“What Is God Doing That Is New? Are You Listening?” Epiphany 2 Lectionary 2 January 18, 2009

(First read the text for this sermon: 1 Samuel 3:1-20)

What is God doing that is new?

Soon after January 1, I asked someone, “How are you doing?” and he said, “New year, same old stuff.” Is that true? Or is God doing something new?

Tuesday will be the inauguration of a new president. Some are excited about that! Some are dismayed. Is God doing something new?

The Virginia Legislature has begun its annual session. All the talk is of money problems and budget cuts and limits. Is God doing something new here?

In a time period of so much fear and confusion, spiritual desolation, political danger, and social upheaval, is God doing something new? The time period I’m referring to now, of course, is the 7th century BC, when God’s people produced the first book of Samuel. What a time it was – of stress and challenge. The old consensus had broken down. There was little reason to be hopeful. This morning’s reading begins: Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. And notice what we read next: The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

Hmmm. I wonder if that was actually true: that the word of the Lord was rare in those days, and visions were not widespread? Because, as we continue reading in First Samuel, we find that God certainly was doing something new! So I wonder, instead, if this is what was going on: that the people weren’t listening, or weren’t perceiving, or weren’t recognizing where God was moving?

In fact, that’s the reason for the comedy in the story of God’s call of Samuel to do God’s work. It’s a great story! You may remember that Samuel’s mother, Hannah, is another one of those women in the Bible way past the years of childbearing, but who has not borne a child, and that is cause for extreme shame in her ancient culture. So what does Hannah do? She makes a deal with God. We read in chapter one of First Samuel that Hannah shows up in the temple, and is praying so fervently that the priest, Eli, thinks she’s drunk and he chastises her; but Hannah says, “No, no! I’ve been praying that if God will give me a son, I’ll give him into God’s service in the temple.” Sure enough, that’s what happens!

And so, when this morning’s reading begins, two chapters later, Samuel is a young man who has been serving Eli in the temple for his whole life, and Eli has grown old. And, even though God is doing something new, people haven’t been open to hear about it, or to see it. And so the comedy begins.

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 (which means that it’s almost morning), 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!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Had Eli called Samuel? Of course not! What would you have felt, had you been Eli – needing your sleep; at your advanced age, perhaps, not sleeping as well as you once did, when you were younger; and now you’ve been woken up by this young whippersnapper? Eli said (with some irritation, I’ll bet!), "I did not call; lie down again." So [Samuel] went and lay down. The Lord called again, "Samuel!" Oh, boy. Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me."

Now Samuel is being a real pest, right? I can hear Eli, his sleep now interrupted twice, saying the next words with a real edge in his voice: "I did not call, my son; lie down again." And then we read a pretty strange phrase: Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

Samuel did not yet know the Lord? But he’s been serving in the temple since his earliest years! That means at least three services a day, in addition to the weekly sabbath day worship. But Samuel hasn’t had a revelatory experience of God, evidently, because he can’t recognize on his own that it is God who is calling him. Here’s what’s important for you and me, as we enter into this story: Samuel can’t hear God without help. Samuel needs another person of faith to mentor him.

That’s what happens. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. (Ah! “a third time.” Remember, whenever you’re reading the Bible, that the number “three” is one of those indicating the special working of God!) And [Samuel] got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then the mental light bulb goes on in that old head. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 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. And it turns out that, whether or not the word of the Lord is actually rare in those days, Samuel’s going to hear it. God is doing something new.

I take it to be an article of faith that God is doing something new – at all times. Luther guides us in that way as he explains the First Article of the Creed in the Catechism: that God is creating. Present tense.

So, what is God doing that is new? In your lives? In our nation and world? Are you listening?

One of our chief functions as church is to help each other listen for God. Indeed, there is so much noise and so many competing messages, that one of our chief functions as a faith community is to help each other identify the voices we’re listening to, and, in the cacophony, to figure out which voice belongs to God.

I’ve told some people about the most important Congregation Council meeting I’ve ever participated in, so you might have heard this story before. It was an evening about 10 years ago. The Council member scheduled for opening devotions was a woman in her 30s, whose job was ending because her department was being eliminated. She had been offered a new job with the company, but it would mean a move to Salt Lake City, far, far away from family and friends. She had just heard this news. During the Council devotional period she told us about it and said she didn’t know what to do.

So, for the first 45 minutes of that Council meeting, we turned into what the Quakers call a Discernment Group. The object was to help Jennifer become open to what God was calling her to do. We asked her questions, and listened to her responses. We helped her discern among the many voices she was hearing: the voice that told her that her career was the most important thing in her life; the voice that told her that proximity to her family was most important; the voice that told her what she should do; the voice that encouraged her to do what she wanted to do. Which, among all of these, was the voice of God?

After 45 minutes of communal discernment, of listening together, as we told her what we were hearing her say, she trusted what she was hearing! She resigned from the corporation she worked for and began a job search. She has been working in New York City in the years since. (She and her fiancé were in Williamsburg a few months ago, in fact. They worshiped here on the Sunday morning!)

The point is that God is doing something new. That is true. All the time. You and I are called to listen! We are called to listen together, for and with each other.

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia