When the word of the Lord is rare

Pentecost 2B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
2 June 2024

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Sometimes stories operate on multiple levels, and that is surely the case with our first reading (1 Samuel 3) today.

• It is a great story for children and has been used in Sunday Schools over many years. Maybe that is where you first came across this story?
• It had a message for adults in the Jewish kingdom of Judah around 600 BCE, as it formed a key role in the argument that the nation should follow religious leaders rather than elevate someone to serve as prince or king (as we shall see in the readings next week). Samuel is set up by the storyteller as a great example of godly leadership, and this episode is part of that political argument.
• It also speaks to us about living as people of faith at a time when faith is not a strong value in the lives of most people.

It is this third level of the story that I want us to focus on this morning.

The reading begins by telling us that “the word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

That sounds a bit like the world in which we live.

Most people do not expect God to make any difference in their lives. Religion is a small and diminishing attribute in their personal and collective lives.

In our case, this is mostly due to our secular culture in which there is little room for the sacred, and it has been made worse by the tragic history of abuse of children and other vulnerable people by clergy and lay leaders.

These days the idea of a mother surrendering her recently weaned son to be a trainee priest in the temple fills us with horror, rather than admiration. We fear for the safety of the child. We want to see the “blue card” issued to the elderly priest, Eli.

We live in a very different world.

We hear the biblical stories through very different ears.

The spiritual wisdom we seek from these reading today are not about the arrangements for placing young children in the care of elderly priests.

Rather, we seek wisdom for living faithfully in a world where the voice of God seems strangely silent.

1 Samuel 3 offers us some wisdom of that kind, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.

The clue is in the name of the young boy: Shamuel.

The SHAMU is a Hebrew word relating to hearing, while the EL is the ancient word for God.

Even so, the word is ambiguous. Does it mean “God hears” or is it better understood as “hear God”?

I think the ancient Hebrew storyteller is intentionally exploiting this ambiguity to draw us deeper into the story.

In the earlier story, God hears the prayer of Hannah, the childless woman who will become the mother of Samuel. Indeed, when Hannah names her child, she says his name is Samuel because God heard me.

Hannah is a woman with a lively faith. Her life is not easy, but she pours out her sorrow to God and when the elderly priest offers her a blessing, she takes the promise to heart and in due course brings the young boy back as a gift to God.

Hannah is a unique character in this story.

For her, the word of the LORD is part of her own lived experience.

After she leaves the boy Samuel with Eli the priest, the focus falls on these two male characters. Both are devoted to the service of God. One represents the past, the other represents the future.

Neither expects God to speak to them.

That is the crux around which this story revolves.

When God does speak to Samuel in the night, at first neither Eli nor Samuel realise what is happening.

Eventually—but only after being aroused from sleep for a third time (a good storytelling device)—Eli realises that perhaps God is seeking to communicate with Samuel.

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.” (1Samuel 3:8-10 NRSV)

Now let’s unpack this story a little further in our quest for spiritual wisdom.

Eli is the priest in charge of the temple at Shiloh. He keeps an eye on its operations and is assisted by his sons, who should have become his successors. (That is another story for another day.)

It is a busy parish, er, temple. There was a lot happening. There were people coming for sacrifices, and there were groups of women working in the temple to assist people with the rituals. People came from villages farther way every year, including Samuel’s mother who always brought him some fresh robes as he grew taller.

Good stuff was happening there, but nobody was being given the wisdom to listen to God.

The word of the LORD was rare, and visions were not widespread.

What Samuel needed to become the person God planned for him to be, was to learn how to listen to God.

And what about the people who join us for worship, who come for assistance, who are seeking ways to serve the community, who love to share their gifts of music and song, who volunteer in so many different ways as we celebrated a week ago now?

Like the temple of the LORD in Shiloh this is a busy place.

But are people learning to listen to God here?

Do we teach them how to pray?

Do we encourage time for reflection and prayer in our liturgies?

Yes, we do and for that I am grateful. 

But we can do more as we become better at discerning God’s call on our own life and encourage others to discern God’s call on their lives.

What if the things that St Paul’s Church was most famous for was not our heritage buildings, or our fine music, or our amazing clergy, or our OpShop, or the Sunday afternoon food ministry …

But most of all as a place where people learn to listen to God and say yes to God’s call on their lives.