The Word of God was Rare: January 14, 2024

 1 Samuel 3:1-20                                     Year B, Epiphany 2                                                                 

            I am sure we all remember 2020 as an incredibly difficult year.  The country shut down in March due to the COVID epidemic.  Everything was closed including our churches.  Two months later George Floyd was killed and that killing was recorded for all to see.  Most of us were still confined to our homes and it was harder to ignore this death.  I remember doing my best to avoid the video, but when I finally saw it, it was impossible to forget. Soon after, people in Richmond Virginia started protesting and vandalizing confederate monuments.  The church I served was two hours south of Richmond and it was in our news a great deal.  I went to speak to a trusted parishioner and she said, “You know our monument is the only one in Hampton. It’s just a matter of time.”   You see, we had a 16 foot tall confederate monument in our cemetery. It was a generic soldier and dedicated to all the confederate dead. I had spent 7 years talking to people here and there about it, but never talking with the church as a whole.

Before May of 2020 few in the church saw it as a problem because it was in a cemetery.   However, the church was also in the middle of the cemetery and that statue was 20 feet away from the church’s entrance.   I realized that if it was vandalized, it would make the news and I was going to have to defend that monument or acknowledge that I found it offensive but had never bothered talking about it with the people of the church.  So finally…7 years into my time as rector, I told the vestry that we needed to have this conversation.  And God bless them, they agreed.  I would love to tell you that if they had not supported my decision, I would have moved forward with confidence and courage, but I am not sure I would have.  Often our faith pushes us to have difficult conversations.  Often we resist.  What helped me in my last church was other people who were willing to engage in conversations and encouraged me during the process.

            Often when we talk about the story of Samuel and Eli, we talk about the call---the part where God calls and Samuel answers.   But this is also a story about a willingness to state hard truths and hear them as well. It’s about difficult conversations. We love to talk about Samuel hearing the voice of God and running to Eli because he thought it was Eli who was calling him—which makes sense. If you hear a voice calling you at night and there is someone close by, it would be natural to assume that the person next door is calling you, not God.  That said, Samuel lived in the temple and had lived there for almost his entire life. One would think that if anyone was prone to identify the voice of God, it would be someone living in the temple….sleeping right next to the ark of God.  

Yet Samuel was young…no more than 12.  He probably hadn’t heard any stories about people hearing God’s voice out loud. What is fascinating is that his spiritual mentor, a priest and a judge of Israel (someone who should have been especially in tune to the voice of God) wasn’t able to perceive what was happening until Samuel woke him up a third time.   It was only then when Eli realized that it was the Lord calling Samuel and told him exactly how to respond.  I love that it took them both that long because it’s so true to life.  God often has to pester us in order for us to listen.  If it was this hard for two people living in a temple to hear God, it’s no wonder why it’s difficult for the rest of us. 

However it’s really the 2^nd part of the story that interests me the most.  While it was certainly challenging for Samuel to recognize God’s voice, the hardest part for him was relaying the message God gave him.  Once God had Samuel’s attention, he started by saying, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears it tingle.” In other words, I am about to do something shocking.  God continued by telling Samuel that he would punish the house of Eli.  God explained that he had already warned Eli that his sons were blaspheming and behaving in immoral ways, which meant that he didn’t want them in leadership positions.  Eli’s role as a leader in Israel was over.

            This put Samuel in an incredibly awkward position. He had to tell his mentor, the man who had raised him as a father, that God was going to punish him.  Fortunately Eli was a good and wise servant of God.  He must have had a hunch what God told Samuel.  Because as soon as morning came, Eli asked Samuel (actually, he demanded it) what God had told him.  Eli demanded that Samuel tell him.  While Samuel was afraid to tell Eli, he told him everything.  Can you imagine what a horrible conversation that must have been? “Eli, your sons are horrible people.  You knew that and did nothing except give them a little lecture.  Now God wants to punish you and your whole family.” Yet Eli responded with grace and faith.  He said, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.”  What an incredibly faithful and humble response.

            Our conversation about the confederate monument ended up taking about 6 months.  It was especially difficult given that we were in the middle of COVID.  Several people left the church as soon as we announced that we were starting a conversation. They didn’t want us to judge the past or those who had lived in the past.   But the vast majority of people stayed and in the end, it made the church stronger in that we proved that we could have hard conversations and come out the other side still loving one another.  In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul implores people to “speak the truth in love.”  That is what Samuel did for Eli and that is what we tried to do at my last church. Not everyone received it that way, but that was the intention.

 During the announcements, you will hear from Liz Kimball about a research project that began years ago under your former rector and our social justice and anti-racism committee that focused on Christ’s Church involvement with slavery. Some of you might wonder why we are talking about slavery a hundred and fifty years after the institution officially ended.  Isn’t it best to move forward? I believe that this is part of moving forward.  When Eli sat and listened to all that Samuel had to say about his family—the sins that they had committed and Eli’s own complicity with those sins---he responded with grace and kindness.  He listened to Samuel and acknowledged all that occurred.  In doing so, he not only started the process of repentance, he empowered Samuel in his role as prophet.  It wasn’t merely and ending for Eli, it was a new beginning for Samuel and the people of Israel.

            When we repent and acknowledge the sins of the past, we are not merely admitting failure, we are creating a space to begin again.  In seminary, I took a class in the history of the Episcopal Church.  The professor explained that the Episcopal Church was one of the few denominations that never split during the Civil War.  When they had their General Convention, they simply marked the southern states absent.  Because they never acknowledged the split, it was much easier to come back together after.  At the time, the professor presented this as a smart tactic and I agreed with him. Yet I have come to realize that this hurt the church more than it helped us. 

In many ways, I don’t think the Episcopal Church ever recovered from the divisions because we never talked about what divided us. Often we think that if we don’t discuss the conflict or the hard thing, we move past it and keep everyone happy.  But I don’t believe that actually keeps people happy nor is it what we are called to as Christians.  One of the reasons why Jesus was killed is because he did talk about the difficult things.  In one of Jesus’ more confounding comments, he said that he came not to bring peace, but division.  He didn’t bring division, he exposed division.  But he did so from a place of love and compassion.

            I have faith that Christ Church is a community where we can speak and hear the truth from a place of love and compassion.  I believe that because you have already been doing that, long before I arrived.  We are a church that embraces a revolutionary spirit.  We are a church that was forged in the midst of conflict—a conflict that led to a new nation. Challenging conversations offer us an opportunity to build something great and to do that together. If you are not sure about any of this, that’s ok. My only request is that you talk to God about it.  Try the prayer that Samuel used, “Speak now, your servant is listening.” Then tell me what the voice said, because just as it was thousands of years ago, the word of God is rare…but it’s a lot less rare when we take the time to listen.

The plaque that covered the confederate battle flag

 

The compromise

God's word is not as rare as our silence: January 14, 2018

Year B, Epiphany 2                                                                

1 Samuel 3:1-20                                                                      

Every priest and deacon has to go through a thorough process of discernment before being ordained.  Before you can even go to seminary, there is a lengthy interview process, sometimes an internship and you have to show that you have the support of your parish priest, the vestry, and a separate committee in the church.  For 6 years I sat on the committee for the diocese that walks along people who are hoping to be ordained.  During those 6 years I heard a lot of stories of people who felt that they were called to the ministry.  Typically people’s stories were more nuanced than you might expect.  For most people, there was rarely one moment when clarity struck.  The call came over years, even decades.  There was no thunder and lightning.  No one ever started their story with, “God spoke to me and said, ‘You need to be a priest’.”  Sometimes the call would come through life events and often the encouraging words of others.

            It is strange because if you look at the stories in the Bible, of people who were called to various ministries (whether it was prophet, disciple, mother of God, etc)---it was usually more direct.  God spoke to people in dreams and visions.  For Moses, his physical appearance changed after he spoke to God.  It was that obvious. Paul was blinded and a voice came from heaven.  For Mary, an angel appeared and spoke to her.  It seems that in those days, God was a lot more direct.  Yet in this day and time, in the modern age, God is a lot more subtle in the way that he communicates.  There have been many times in my life, when I wished God would be less subtle, more like he was in the stories in the Bible. 

            One of the first verses from our Old Testament reading for today is, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”  This got my attention, because this is the Bible after all.  It’s God’s word. You don’ expect that the Bible would mention a time when God’s word was rare. Yet even then, in the time of the great prophets and kings, even then there were periods when God seemed less communicative than usual.  The Hebrew word translated to rare typically referred to things like jewelry, anything that was rare and limited in supply.  Other translations use the word precious.  God’s word was precious. 

            The other reason it seems a little odd that the word of God would be so rare in this story is the location.  The boy in this story (Samuel) is living in the temple, as a servant/apprentice of the high priest.  He was living in the temple.  The text says that he was sleeping in the room where the ark of God was housed.  The ark of God was the place where God was supposed to reside.  The ark was the closest thing to the embodiment of God.  It was the closest you could get.  Yet even there, feet away from the ark of God, the word of the Lord was rare.  It must have been a dark time indeed.  But as you know, just because something is rare and precious, does not mean that it is impossible to attain. 

            This story of Samuel and the voice of God is fairly well known. Typically when we talk about it, we think of Samuel’s refrain, “Here I am.”  Even the popular hymn you just heard repeats this refrain, “Here I am.”  As a result, I have always imagined that this is the way we respond to the voice of God, with assurance, confidence, with a loud, “Here I am. It’s me. I’m who you are talking to.”  Yet what is interesting is that was how Samuel responded when he thought it was Eli calling him. 

Remember that the word of God was rare.  Samuel didn’t know what it sounded like.  In our text, there is an exclamation point after his name.  Samuel! Samuel! But we don’t really know what the voice of the Lord sounded like.  It probably didn’t sound like James Earl Jones.  It was probably quiet, more like a murmur than a voice from heaven. Therefore, it was not that odd that he assumed it was the elderly priest Eli.  Samuel responded as any good servant, by jumping to his feet and proclaiming, “Here I am.”  Even after 3 times of hearing this, he still jumped to his feet and ran to Eli.  Who knows, he might have done that all night had Eli not figured things out and given him some advice. 

            Now had I been in Eli’s position, I would gave jumped up as well and tried to get some more details from Samuel before formulating a plan where I would have joined Eli as we chatted and waited for the next call from God.  But Eli was wise and probably a little tired as well. He told Samuel to lie down and wait. The next time God called, Eli instructed him to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” Samuel did exactly that.  He did not bounce out of bed and say, “Here I am!”  Instead he asked God to speak and made sure that God knew that he was listening. 

Because of that, God spoke and shared something that would change Samuel’s life, Eli’s life and shape the fate of Israel. I have always assumed that God was waiting for Samuel to realize that it was God talking before sharing his wisdom.  But I think God was waiting for some evidence, some confirmation that Samuel was ready to listen. He wasn’t just the eager pupil bouncing up and down in his seat desperate to be called on so he could speak…he was the servant ready to listen. 

It is hard to know whether the word of God is rare now, or if it is just listening that is rare.  It’s hard to listen.  If this story of Samuel and Eli happened today, Samuel would have had ear buds in with music blaring.  Or he would have been playing a video game or chatting online with someone. Eli would have been sound asleep with his white noise machine or maybe the TV on.  It’s hard to listen because there is so much noise.  It’s not just that the word of God is rare today.  Silence is rare.  It is so rare that it is precious. 

Because it is precious, it is that much more important that we seek it, that we strive for moments of silence, moments when we can not only step away from the constant noise that surrounds us, but even the chatter inside our heads.  God doesn’t usually speak to us with exclamation points.  He doesn’t even use emoji.  But I promise you that his word isn’t as rare as our ability to listen. 

One of the things that helped Samuel was Eli, someone who was there with him and was able to point Samuel in the right direction.  That is what the faith community is for. Church is the place you come to hear God’s word.  You may not hear it in the readings, or the music, or the sermon. But this is the place where we intentionally make space for God’s word.  That hour of worship might not be enough which is why we have different groups, Bible study, the men’s group, the adult forum, St. Anne’s guild, the young adult group…places where you can go to be with other people who are trying to listen for the voice of God.  You can also come to Mark or me and we will listen to you and with you.  Because whether you know it or not, God is speaking to you.  God is desperate to talk to you.  Not only are God’s words precious, you are precious in God’s eyes…which is why he never gives up.  He never stops trying to reach you…no matter who you are or where you are from. You are precious.