"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.  We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Samuel 3:1-10

William F. Schnell

January 18, 2009

     I was once asked to speak at a Masters of Maternal Sciences meeting, also known as "MOM’s," attended by my wife.  A group of fulltime homemakers with young children had pooled their resources to hire excellent childcare allowing the moms to get a little break from the daily routine and have a little interaction with other mature adults for a change.  Once a young mom asked me a question and in the middle of my rather long and convoluted answer I noticed that she was slipping out of the room.  Fearing that something I said may have offended her I asked, "Is everything okay."  As she was going out the door she said, "My baby’s crying. I’m just going to check."

     I turned to the rest of the group and said, "I didn’t hear any baby crying," and the women just started laughing with that, "he’s just a man," laugh.  So I quieted the room and listened very carefully.  Yes indeed, I could just barely hear a baby crying way down the hallway in the Crib & Crawler Room.  That begged the next question from me, "How did she know it was her baby," which really set the women laughing.  I was informed that moms can not only hear a baby crying in the background, they can hear if it is their baby.  Indeed if a group of babies are crying in the background, a mom can tell if hers is one of them.

     The conscious mind is only able to focus because of its ability to selectively ignore extraneous details such as sounds.  Right now there are all sorts of sounds within the range of our hearing.  Listen carefully for a moment…. Do you hear the furnace blower?  Do you hear the traffic outside?  Hopefully you don’t hear anyone snoring!  Hopefully we will selectively blot out those sounds so that we do not become distracted from hearing the sound of God’s voice speaking to us in the prayers, the praising and the preaching.

     Like the sound of those babies in the background the still, small voice of God speaks to us all the time.  I really do not think it is a question of whether God chooses to speak to one and not another.  I think it is more a question of whether we choose to hear him or not.  Do we, like those moms, have the ears to hear the sound of that singular voice?  Or are we, like I was, completely oblivious to that same sound?  Maybe there is a little of both in all of us, as there was in a fellow named Samuel in our text for this morning.

     God had to call Samuel by name several times before the latter realized who was doing the calling.  In this he was a little like his people—the people of Israel—who sometimes heard God very clearly and other times hardly at all.  The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions (Verse 1).  Translation: In those days people did not have ears to hear the word of the Lord, or eyes to catch the vision God had in store for them.

     Those were the early days of Israelite history, after they had been delivered from bondage in Egypt and led to the Land of Promise.  But they had not yet settled into the Promised Land.  There was no centralized government, no capital city, no palace and no king.  Neither was there a temple (where our text mentions the temple it means tabernacle/tent where people worshiped).  In those days God raised up judges to lead his people.  They were not judges as we understand judges.  They made legal judgments, to be sure, but they also served as generals in battle and a host of other leadership roles as God’s people had need.

     Our text is about the divine calling of Israel’s last judge, Samuel, before Israel was ruled by kings like all the surrounding nations.  Samuel’s mother had such trouble conceiving her first child that, when he was finally born, she was so grateful to God for him that she dedicated him to the tabernacle priesthood when he was just a lad and he was placed under the tutelage of an elderly priest named Eli.  One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.  The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple (tabernacle) of the Lord, where the ark of God was (verses 2-3).

     The tabernacle was the house of God where holy things were kept such as the ark of the God and so forth.  Among these holy things was the lamp of God, which was an oil lamp kept burning all the time.  An oil lamp could burn on its own for several hours before its wick was consumed and the flame went out.  A priest was typically assigned to sleep in the temple to make sure the lamp was maintained and kept burning through the night. In our text Eli was assigned that duty, which he partially delegated to his young protégé Samuel. In other words, when the time was right Eli would rouse Samuel from sleep to attend to the lamp of God in the middle of the night.  This is the setting for what comes next in our text.

     Then the Lord called Samuel.  Samuel answered, "Here I am."  And he ran to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."  But Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."  So he went and lay down.  Again the Lord called, "Samuel!"  And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me.  "My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."  Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him (Verses 4-7).

     If you have ever felt that God is absent from your life, and that he apparently communicates with others but not with you, do not feel alone. Many of the great exemplars of faith in the Bible did not know the Lord or recognize his voice or receive a revelation from him until they were taught to tune into his frequency.  God always broadcasts over the commitment frequency—the commitment to do whatever he calls us to do come-what-may.  This is the lesson Eli teaches Samuel in the middle of the night.

     The Lord called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me."  The Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, "Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’"  So Samuel went and lay down in his place.  The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel! Samuel!"  Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening" (Verses 8-10).

     Samuel’s first reaction must have been thrilling.  "Oh that was the Lord speaking to me all along, I just didn’t recognize the voice as his."  But then comes a difficult message—a message of woe about his mentor, Eli, who had fallen short in his commitment to do what God told him to do.  In the morning Eli asks Samuel about what God said to him.  Did Samuel dare rebuke his mentor with the word of the Lord?  Remember that commitment is the frequency over which God broadcasts his messages—the commitment to do whatever he says come-what-may.

     Samuel shared his revelation with Eli as God had commanded. Eli received the bad news surprisingly well.  More importantly, Samuel continued to hear God’s voice because he continued to do what he was told to do.  The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.  And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord.  The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.  And Samuel’s word came to all Israel (3:19-4:1).

     If we are committed to doing whatever the Lord calls us to do, however hard and even however beyond our understanding it happens to be at the moment, if we are committed to doing whatever he calls us to do it will not be long until we hear his voice.  And the more we do what he calls us to do, the more we will hear him calling us.  However, if we ask God to speak to us without this commitment—if we say, "God, let me know what you think and I’ll mull it over and if it makes sense to me I will do it—we will never recognize his voice.

     As the old camp song puts it, from which comes the title of our message, "When he calls me, I will answer," I will answer the call; I will answer the call even if to do so gets me into trouble with others and even if it will not make one whit of difference so far as I can see.  Tomorrow Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 80 years old.  He is quoted at the top of our bulletin saying, "Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.  We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

     Dr. King confessed to a limited vision.  He did not know how his words would make a difference or when they would, but he heard the calling to speak.  And he was committed to that calling even though he knew that his words would get him bloodied and incarcerated and eventually killed. Indeed, in his last sermon on the night before he was assassinated he spoke in no uncertain terms about the threats to his life he was facing because of his commitment to answer the call he had received from God.

     Even today there is resistance to Dr. King’s calling, just as there will be tomorrow when our nation observes the holiday that bears his name.  But there will be much less resistance the day following when the first African American family makes the White House their home.  On that day Rev. King’s dream for a better world will make a great leap forward.  As Jackie Robinson ushered in a new era for baseball that has since become normative in professional athletics; and as the likes of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell have made an integrated military normative; so to in time will access to the highest office in the land regardless of ethnicity or gender become normative.  Even in the midst of the immense challenges facing our nation in these uncertain times, we can sense God’s redeeming work making this great nation even greater.

     How impressive and gracious President George W. Bush has been in preparing to leave office and providing a smooth transition for the next administration—from an opposing party no less.  In his farewell address a few nights ago President Bush said, "Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy.   In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people.   Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose story reflects the enduring promise of our land   This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole nation.  And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls."  May the rest of our nation show as much class as our outgoing President.

     More importantly, may the rest of our nation be as willing to answer the call as Samuel and Dr. King and Barak Obama even when personal sacrifices are required, even when we do not always have a clear vision of where the Lord is leading and even when we must walk by faith and not by sight.  If we have the commitment to do what God wants us to do, come-what-may, God will speak to us and we will recognize his voice.  He will lead us out of our bondage to the sins of greed and excess and prejudice that have enslaved us, he will guide us safely through the wilderness of this present uncertainty and he will bring us at last to the Promised Land.

     In the meanwhile, let us each do our part by recommitting ourselves to God when he calls us by name like Samuel.  Let us listen for his voice as he calls us through his Holy Word in church, keeping the Sabbath Day holy and set apart for him.  Let us listen for his voice as he calls us through the Holy Spirit in our inner consciences, making clear the good (if difficult) choices he expects us to make.  Let us listen for his voice as he calls us through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus—teaching us to take up our crosses to follow him.