Sermon: “The One Who Calls”

Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

January 18, 2009

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning is from 1 Samuel 3, the first part of the story about how the boy Samuel, a servant of the old priest, Eli, first came to hear and understand the voice of the Lord God.  Our last encounter with Samuel was the Sunday before Christmas.  You may remember that the preaching text for that day was the Song of Mary,[1] and I suggested to you that Mary’s song had been modeled on the very similar Old Testament Song of Hannah,[2] which was our first reading for that Sunday.  Hannah had been childless for all the years of her marriage.  When she came to the Tabernacle at Shiloh, which was at that time the main religious center in Israel, old Eli heard her weeping from sadness about her barren condition.  He prophesied that she would have a son.  In due time a son was born to Hannah, and she named him Samuel.  Gratefully, she dedicated Samuel to God’s service at Shiloh, where he was raised by Eli.

When we hear this morning’s story in English, much of the irony (or even humor) is lost on us.[3]  In Hebrew the name “Eli” means “my God.”  So when Samuel hears the call of God in the night, he does indeed run to Eli—“my God”—but it turns out that not Eli, but the true God is the one who called.  Another irony is that the name “Samuel” means “God has heard,” so each time that the Lord calls his name, the Lord is saying, in effect, “God has heard.”  Indeed, Samuel has heard, too; but it takes awhile before he learns who he has heard.

Sermon.  Shortly after I began my ministry at Louisville Seminary, I received from Katy Levis, my aunt, my mother’s sister, a paper she had written for a course she was taking in her church.  Probably each member of the class wrote and shared a similar paper, but I can’t imagine any were more personal and honest than the one Katy wrote.  I don’t have her permission to share it with you; but I think it would be OK to say that in the paper she outlined the various stages in her life and how, in each stage, she understood what it meant to be in relationship and in communication with God.  Her spiritual journey led her eventually to a two-year course of study leading to commissioned ministry in the United Church of Christ, what the Presbyterian Church would call a commissioned lay pastor.  Thus, she ministered as a chaplain at Ohio State’s cancer hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where, as she says, she “ministered to persons struggling to accept their own human vulnerability, the inevitability of physical death, and in the midst of doubt and fear, trying to maintain a sense of personal integrity.”  Through all of her personal experience and study, Katy came to understand God simply—or perhaps not so simply—as “That Which Calls.”  [repeat:  “That Which Calls”] 

That’s how Samuel first learned about the Lord:  God called him.  The biblical writer is careful to tell us that up until that time Samuel had not known the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him.[4]  He came to know God when God called him.  I think most of us would say that if we heard God calling to us that we would pay attention and would do what God asks.  I hope I’m not selling you short when I guess that, like me, you would also admit having a hard time hearing God’s call.  This morning I want us to consider more closely God’s call to Samuel so that we might learn more about how we can hear God calling us. 

Let me begin by saying that this is only one story from the Bible about how God speaks to us.  Each person’s experience will necessarily be different.  The points I want to make are illustrations, not prescriptions.  With that disclaimer let’s look at the story.  The first point I would lift up is that the boy Samuel was in a place where daily he came into contact with people who sought after the Lord.  If you read the whole story, you will see that the sons of Eli, who ministered with their father at the Tabernacle, were unfaithful.  And Eli himself seemed to have allowed this.  Yet there must have been faithful worshippers there on a daily basis, offering their sacrifices, praying to God and seeking to hear God’s guidance.  From the time he was a baby Samuel had lived in an atmosphere of appreciation for the things of God.  I don’t for a moment mean to suggest that we have to be in church to hear God’s voice.  Many, though not all, of the great spiritual mystics through the centuries have lived in relative solitude.  However, for most of us I believe it helps if we are around others who are also seeking to be faithful.  I hope that the young persons being raised in this church, like Samuel, are developing an ear for the voice of God. 

The second point is that Samuel needed some guidance.  Old Eli may have been failing—or at least his eyes were getting dim and his own sons were out of control—but he still remembered enough about God’s voice to recognize what was happening to Samuel.  In our Reformed tradition, when we speak of God’s call to us, we really are talking about several different ways of experiencing that call.  First, there is the “inner” call that we feel in our hearts—or in our minds, however you want to express it.  Second, there is the “providential” call, in which we ask whether God has laid the groundwork, given us the gifts, equipped us for the ministry to which we feel the inner call.  Third, there is the “external” call, sometimes called the “call of the church.”  That third call may come as affirmation of the inner call that we already feel, or the call of the church may cause us to consider a calling that we had not even occurred to us yet.  The point is that like old Eli, other believers in God, admittedly imperfect but gathered together in the church, can help us understand God’s calling in our individual lives. 

The third point that I take from this story is that Samuel heard God’s voice when there were no other voices clamoring for his attention.  It was in the middle of the night.  Presumably, Samuel was alone in his bed, perhaps even near the great Ark of the Covenant.  In the silence of the night, he heard the voice calling, “Samuel!  Samuel!”  Maybe I don’t fully appreciate the hectic aspects of life in the Early Iron Age.  Maybe Samuel’s life was a lot more frenzied than I know.  But I can surely attest to the difficulty of finding peace and quiet in 21^st-century, urban America.  There are so many voices that demand to be heard.  It seems like all the newscasts these days are filled with voices arguing and even shouting.  Dating myself, I long for the quieter presentation of Walter Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley.  And television ads are louder than the programs themselves; coupled with constantly changing visual images—a new one almost every second—they are virtually hypnotic.  From three different sources in the last week, I have been urged—no, shamed—into the conclusion that I should register as a user of the online network, Facebook.  I’m already failing as I try to keep up with the regular mail, three telephone numbers, text messaging, the fax machine, and several dozen e-mails every day.  I can’t imagine what will happen to me when I start receiving instant messages or chats or “twitters” or whatever they are that will come from Facebook.  How, in this sea of modern communication, can we hear the voice of God?  While God can break through to us no matter what we are doing, surely we will hear God more often if we set aside time each day when the other voices of the world are silent.  I still struggle with this in my life, so I don’t presume that it is easy.  However, I do believe it is necessary.  As the psalmist wrote, “Be still, and know that I am God.”[5]  Maybe it will be in the quiet of your house when all the children have left for the day.  Maybe it will be as you take a walk, or when you first awaken in the morning, before you get out of bed.  Maybe late at night, as you reflect upon the events of the day.  Rarely does God force a hearing; silence is important, especially in our harried modern world.

So far we have been assuming that each of us would like to hear the voice of God more often, but commentator Bruce Birch warns us that communication with God, while deeply satisfying, is not always pleasant.  Birch points out that the point of hearing God’s voice is not simply for us to feel good.[6]  Rather, it is for God to communicate things to us that matter.  Sometimes they are ideas that we then are to tell others.  And sometimes those others don’t want to hear.  That’s exactly what happened to the boy Samuel.  If we go on and read the rest of chapter three, we will see that God’s very first message to Samuel was that God was going to punish the family of Eli because of the way his sons were behaving.  In the morning Samuel was afraid to tell this news to Eli, but Eli coaxed it out of him.  Eli said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”  This was not an easy conversation for a young boy to have.

God may call us to ordained ministry, to teach a Sunday school class, to serve on a committee or commission of the church, to sing in the choir.  Although all of these can be dangerous and disruptive in their own ways—ask any Sunday school teacher!—we may be called to answer even harder challenges:  putting our reputations on the line for someone who is in trouble, risking the criticism of our friends and social group when we can see they are involved in something that is not right, or sharing the news of God’s love with someone who is an outcast, knowing they will call on us to show them that love in tangible ways.  It is important for us to listen to the One Who Calls.  It is more important for us to obey when we hear God’s voice.  This is true of each of us as individuals, and it is true for us collectively as the church.  God’s voice may come to the church through the choir or the sermon or a prayer group or from the youth group.  When we hear it, we will recognize it for what it is—a voice that calls us not to warm and fuzzy feelings, but rather into action.  The good feelings will follow when we know we have been faithful.  God is calling us all, even today, right now.