When God Calls...

Mark 13:1-8    Samuel, selected readings

Season after Pentecost    November 15, 2009

Samuel’s story is an amazing one for several reasons.  The faith of his mother, Hannah, in knowing God would intervene and give her a child; Hannah’s willingness to let that very same longed-for child go to the Temple at such a young age because of her promise to God; and finally, the fact that God literally spoke to Samuel, calling out to him in the night and giving him a very specific job to do on God’s behalf.  Just one of these pieces would have been enough for us to wonder about, but Samuel’s young life was filled with them.  

When we read stories like this in the Bible, we are often tempted to make the quick assumption that things such as God answering prayers and talking to people in the night don’t really happen anymore.  But look a bit more closely at the story here.  While Hannah is praying in the temple, Eli the priest watches her and assumes that she is drunk rather than that she is ardently praying.  The priest, whom one would assume saw plenty of praying, didn’t recognize it for what it was.  That doesn’t sound as if prayer was very common, does it?  And if prayer was common, then the kind of prayer Hannah was engaged in was not.  She was totally wrapped up in her prayer.  She wanted a child so badly that she didn’t care about embarrassing herself.  In fact, she probably didn’t even give a thought to the possibility that someone else might see her and wonder what she was up to.  She was focused on her need and on her belief that God would attend to her, would listen to her prayer and answer it.  Have you ever been so focused on what you were doing that you didn’t worry about what other people thought?  Have you ever been so certain of your path, that it didn’t matter if you were the only one walking it?

Samuel grew up in the Temple, under the care of Eli.  The main influences on him were religious ones.  He was surrounded by rituals and prayers, offerings and sacrifices.  It was not your usual upbringing - even for that age.  We don’t even read about there being any more boys training with the priest.  The Temple seems to be losing its central place within the community, losing its authority.  By the time we come to the third part of this morning’s story, Samuel is a young boy of perhaps 12.  Eli, it seems, has not aged well.  He can barely see, and he has no control over his own sons, who are said to have blasphemed God.  How horrible for him to have sunk so low, and yet there is always Samuel.  Young, faithful, earnest Samuel gives Eli hope that maybe his life did make a difference, maybe he has left a positive legacy in at least this one small way.  

It takes him a few times to figure out what is going on, but eventually Eli realizes that God is actually calling out to Samuel.  Digging through his memories of what it was like to actually hear God speak, he tells Samuel what to do if he hears the voice again.  “Speak, God, for your servant is listening.”  And even though God’s indictment of Eli is harsh, Eli has the fortitude and grace to encourage Samuel to follow God’s direction despite this.  I wonder if this is why we don’t hear more about God speaking to people.  Maybe God is speaking loud and clear, but people do not like what they are hearing?  Maybe the message is just too difficult to deal with?  Old days, present day - it is still troubling to hear something that is less than congratulatory about ourselves or about people we know and love.  Samuel hesitated before revealing the message God had given him.  After all, Eli was closest to him of anyone except perhaps his mother.  How could he give him such awful news?  But what I love about Samuel is that as young as he is, he does not second guess himself.  He doesn’t assume he got the message wrong just because it is unpleasant.  Once he knows it is God who is talking to him, he just listens, lets it all in and then faithfully reports what he hears.

Samuel’s story pushes me to consider our own willingness to listen for God’s voice.  Maybe we assume God doesn’t talk to people in quite the same way as happened back in Samuel’s day.  But the fact is that even then it was rare for people to hear God speaking to them.  Just as it was also rare for people to come before God in prayer with quite the intensity of Hannah.  The truth is that we human beings distance ourselves from God every now and then.  We do it as a society and we do it as individuals.  We separate ourselves from the sacred so far as to lose our ability to see a relationship with God as being part and parcel of the normal course of everyday life.  Sometimes the separation can be intentional, but for the most part it is a side effect of our growing busier and focusing on other things.  We grow apart from God more than we actually run away, but the end result is the same - distance, and the sense that what is most real about our lives are those things that are tangible.  How easy is it to get through a whole day without praying, without exercising, without sitting down to call a friend?  The laundry and messy kitchen take priority as do the papers on our desk and the bills waiting to be paid.  The pieces of life that make our lives good and balanced are often the things we drop in the great juggling act of life, and unfortunately our faith can be a victim of this if we are not careful.  

So, if we are out of practice, then how do we begin again to listen for the voice of God?  How do we quiet our minds and still our busy hands long enough to listen - really listen in a way that encourages and invites the Holy One to speak to us?  We can start with prayer, which is probably not a surprise to anyone.  But we need to pray in such a way that it allows room for two-way conversation.  We need to open our mind and heart to listen to what God would say to us as well as lift up the things that are near and dear to us and about which we have concerns.  “Here I am, Lord,” is a great way to start, and then wait in silence for awhile.  You may not hear anything in particular, but there does come a moment in prayer of this sort when you will feel a letting go of whatever stress you might be holding.  there comes a moment when you find yourself relaxing into a sense of relief.  It is when you finally let go that God is able to get a word in.  Walking outside works well for me.  I usually spend the first 15 minutes or so ranting in my mind about all the things that are troubling me, but eventually I run out of words - even the mental ones - and realize that I am walking in the woods, I notice what kind of day it is and I finally start to let it all in.  That’s when I am open to hearing whatever messages might be coming to me.  And if nothing comes, which often is the case, then the silence is very nice in and of itself.  Meditation is a way that can be used to listen for God.  It works much the same as prayer in that first you need to let go of whatever might be blocking your receptivity.  Often I begin meditation by bringing attention to my breathing.  Once my breathing is calm, then I bring my breath to each part of my body, inviting it to relax and let go of any tension it might be holding.  After I have breathed my way through my whole body, then it becomes possible to sit in silence and wait for what God might want to say to me that day.

I do believe that God speaks to people today, but I also believe that we, like Samuel, need to learn how to listen.  Rumi, the well-known Persian poet, speaking of God wrote “When you are silent, His speech is your speech.  When you don’t weave, the weaver will be He.”

God of Hannah and Samuel, we believe that you are still speaking today.  Help us to learn better how to listen so that our minds and hearts are open to actually hearing your voice.  In the name and spirit of Christ we pray, Amen.