We continue our journey here through the Narrative Lectionary.
We are skipping over a whole lot to get from where we were last Sunday, which was Moses and Aaron had led the people of Israel out of Egypt and out of slavery, out of Pharaoh’s grasp. And they escaped through the Red Sea, and they find themselves in the wilderness.
And after just a short amount of time, they begin to wonder what they’re doing out there—where their next meal is going to come from—and they begin to question the plan. And Moses and Aaron reassure them: “No, God will take care of us. We just have to trust each day in our daily bread.”
Well, as I mentioned last week, that was at the beginning of their forty-year journey in the wilderness. We are on the other side of that journey—and through the time of the Judges, where local authorities were more in charge—and now to this time where they’re trying to consolidate power, consolidate government under kings and prophets.
1 Samuel 3:1–21
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”
Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.
***
Rob Bell noticed that his children had this odd habit when they called out for him. Instead of just saying, “Daddy,” to get his attention, they would always say, “Daddy, Daddy”—always three times.
Why three times?
He always wondered about this peculiar calling until one day he was at the playground with his kids. They were having a good time on the slides and the swings and they were playing with the other kids. And he was looking on and watching when suddenly his phone buzzed.
And he looked down, and he checked it, and sure enough—it was an email from his publisher. He’d been waiting for this response, and he opened it with great anticipation.
And as he was reading the email and making sense—not only of what it said, but all that it meant for him and his career and their future—he heard this strange noise off in the distance.
“Daddy…”
Then again, this time a little bit closer:
“Daddy…”
And then finally, full volume—realizing that one of his children was right in front of him, tugging on his shirt:
“Daddy!”
And that’s when he finally understood. It wasn’t some quirk of theirs. They had learned that it takes three times to get his attention. Because he has this habit of being there—but not really being there. Distracted by work, by his phone. His kids had gotten used to saying his name three times to get his attention.
Well, it took the Lord four times to get Samuel’s attention.
He called out, “Samuel, Samuel. Samuel…” and even then, it was Eli who realized what might be happening.
The first three times, Samuel thought that he was hearing his mentor, Eli, in the other room. He must be the one calling him in the night. Who else could it be? No one else was there. And yet he keeps hearing, “Samuel… Samuel…” until it’s so close that you can no longer deny it. It is like the voice is right there in the room with him.
And Eli, who has more experience with this sort of thing, says: “Go back. And if you hear it again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”
Now, there are several things that we can take away from this exchange.
According to Amy Oden, she says:
Notice how this encounter happens at night. First, both Samuel and Eli are lying down—a posture of stillness and receptivity. A spiritual practice.
What listening practices do we have? What pauses or openings do we create in our daily lives for the holy?
Second, God calls Samuel by name. God addresses Samuel directly. Separately from messages that God sends more generally to the whole people, God is speaking here to just Samuel. There is an intimacy in God speaking Samuel’s name directly—and persistently.
It’s hard for most of us to imagine, isn’t it? Much less accept that God could be speaking to us personally—to our particular time and place, to our own biography, our own personality.
Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever asked yourself:
Am I willing to let God speak personally to me?
To my particularity?
What does it sound like when God calls my name?
Third, Samuel doesn’t recognize the voice. It’s reassuring, isn’t it?
Even when God speaks his name directly, Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice. It takes someone else—his mentor Eli—to help him even entertain the possibility that it is the Word of the Lord speaking to him.
Professor Oden writes: that’s what the body of Christ—that’s the role that we can play. We need each other to help us pay attention and recognize when God is speaking in our lives. Sometimes it’s easier for our friends to notice it, right?
“Can you not see what God is saying to you?”
Fourth, God is persistent.
God doesn’t get fed up with Samuel not getting it.
This means the divine revelation does not depend on our spiritual quickness, but on God’s faithfulness to us. If we don’t get it, God will try again.
And again.
And again.
And last, and not least—we may not like what we hear.
There’s no denying the message that is given to Samuel for Eli is hard. Eli doesn’t want to hear it.
How do we receive what God is saying to us—and what sermon might come from listening to God—as we determine its meaning for our lives?
Now, anytime I start listing things, I always feel like I need to give the caveat: I don’t want it to sound like these are the steps for having a faith of our own. If only it were that easy.
There are no one-size-fits-all prescriptions for forming faith, nor is there a single outcome.
One of the things that this story shows us is that each of us has our own calling.
Each of us has our own story.
Each of us hears scripture in our own way.
They’re all different, and no two are the same—and that’s good. Because faith is not monochrome.
And the further I get in my own ministry, the more and more I am convinced that my role is not to teach the faith or espouse a particular set of doctrines.
Rather, it’s to help us—as individuals and as a community—to be able to articulate our own faith, our own particular beliefs and doubts. Questions.
Isn’t that an exciting vision of what church could be?
Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
“What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God, instead of to learn what they’re supposed to believe?
What if they were blessed for what they’re already doing in the world instead of chastised for not doing more at church?
What if church itself felt more like a way station than a destination?
And what if the church’s job were to move people out the door, instead of to keep them in—by convincing them that God needs them more in the world rather than in the church?”
In other words, the church at its best is like Eli in this story—helping to discern God’s voice, not insisting that the next generation be a replica of the previous. Not viewing diversity of opinions as a threat, but as a blessing.
Eli is Samuel’s spiritual mentor and his guide. He’s not simply telling Samuel to walk the same path that he did, but he gives him the freedom and the support to find his own path.
Now to be clear—I’m not suggesting that one generation doesn’t have wisdom to share with the next. Clearly, each generation has wisdom to share. But each new generation also has its own path.
So I hope you hear what I’m saying today.
Because it’s really important.
You do not simply have to accept what has been passed down to you without your question or input.
Our faith is never set in stone. It is alive, and it is evolving.
You’re allowed—indeed, you’re encouraged—to bring your own thoughts, your own questions, your own doubts, experience to bear on this faith that we are trying to live out together. That’s both individual and communal.
Because that’s the tension that we live in.
We share our faith with one another, but without insisting that we all have to agree on every last little thing.
It’s been pointed out that you can insist on being right, or you can be loving, but you can’t necessarily be both.
Love of God and neighbor means that we hold onto our beliefs and our doctrines lightly.
What I mean by that is not that we don’t take them seriously—in fact, quite the opposite. We take them very seriously and realize that they can have great impact.
Which is why we also hold onto them lightly—because sometimes our beliefs can have unintended consequences. And if we find that our beliefs have caused harm to others that we did not intend, then we need to be willing to re-evaluate those beliefs, rather than valuing dogma over people.
Notice that it’s become popular once again to proclaim this hierarchy of love.
“I love—” you know, we’ll list them on a t-shirt or whatever—
“I love God first, then family, then my country, then my Honda…” I don’t know. Whatever it is. “I love this first, and then I love that.”
But where does Jesus ever talk about love in any kind of hierarchical way?
He very specifically says when asked:
Love of God and love of neighbor are not ranked.
They’re the same thing.
So if our dogma—if our beliefs—result in us harming our neighbor, whether we intend it or not, whether our neighbor be female, or queer, or foreign, or poor, or Black, or Brown, then it’s our dogma—our belief—that needs reevaluating, not the other way around.
Because as William Sloane Coffin reminds us:
“The time is always right to change our minds when to do so is to widen our hearts.”
Amen.
