Sermon
at St. David’s, Washington DC on January 15, 2012
1 Samuel 3:1-20
If you were paying
attention to the readings last week you, as I’m certain you were, you will have
noticed that the Old Testament lesson was not about Samuel; nor in fact will
next week’s lesson cover more of the fascinating story of this great prophet.
The Church has given us this section of Samuel’s story today because it as a
story about an Epiphany: that is an appearance of the Divine, a manifestation
of the Sacred. Epiphany is the season we are celebrating, a season that started
on January 6 with Matthew’s story of how God manifested Godself to the wise men
as Jesus, as a human child. But let’s return
to Samuel’s epiphany experience and fill in some of the blanks.
The Samuel we meet in
this story is also still a boy, but we know from the first chapters that great
things are planned for him. For the song his mother sang out of gratitude for
his birth is a great song of praise and glory that is later echoed in the one Mary
sings when she visits Elizabeth, what we call the Magnificat. But right now Samuel is not ‘great’: he is still a
young apprentice in the temple at Shiloh under Eli the chief priest.
The first half of our
reading is a story I think remember from my own Sunday school experience. Just
imagine a Victorian style painting, a vast dark cavernous like structure, a
flickering light in the distance, Samuel, on a mat under a blanket, sitting up
with a curious look on his face. Where is this voice coming from?
Scene 2 has elements of
comedy, three times Samuel goes and wakes Eli up, you can almost imagine both
of them getting a bit annoyed at each other, why does he (stupid boy / stupid
old man) keep waking me up… but then Eli suddenly remembers who he has been serving
and what a temple is for and realizes that it may have been God who has been
calling Samuel! So when Samuel next
hears someone calling his name he says “speak Lord, for your servant is
listening” and God not only speaks to him but actually “came and stood there”
with him in the temple sanctuary. And that is when the child-friendly passage
ends, and our lectionary even gives us the option of stopping too.
We would be wrong not
to read on because we would then miss the point of God’s appearance: whenever
God appears to us it is with a message.
The burning bush told Moses to lead his people to freedom and to stand
up to Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world. Jeremiah is sent to prophesy
against the people and king of Judah, to tell them what awaits them if they do
not repent. God in Jesus comes to offer forgiveness and a radical new way of
life.
What does God have say
to Samuel? Eli’s sons, the potential future rulers (Judges) of Israel, have
done great wrong, they have taken what was God’s and what was to be shared with
God’s people, they have neglected their duties to the people, they have paid only
lip service to worship, they have cared only for themselves and not for others
– the greatest sin in God’s eyes. Ironically they had even managed to profane
the very means of their salvation: the sacrifice or offering to God! Eli knew
this, he had heard about their sins, he had even been warned by a prophecy and
he had tried to warn his sons and get them to change, but they would not listen
and that is why his reaction is such a stoic one next morning when Samuel
reluctantly relates God’s message. Eli knew this was coming, he accepts God’s
will.
This is the start of
Samuel’s ministry as prophet, priest and leader: as the last of the ‘Judges’.
We are not told what his prophecies where as he grew up, but we do know that
“the Lord let none of his words fall to the ground”, that is they were true and
reliable and that they established him as a trustworthy prophet in all of
Israel. His later commissions from God are of great importance for Israel,
finding and anointing their first king, Saul, and then finding and anointing
David as Israel’s second King when Saul disappoints the Lord. And guess who has
to go to Saul and give him the bad news that “the Lord has torn this kingdom
from you!”
And how about today, is
the word of the Lord widespread, is it heard? I don’t think so, I think it is
far too rare. On the one hand, and I realize that my experience is colored by
living in Europe, I see a strong secularist trend to try and keep the word out
of the public sphere, to make religion private and invisible! On the other I
see God’s word being drowned out by other more strident and louder messages:
look after yourself (like Eli’s sons did?), do what you want, you are free to
make your own choices, don’t worry about others! I was heartened to read
in The Washington Post that even a leading evangelical pastor was questioning
whether
radical individualism and a rejection of the ethic of collective responsibility
is compatible with the Christian duty to love our neighbors[1]. I
am not going to take sides in the current US political debate, especially as an
‘outsider’, but I too would question whether any message that does not include society’s
responsibility to help the poor and needy is Christian. Eli’s sons were not
condemned as individuals but as leaders of their society. Tomorrow we remember
a great modern prophet, a man who was always willing to speak up about what was
wrong in society and also how society had to be transformed, a man of vision, a
man who spoke the Word of God: Martin Luther King. He thought about this issue
too when he said: “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you
doing for others?” We need many more prophets like him, many more men and women
who are willing and able to speak up about what is wrong in society and how
society needs to change.
And where will we get all
these prophets from? Well from here. You all signed up to be prophets, don’t
you remember? Think back to the Baptismal covenant, perhaps not at your own
Baptism, that might be too long ago, but to the one you have reaffirmed every
time there has been a Baptism here at St. David’s. You were asked: Will you
proclaim by word and example …? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons…?
Will you strive for justice and peace…? And you answered “I will, with God’s help” - that
makes you prophets.
If this makes you
nervous, then you are in good company. It makes me nervous too and I suspect
that is why most of those who are called, tend not to want to hear it first
time round, or when they do hear God’s voice, when God even goes so far as to appear
to them, they try and excuse themselves: Moses tried – “who am I that I should
go to Pharaoh?” Jeremiah tried, “I am but a boy,” he said. And we know what
lengths humanity went to silence Jesus.
Thankfully we are not
alone in this daunting task. We have this and the wider church community to
support us. Most important of all we have God and God’s word to guide us on
that path. Your vow was after all “I will, with God’s help”! This is the
God who has appeared to us again and again, to Moses in the burning bush, to
Samuel in the temple at Shiloh, to Jeremiah in Jerusalem, and finally to us in
the stable in Bethlehem. This is the God who still speaks to us today, in the
word we hear from Scripture on Sundays, the word we read at home or in Bible
study groups, and in the word we can hear in prayer. Those are all moments when
we listen to and discern what God wants to say to us and through us to
the world.
So next time you pray, after
you have prayed for your needs and those of others, after you have given thanks
don’t then finish as you might normally do. Instead use Samuel’s words: “Speak
Lord, for your servant is listening” …. and then take time to listen for God’s
word to you and through you to the world.
[1] Rev. Richard
Cizik, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Washington Post of November 11, 2011
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