Epiphany 2: 18^th January 2009

Preacher: Nikki Devitt

Churches: Draycott and Rodney Stoke

Readings:

1 Samuel 3, 1-20

Revelations 5;1-10

John 1, 43-51 13, 10-17

One of the pleasures of having the family home over the Christmas holiday was revisiting familiar topics of debate:

those ‘old chestnut’ discussions, developed over many years

And as it was Christmas, with much church going, religion inevitably featured in these discussions.

Our son commented on one occasion, with typical post-enlightenment derision:

“All those people seeing angels, and hearing instructions from God in dreams and visions…”

“Nowadays we would say that was due to mental illness and tell them to get help”…

Well, that comment certainly drives home the point

that in the 21^st century, we don’t expect to hear the voice of God directly.

And I think this begs the question, If we don’t expect to see angels and hear heavenly voices directly these days,

then how do we discern God’s call and God’s message in our lives?

And this just happens to be the subject of our readings today.

So I want to look at the story of the Calling of Samuel,

And, to do it justice, and to understand what the writer was trying to convey,

we must look at the story in its own context.

So the setting for this story is the time of Judges, that’s pretty early on in the OT.

The Israelites had been settled in Canaan about 200years by then.

When they’d first got there they had built altars and praised the God who had delivered them,

But as time went on, and generations passed, they grew comfortable in their settled life and forgot God.

Eventually it was only the priests kept the worship of God alive in the sanctuaries….

…As the last verse in the book of Judges puts it: “Everyone did as they pleased.”

So this is the situation into which Samuel is born.

The book of Samuel begins with a barren woman, Hannah, who is desperate for a baby. She prays to God at the sanctuary of Shiloh, to give her a child.

She promises that if she has a son, she’ll offer him back to the service of God.

Well, God answers Hannah’s prayer and she bears a son, Samuel,

and when he is old enough, Hannah brings him back to the sanctuary at Shiloh as she promised, and leaves him in the care of Eli the priest…and this is where our reading starts today.

The reading begins in twilight, which is surely a metaphor for the spiritual twilight of the nation: the word of the Lord was rare & visions were not widespread, we are told.

Eli the priest is blind, and his blindness too is more than physical….But we then are told:

‘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’

The only hope clearly focuses upon Samuel.

But when the call of God comes, he doesn’t recognise it

for what it is, at first,

In the story our expectancy is heightened by that 3fold repetition of God’s call,

and it is finally old Eli, who ,despite his faults, is wise and courageous

…and who understands this is the Lord calling, and teaches Samuel how to respond.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening, says Samuel finally. …

He learns to hear God’s word,

and indeed becomes the first of ‘the former prophets’ …& Israel's fortunes take a turn for the better.

…okay, so what, if anything, has this ancient story got to tell us ,

about how God speaks to us, some 3000 years later?

Well I think it has some important timeless things to say for us,

about how we hear the word of God.

Perhaps the first thing to note is that Samuel was chosen by God from the beginning, offspring as he was of Hannah’s barren womb.

So although this story of his calling seems to be

a one-off event on a particular day,

it’s actually part of a continuous process, underpinned by God…. What we are is already known & loved & accepted by God ( a sentiment wonderfully echoed in our psalm ‘Lord you search me & you know me…you are acquainted with all my ways’ etc)

And so for us , as well as Samuel, the call of God is actually an unbroken process from birth to death.

Now, there may be a moment of crisis as there was for Samuel,, when we are particularly aware, of our vocation…the point is, God speaks over and over again, the same words to us, calling us to acknowledge our real identities, and to be our true selves.

So..next question, how do we find these true selves, (that God wants us to be)?, Well, again Samuel’s story gives us a clue: because he was a young man who spent time

each day of his life, in prayer , alone with God.

I daresay it was a great deal easier for him than it is for us, in some respects, since he lived at the sanctuary, and his full-time occupation was to live a life consecrated to God.

We, on the other hand live in a very secular society where God is largely forgotten: and (by and large) our lives are rather busy & distracted.

Perhaps we feel as Christians, that we should be struggling to see all of life and every moment in God’s presence,

so we blunder on, without setting aside particular times to be still in God’s presence

…but men & women of prayer throughout the centuries

have found unless we regularly give ourselves

· the time,

· and the space,

· and the solitude

· and the silence

to attend to God’s presence and let go, into God’s grace,

we risk not hearing God’s voice, and not discovering who we truly are before God.

So that’s a very real strand of Samuel’s experience which is still highly relevant to us today… to find time to pray.

Having said that, The third point we might pick up from the story of Samuel, is that, important though solitary reflection is, we don’t only live in our private selves.

So let’s not assume that we can always discern these things on our own…

and without the support and guidance of those around us: it took the old man Eli’s interpretation and understanding for Samuel to grasp this was God’s call.

I think this shows us how important it is to allow others to interpret what we think we have heard, sometimes.

As human beings, we all have an endless capacity for self-deceit and self-protection, which can actually prevent us from hearing and understanding God’s call:

it’s sometimes being ready to accept the critique of others which can show us the reality of a situation, and our course of action in it. So that’s another way in which we hear God’s voice.

And finally, we see from Samuel

that the call of God requires a response from us. To quote Rowan Williams,

‘Each of us is called to a different kind of response to God; to mirror God in unique ways. We have to find what is our particular way of playing-back to God his self-sharing, self-losing care and compassion’

So there we are, the Calling of Samuel is a story for our time.

· It shows us that :

· God’s calling is simply a time when we are aware of God’s grace breaking through, in a life that is lived entirely the infinite and inexhaustible love of God.

· It shows us the importance of prayer, and of being open to the critique of others.

· And it reminds us finally that we are to respond to God’s call…

So let’s pray that we may be aware, at the deepest level

of God’s call in our lives

and be ready to respond as Samuel did

‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening’…