Today's Sermon

Enjoy!

Its been a long time. A long time since we experienced any of those miracles that they talk about. I don't know about you, but I've not been on any cruises lately, you know cruises, full of animals, two of every kind, cruises not to Aruba, but cruises to nowhere except safety and life. I've not seen any burning bushes. No plagues have been inflicted on our enemies lately. No giant ball of fire has lead us through the night. Food has come in other form, no manna that I can think of. No it has been a long time since we have seen any miraculous signs. Any visible evidence of God in the world at all. Mostly it has been just day to day human activity. We've come to rely more on one another than on the divine.
It has even been a long time since Hanna dropped her son, Samuel, off with the priest Eli in fulfillment of her promise to God. So much has happened that when Samuel hears a voice he of course thinks it must be Eli. Eli's voice has been the only voice he has heard in quite a while. But it hasn't been so long that the lamp has gone out, the lamp of the Lord, there is still a glimmer. But still in the middle of the night Samuel hears his name. "Samuel. Samuel" And Samuel the ever obedient follower of Eli, responds "Here I am" And then runs in to find out what Eli wants. "Psst, Eli here I am. What did you want?" Now you have to remember Eli has been lying down. He is old. He is prone to fall asleep in the middle of conversations, sitting up, anywhere really. His eyes are going. So when he hears Samuel, he doesn't really know what is going on. Ironically, the chief priest doesn't get it and sends Samuel back to bed. I'm guessing he was a little put out that Samuel had woken him up. And so Samuel does what he is told he goes back to bed. And again he hears a voice. "Samuel. Samuel." It wasn't Eli the first time, but surely it must be Eli this time. So up out of bed and back in to Eli. "Here I am, you called me." Probably getting even more perturb, "I didn't call you, go back to bed." Back to bed Samuel went. And again, the same voice. "Samuel. Samuel." Samuel has to be getting a little worried. Eli's mind must be slipping with his eyes. He keeps calling me and then when I come he says that it isn't him. But there is the voice again so I'd better go. "Here I am. You called." And finally Eli gets it. His wits are once again about him, he knows now, he remembers, the sleep is gone and he knows what voice Samuel is hearing. Samuel didn't know the voice yet, but Eli did. And so he sent him back to bed this time with some instruction. " if he calls you, you shall say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." Eli knew that the Lord would call again.
So Samuel returned to his bed. And again as Eli had expected, the Lord called again. "Samuel. Samuel." And this time there would be no rising up out of his bed, no disturbing Eli, this time he knew how to respond. He had been taught, he knew how to interpret this voice, and so he said "Speak, for your servant is listening." Finally, through the help of Eli, the help of this community, Samuel had ears to hear. He was able to discern more clearly the voice of the Divine. Perhaps the Lord would not be passing out any more boat building instructions, there would be no more shrubbery set ablaze, no more holy bread. Only words and people who could hear them, people like Samuel. What a beautiful call story. It has been so long and so many men and women have heard this story as they knelt before a community, a community calling them out, affirming that they too had heard God's voice. A voice so clear saying their names. "Brian. Brian." So clear that they had no option but to respond as Samuel did. "Speak, for your servant is listening." It will be so easy right? The word of God that set the world in motion, it will be so easy to live by, to proclaim that word. Right?
Wrong!?! The word of God requires not only ears to hear but also a tongue to speak. Which is easier said than done. Because when Samuel responded, he heard some things he did not want to hear. Some things about people that he loved, some things about them that they would most likely not want to hear. God was about to do a new thing. A new, big thing. I mean big. So big that it would make the ears of anyone who hears it tingle. Tingle. A shiver would run up their spine. Big! This word was about Eli. You see Eli while he had been a great mentor for Samuel for his own sons had dropped the ball a bit. He had let his sons just run around willy-nilly throughout the temple. The sons who by their birth were also priests. And these priest were doing all sorts of vile things, things that abused the power of their position. They had been consuming the choicest fat from people's sacrifice, taking the cream of the crop for themselves, and then sleeping with the vulnerable women who came to make those sacrifices. I mean these boys were doing it all and Eli wasn't doing anything to stop them. So if Eli wasn't going to do something then God would have to. The house of Eli would be punished and would no longer be the priests that everyone looked to. No this word of God would usher in a new voice, the voice of the prophet, the voice that would speak God's words of rebuke and punishment to the people. But first that word had to be delivered to someone else.
And Samuel did not want to deliver that word. So he did what most people would do he tried to avoid it. He laid in bed until the morning, until it was time to open the doors to the house of God. And sure enough as he expected, Eli was there waiting. But Samuel was really afraid to tell Eli what he had heard from God. We can all imagine the feeling of angst at having to deliver really bad new to someone, this is the angst that Samuel was feeling. Because while he would become the first of the great prophets, while he would become a king-maker, he was not yet. He was still just a boy. So he hemmed and he hawed but finally Eli said basically just spit it out.
Eli was awake now. He had been asleep. He had been asleep on his job as a father and a high priest. He had overlooked so much of the abuse his sons had been heaping on the people they were charged with helping. He had been asleep to what God had been saying and doing. But he was awake now. And he knew that what he was about to hear was going to be about him. And so once again he gave his charge Samuel instruction and encouragement and permission to speak, speak the words of the Lord that needed to be spoken. "Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me…" He said don’t go to sleep. Be awake. Be bold. Be honest. Do not close your ears to what God is saying. So Samuel told him. And Samuel grew up and along the way God was with him. And all that he heard Samuel said.
Samuel was the first prophet but he was not the last. He was the first to say a difficult word but he was not the last. He was the first to speak truth to power but he was not the last.
Who are we? Are we Eli, have we fallen asleep? Has our hearing gone? Are we no longer able to hear and comprehend when God is speaking? Are we overlooking much of the abuse in our world? Are we eating the choicest fat while much of our city and our world goes hungry? Are we overlooking the ways that we are raping and pillaging our planet and its people? We are not the sons, necessarily, although at times we might be. No we are simply Eli. We are old and tired. There is too much abuse. We have seen too much. We need to lie down. We need to close our eyes to what we see around us. Have we stopped paying attention to the ways that our world is broken and hurting?
Or are we Samuel? Are we young? Unknowing? Ignorant? Is it before we have really known God? Do we misunderstand or mishear what God is trying to say to us? Or do we hear clearly? Do we know what we are being called to? But it is too frightening. We want to lay in bed, pull the covers over our head and pretend that morning has not come. If we never get up we won't have to face the truth. We won't have to speak the truth. Or do we try and put off. Do we avoid the ones we must speak truth to? We are too afraid? The word is too difficult. It will hurt too much. This word of truth will make me unpopular, resented, unloved.
The day of the prophet is still not over. God is still speaking. God is still calling to us with a word of truth. We need the ears to hear it. But that is not enough. It is not enough to simply hear the words God is speaking. It is not enough to simply say, "Speak for your servant is listening." No with every word of truth that we hear, there is someone, some audience that needs to hear it. And we have to speak it. And we have to be for one another the support that Eli was to Samuel. We must encourage and instruct one another to be bold, to be strong. We must help one another find their voice and speak God's truth. Being a prophet is hard and prophets are often disliked or even still thought to be crazy. But God is speaking will you hear? Will you speak? Amen.