1 Samuel 3:1-10

John 1:43-51

NUCC

January 15, 2005

Epiphany 2

            In our confirmation program we use the story of Samuel’s call in the temple during one of our sessions for mentors, confirmands and parents.  They read the story and then use a series of questions for discussion.  One of the questions leads us to talk about prayer.  It asks whether our prayer life is like the title of this sermon:  “Speak God, I’m listening.”  Or is our prayer life more like:  “Listen God, I’m speaking.”

            Sometimes our prayer life is a one way street, so to speak.  We’re so busy talking that we can’t hear God speaking.  It’s like in a marriage.   When I do marriage preparation work I use a “Marriage Preparation Inventory”. Couples sit down and answer all sorts of questions about themselves and their relationship with one another.  One of the questions is:  Are you a better listener or talker?  For many of us married folks, one of us does more of the talking than the other.  But if neither one of us listens, our marriage is in trouble.  Whether in our relationship with one another or in our relationship to God, listening is mighty important:  listening with our ears, but also listening with our hearts and our minds and our souls.

            This is the spirit in which we approach both of our Bible readings for this morning.   In our Old Testament Lesson we encounter the boy Samuel, who has been set aside for a life of service in the temple.  He assists the elderly priest Eli.  One night Samuel hears a voice.  He doesn’t know what it is.  Is Eli calling?  Twice he goes to Eli, but Eli tells him to go back to bed.  The third time Eli realizes what is happening and points out to his young assistant that God is speaking to him and that he should listen.  Samuel goes back to his bed, and when God calls Samuel says:  “Speak God.  I’m listening.”

            In our New Testament reading we see Jesus at the Sea of Galilee in the northern part of Israel.  He calls for Philip to follow him.  No problem.  Philip comes right away.  Then Philip goes to Nathanael and tells him about Jesus of Nazareth.  But Nathanael’s first reaction is:  “You’ve got to be kidding.”  Only after Jesus comes to him does Nathanael give in and answer the call.

            Two Bible stories about the challenge of hearing, recognizing, listening, and responding to God’s voice.  How much of a challenge was it was those people of the Bible!  How much of a challenge is it for these people of Neillsville!  What can we see?  What can we say?

1.         God surprises us ---- in surprising ways and through surprising people.

God surprised Samuel in the middle of the night.  God surprised Nathanael by coming in a man named Jesus from the flea-bitten town of Nazareth.  Sometimes God speaks to us when we are young and immature, helping us to grow.  Sometimes God speaks to us when we are old and ready to retire, helping us to keep on growing.  God can surprise us at any time.

            Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.  Tomorrow some of you may be lucky enough to have a holiday because his birthday is legally celebrated then.  All of us know the story of Martin Luther King.  He’s a great sermon illustration, perhaps overused.  No matter.  Today I think of this 26 year old Baptist preacher who had just arrived in the laid back southern city of Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.  He was hoping to finish his writing his doctoral dissertation for Boston University as he also began his ministry at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.   Perhaps he was looking forward to getting back into the academic world after a time as a preacher.  But then a lady named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.  A meeting of the Montgomery Improvement Association took place to organize the boycott and this young, wet-behind-the-ears preacher was tabbed to lead it.  We know what happened after that.  Ready or not Martin Luther King’s life as a prophet had begun.  God’s surprise.

            The other most famous participant in the bus boycott wasn’t so young.  In fact Rosa Parks just died last year at the ripe old age of  92.  She was a middle aged woman in the year of the boycott.  At the urging of her husband she had completed her high school education ----- only 7% of blacks at that time did so.  She was also a life-long member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a fact my pastor for a year, Bishop Vinton Anderson of St. Paul AME in St. Louis, was careful to point out when all the black Baptist preachers were garnering publicity.  God may have worked in a surprising way through the young preacher named King, but God also worked in a surprising way through the more mature woman named Parks.

            God surprised them and God can surprise us.  Every once in a while we get to thinking that there is no one to do some job or take some responsibility.  We wonder if there will be anyone to take the place of faithful elders.  But then someone surprises us by saying:  “I’ll read that scripture!”  “I’ll lead that prayer.”  “I’ll join that study group.”  Thank God for surprises.

2.         God gives us other people to help.

Eli helped Samuel.  Philip helped Nathanael.  Sometimes we need the insight and encouragement of another person.  Sometimes it is through other people that God speaks to us. 

During the past year I’ve been working hard to finish a history of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ.  It has been a chore.  There have been disappointments when people who had volunteered to do some of the writing bowed out and I had to take over their responsibilities.  At such times I wasn’t too happy with my friend Ray Hernandez who had persuaded me to take on the job of organizing the project.  But now I suspect that God was working through old Ray to get me to do something I should have done all along.

            While doing research for my chapter on the period from 1945 to 1962 I often came across the name of Dr. Ralph Ley, who was on the committee that organized our Wisconsin Conference when he was pastor of the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Waukesha, the church which burned down just before Christmas.  He went on to become our Conference President in the 1960s and 1970s.   Perhaps he preached here.  One time in 1968 I happened to attend his son’s wedding and Dr. Ley pulled me aside.  He knew I was thinking about going to seminary, and he encouraged me to act on that urge.  I’m glad I did.  Perhaps God was speaking through Ralph Ley.  A modern day Eli, who wanted to pass the torch to the next generation.

            Who has helped you to listen to God’s voice and recognize it?  Who has encouraged you to connect with the spiritual side of your life?  Who has forced you to recognize God’s will in your life?  Be grateful for that person.

3.         God comforts us but also challenges us.

Sometimes we like to sentimentalize the story of Samuel.  It’s a nice story about a boy who is called by God in the middle of the night.  But Samuel had a difficult job to do.   There was just as much corruption in that temple then as there is in Congress today.  Eli’s sons were up to no good.  Eli knew it.  Samuel would also know it.  Samuel would have to lead Israel during the difficult transition time of informal leadership by people like himself to formal, established leadership by kings like Saul, David, and Solomon.

            Sometimes we like to speak of “mountain top experiences.”  We have them in our lives, perhaps at church camp or on a youth trip.  We recount them and glow in the telling of them.  But God challenges us to come down from the mountain top and work in the valleys.

            In the last sermon he preached Martin Luther King spoke of a mountain top.  In stirring language he spoke before 10,000 people in Memphis, Tennessee’s Mason Temple and told them:  “I’ve been to the mountain top.  I’ve seen the promised land.”  And then he went on to say that although a long life would be nice he would prefer to do God’s will.  The next day he was assassinated.

            The mountain top experience for Martin Luther King meant leading a bus boycott, marching for voting rights, speaking out against war, and advocating the rights of garbage collectors.  He didn’t rest on his laurels, and sometimes he made old friends angry ----- in addition to those who never were his friends.

            The message for each one of us is that God’s blessing is more than a mountain top, more than a beautiful sunset, more than sweet words of support.  Samuel found this out.  Nathanael and the other disciples found this out.  Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr. found this out.  We find this out.  Maybe even Pat Robertson will find this out.

            God speaks.  Our challenge is to listen. 

Listen to the surprises God has for you.

Listen to the support God gives you through sometimes surprising people.

Listen to the challenge God has for you as well as the comfort.

Amen.

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O God, reveal yourself to us, and, through us, to others.  Tune our hearts and minds to recognize your bright call to us to live in ways that reflect your steadfast love.  Speak to us, O God.  We are listening.  Amen.