happened to Martin Luther King,
Jr, whom we celebrate tomorrow.
When God calls me in the night, I'm
hoping to be comforted, not changed and challenged. I don't want God's voice to
turn my world upside down. The most dreaded voice for a mother to hear in the
night is that of her crying child. "Mama, Mama, Mama," it whispers in
her ear, breath hot against her cheek. "Mama, mama, my tummy hurts
bad." All parents know that this is the beginning of a sleepless night, a
big disruption in plans, and a lot of laundry. It is a voice that inspires a
loud "Nooooo!" in your heart and a deep desire to hide under the
covers. But it's a voice that you can't deny or refuse; it's a voice that makes
you who you are—a loving parent.
That's
what God's true voice offers us—to make us who we are meant to be: God's responsible
and loving presence in the world. As Rowan Williams says, the Word of
God that speaks to us in Scripture doesn't call us to "jot down ideas and
think about them." God speaks our names in order to transform us, to make
us see and live in the world in a new way.[1] Scripture is a summons, a
voice in the night. It's an invitation to be part of Christ's Body acting in
the world.[2] It gathers us and forms us
around the Altar of sacrifice. It asks us to translate what we hear into
courageous, self-giving action, into shared dependence on God alone.
When the world rejects foreigners and
turns its back on the marginalized, God's Word invites us to embody love for
the stranger. When the world destroys God's creatures in a greedy search for
riches, God's Word invites us to work to "preserve and serve"
creation, instead. When the world exploits the poor and rewards those who are
number one, God's Word invites us to live in such a way that the first shall be
last and the last shall be first. God's invitation is also a promise. At the
end of our reading, Samuel becomes a prophet. God is with him and lets "none
of his words fall to the ground." So shall it be with us, if we open
ourselves as a community to hear God's call. God never leaves the words. As
Christ's Body, we are "in the
words," with Christ, and will never be forsaken.
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