Sermon:
January 19, 2003
Sunday Night Alive!  

Scripture:
I Samuel 3:1-10     
John 1:43-51

This evening, the text we’ll be looking at comes from 1 Samuel 3:1-10. In the opening of 1 Samuel, a woman is introduced. Her name is Hanna. She is married to Elkanah. He loves her very much, but they have no children. Skip ahead a little bit in the story, for God has intervened. Hanna gives birth to a son, and names him Samuel. “I have asked him of the Lord.” 

As part of her pledge to God, Samuel is dedicated and serves in the temple. He grows up there with Eli, the chief priest. He’s twelve now, and Eli is very old. The place is the temple of the Lord. It is night. 

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 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, 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.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” 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. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”  (1 Samuel 3:1-10, NRSV) 

This is the story of God’s calling of one of Israel’s greatest. He is remembered as a priest, a profit, a judge and military leader. First and foremost, he was a man who knew God’s voice and listened.  

In his calling, I was struck by three particulars, and that is where I’d like to call our attention. First, in verse 1, the author makes a point of saying that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.” People didn’t see visions. It wasn’t like Sam thought to himself, “Hey, Joe over there has visions. There must be something wrong with me. I want a vision, too.”                                   

Second, in verse 7, Samuel has been in the temple faithfully for years, yet he still does not know the Lord. Knowing God was something he knew through others, but it wasn’t from his personal experience. 

The last is in verse10. Samuel responds to God: “Speak  (Lord), for your servant is listening.” 

Three points in Samuel’s story. Points that help us see how God is shaping us—even today.    

This has been a busy week for Bron and me. We live in the same house. We cross paths a lot, but boy, when schedules heat up, we really have to work at making time for one another. Did you know that the typical U.S. married couple spends four minutes a day in “meaningful conversation” with each other? That’s not asking “when the last changing happened,” if a favorite toy is in the closet for a reason, or what everyone had for lunch so you don’t make the same thing for dinner. It means time to reconnect with the person you look most forward to being around. Four minutes! That’s .3 percent of the hours in a day. If we connect like that with the persons with whom we share a house, a family, a life, why would we do anything different in the way we connect with God? 

In Samuel’s day, we’re told, the Word of the Lord was rare. Folks didn’t recognize God. And I’m not convinced that we do all that great of a job today, either. In the busy hustle and bustle of life, we have made opportunities to be reached in all kinds of ways. I love the convenience— don’t take me wrong—but I wonder sometimes what God does when he wants to reschedule our appointment, when he wants to get a hold of us off the clock. 

My hope is that all of us get time each day to just be with God. Whether it’s quiet time to journal, read or pray, or active time where you run, bike, or swim (those are great times for conversations), our time with God is a reflection of our personalities. The important thing is that there is regular time together. 

I’m a morning person. If I miss my 20-minute quiet time first thing in the morning, the whole day just doesn’t come together. In a day when pagers, cell phones and palm pilots keep us connected and manage our days, I sometimes wonder if God ever wants to get a hold of us outside our regularly scheduled hours, at times when we would never expect it? Would we know who was talking to us? Would we even notice? It’s an odd thought, but what’s the likelihood that we’d look at our watches and say: “Oops! Can’t be the real God, it’s not time.” It’s not the way the book says he “always” does it. I can’t help but think that God gets tired of our need to be shouted at so much. 

But then again, sometimes it’s not God doing the shouting. Rev. Steve Nordbye is a pastor on a college campus in Minnesota. He tells of a student, Glenn, and the sharing of the gospel. Glenn was a musician. He played and sang at the local restaurants and bars to pay his way through school. They had lunch together a lot, talking about religion and Christianity. Glenn told Steve of a time he was taking a break from his set and a table of people invited him to join them. He did, and immediately they seemed to surround him and began talking about Jesus. “Finally I got up and left,” he said. “I was so offended. We didn’t agree on one thing.” It was then that Steve reminded him that in their lunches, as they talked, there wasn’t much they agreed on, either. Glenn’s answer was simple, but profound: “Yeah, but you listen.” 

As Christians—as those who know the risen Lord, those who put our trust in his power, not our own—how often are we simply willing to listen? How often are we secure enough in God’s power and in his Holy Spirit’s presence that we’re willing to trust him to work in a person’s life in the way he wants? In the time he chooses? 

It’s funny, when you talk to people—and when you listen—you find that God works in lives in all kinds of ways. No one can deny that God works through people, for it is people who must invite and then allow God to be experienced. 

The disciples of Jesus reached out that way. They had met someone who seemed to see life in a whole new way. They had found meaning and wanted to share it. Not just talk about it themselves, but allow others to meet Jesus for themselves. For the disciples and so many others, it was about meeting Jesus. 

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”  (John 1:43-51, NRSV)  

In the Old Testament, the boy Samuel did not know the Lord. He’d never met him in his life. And yet God showed up. It’s important that Eli was there. Eli knew God. He’d spoken to God many times. But God wasn’t talking to Eli. Eli wasn’t the one hearing the voice. He could have said: “Oh, God’s gonna tell you this, or God’s gonna tell you that,” but he didn’t. He simply told Samuel to listen and allowed the boy to encounter God himself—to have his own experience. It’s this encounter in the dark of night, with the voice of God that no one else could hear, that marked the beginning of a life-long relationship for Samuel. 

In a similar way, Nathaniel is changed—not by the words of others, but by the invitation to meet, for himself, this man named Jesus. 

Up in the U.P. (and I know here in our own area), there are groups of Christians who have had an encounter with the living God, an experience of coming to know this person Jesus, that has changed their lives. One of the songs we sing together is a simple one. It asks a simple question: “Have you seen Jesus my Lord?” In other words: “Have you met him?” 

I close with this because there’s just something about seeing and meeting him—and through him, God himself—that makes us open to listening for that still, small voice. Are we inviting and then stepping out of the way? Are we encouraging others to listen for the way God is speaking to them? It’s my prayer that as followers of Jesus Christ, we would have the wisdom of Eli and the joy of Philip, that God might use us, too. 

Thanks be to God! Amen.