It was the tradition at the high school my daughter Nonie attended to give a speech during senior year. It is an awesome experience in that the students get to speak in front of all their peers and teachers. It might be the only time in the student’s life that they are given this opportunity. Nonie told me months before hers was scheduled that the topic of her speech was me and what it has been like to grow up as a “PK”, a preacher’s kid. Needless to say, I had trepidation, that depending upon where we stood with each other, this could be very flattering or her opportunity to lash out in public. Was I going to be portrayed as dear mommy or mommy dearest? As the weeks before the speech got closer and she began to think through her speech, it became apparent that the theme was going to be how growing up in the church made her into the loving person she is with the strong social justice views. I was very proud of her but I was also very humbled by her portrayal of me as a person who raised her with the Biblical values of love and justice for all of God’s creation. The expectation she had for me was hard to live up to. You see, I am not the great social radical, the prophetic voice that she portrayed me as being. I am just me…
And I think the humble things like this every year on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and every time I hear the stories in the Bible about prophets who hear God’s call to action, and are called to bring forth unpopular messages, and they respond that they will. I question whether I have what it takes to be like them? Are my faith and my convictions strong enough that I could risk being prophetic? It is risky to preach social reform and justice for all as a mandate of the Bible? But if not, how can I stand in front of this congregation on MLK Jr. Sunday and preach? So then I pray, “Here I am, but, under my breath is always a plea….Oh God I’m frightened, PLEASE DON”T CALL ME!!!!”
Listen now for the word of the Lord as it is written in 1Samuel 3:1-10
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!” 5 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. 6 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.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 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. 9 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.10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
This morning’s scripture text is God’s call to Samuel. The story is probably placed in the Bible to give authority and legitimacy to Samuel as the only source of God’s word in the upcoming period. It takes place in the Bible at a low time in the history of Israel. There was religious corruption, political danger, and social upheaval. Sound familiar??? The priest and prophet Eli is old and God has not chosen his sons to be the next prophets for Israel because of their personal corruption. It was a time when God’s word to the Jews was rare and visions from God had become uncommon. It was a time when there was a huge threat from the Philistines to the people of Israel.
So meet Samuel! Samuel is a young boy serving under the old priest Eli. He sleeps near the Ark of the Covenant, which had been a source for the Jews of God’s divine presence and illumination. As the story goes, he is asleep and experiences the word of the Lord but does not know it. It is not in his experience as he has nothing on which to recognize the Lord. So, he assumes, it must be Eli calling out to him in the night. So three times God calls out to Samuel, and Samuel runs to Eli and asks ‘what is it that you want’. Finally on the third time, Eli perceives that the Lord is calling Samuel. The old Priest gives the young Samuel advice on how to respond to the Lord’s call. And Samuel again goes back to bed, and God again calls to him and Samuel responds, “Speak, for your servant is listening!”
God speaks and Samuel finally listens. Although the commentaries on this passage use the call to prophetic work and Samuel’s eager response to God’s call as a central message here, and the message we disciples of God should try and emulate in our lives, I want to say that there is another equally important message that must come before that response. That is that God speaks and Samuel finally listened. What if God was speaking to Samuel all the time and the story is that Samuel finally listened? What if God is speaking to us is calling us with a message, and we must finally listen as well.
The now retired editor of The Christian Century Magazine, John Buchanan told a story about God speaking to a woman. Barbara Wheeler is the president of Auburn Theological Seminary, one of our Presbyterian Seminaries. She was flying across the country to give a speech and used some of her precious upgrade coupons to be able to fly first class in order that she could write her speech while traveling. In first class, she would have room for her lap top, papers, and briefcase. Just before the door to the airplane closed and the jet took off, a woman with a baby got on and, you guessed it, they sat next to her. The baby was at that age to be too young for her own seat but too big to be easily controlled and comforted like an infant. The baby screamed, kicked, pulled at her computer and papers until she finally put her work away and gave an imploring look to the flight attendant who then banished the mother and child to a coach seat. After that everyone in first class went back to their important work, reading, resting, and she went back to writing about God. When Barbara Wheeler got to her speaking engagement, a brief homily was given before her speech. It was Christmas time and the text was the familiar story found in the second chapter of Luke. Then the person giving the homily went on to talk about the hymn “Away in a Manger” which is attributed to Martin Luther. He said that although it is a great Hymn, there is one line that is wrong. That is “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” He preached, we know Jesus cried… (And I want to interject here that we all know that Jesus cried! All babies do.) And in his ministry Jesus cried for all of us, Jesus even died for us!” Barbara Wheeler said that she felt that God spoke to her in the homily. She felt that the Holy Spirit had rebuked her for her intolerance and self-importance. This homily transformed her. It made her reassess who she was in relation to God. As I read Dr. Buchanan’s editorial, what spoke to me about this story was that she was open to hearing God’s message in the homily. She was open to hearing God speak to her through a sermon. She must have been listening for God’s word. Are we? Do we listen to sermons and enter into prayer really wanting to hear that God is speaking to us? Do we really want to hear what God is calling us to do? What if it is something uncomfortable? Is God speaking to us? Can we listen as well?
I thought about this passage last Sunday night during ‘the prophet’ Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes award. What struck and inspired me in her speech was when she talked about the importance of watching Sydney Poitier receive an award when she was a child. In seeing him, she was able to see herself in a role she previously never considered. Likewise, young Samuel, was unable to hear God calling him into action until Eli pointed out that possibility to him. This week Butch Sorenson asked me when I felt I was called to the ministry and I confided that I went to seminary only for the education. Being a college graduate in the late 70’s, I had never heard a woman preach and never met a woman minister. It would have been out of my paradigm to think of myself in that capacity. But I thank God for the woman who did, those angry pioneers who came before me; and who fought the battles which allowed me to be what God called me to be.
I was in early grade school when Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a Dream Speech” on the Mall in DC so I cannot say I personally remember him and the events surrounding his ministry accurately. My memories of those events are clouded by the years of hearing the stories, of commentaries and the events that followed in the rest of the 60’s and 70’s in our country. And I realize that our children only know of him through history books and events that are planned to commemorate his message and build on his vision. But you talk to people who were there, who walked with Dr. King in Selma, in Chicago, in Philadelphia, or heard him preach and they heard something transforming, something great, they HEARD God’s word. The people who walked with him, talk about their experience of Dr. King as life transforming. God spoke to them through Dr. King’s words and they were called into the movement of the times.
Samuel did not recognize God calling him to be a prophet because it was not in his experience. He lived in a time when the Word and the Vision of the Lord was rare. God was summoning him, but he had nothing with which to recognize it and he certainly was not expecting it for himself. It took someone else to finally point out to him that God had made numerous attempts a reaching him. Once he knew that God was talking to him, he was able to hear God’s voice clearly, was able to respond to God’s call, and could be a prophetic voice for God.
We Presbyterians believe that God calls us together as a church. We believe that God has a purpose for our church and for us. God has a dream to show us and we are called to be active disciples, not dreamers. It seems the challenge is to position ourselves in a way so that we hear God calling us. We need to hear God’s voice in a crying baby reminding us of Christ’s suffering for us, we need to hear God’s call in the #MeToo Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Sanctuary Movement, and in the all the fights for equality and justice of all God’s people. There is still work to be done. We know that there is no exception to God’s love and we need to share that knowledge so that all people know it too. And we need to be open to seeing God’s dream, knowing it might also be a calling to become a prophet in our own time, a calling to be a person pointing to God’s vision of shalom, of justice and peace. Our prayer to God should be the same response as Samuel’s; “Speak, for your servant is listening!” Amen.
