By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow
This sermon is based on 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
An audio version of this sermon is available here.
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Those words from our First Testament lesson this morning sum up the attitude with which Samuel responds to the call to become God’s prophet — and they sum up an attitude we can have in recognizing and responding to God’s call to us, too.
The situation in the story is this: Samuel has been dedicated to serve in the Temple at Shiloh from the time that he was very young. He’s been learning priestcraft from Eli, the old priest, but he’s still pretty new at it, and he doesn’t know much yet about the ways of God. Moreover, the story makes the point that the word of God was rare in those days; there weren’t many visions; the people felt as though God had somehow grown distant from them, that God was really not very much involved in their regular, daily, down-to-earth lives. So God acts to minister to the people, to re-enter, to re-connect, with the lives of the people. God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to be someone who can listen for God’s word, and speak God’s word to everyone who’s willing to listen in turn.
But Samuel doesn’t know God’s word, either, yet; and it takes God a while to get through to get Samuel’s attention. Samuel is sleeping on his little pad in a corner of the temple building, when God calls, “Samuel, Samuel!” And that call seems so ordinary, that voice sounds so normal, so much a part of Samuel’s regular experience, that he immediately gets up and runs to Eli’s bedroom, and wakes the old man up, and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” And Eli says, “Do you know what time of night it is? I didn’t call you. Go back to bed!” This happens three times, God calling Samuel, and Samuel thinking it’s Eli, and Eli thinking Samuel is having some kind of sleep disorder — until finally Eli gets it: this is God calling, and the ordinary-sounding voice is opening up to Samuel an extraordinary word of God. So Eli tells Samuel, “The next time the voice calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” The next time God calls, listen carefully, open yourself to recognize what God is doing with you here and now, open yourself to respond to God’s call with all that you can do. And that’s what Samuel does: the voice calls, and Samuel says, “Speak, for your servant is listening,” and God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to hear and to speak God’s word, for the rest of Samuel’s life.
And that is the part of the story that speaks to us, that invites us, like Samuel, to learn how to recognize and respond to God speaking into our lives. The story asks us, how willing are we to stop and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”?
Because we do have to be willing to listen to God speaking to us. I believe that God is speaking to us all the time. I believe the whole entire Creation is part of God’s self-communication. As John’s Gospel says, it is through God’s Word that all things come into being; therefore all created things are like echoes of God’s Word, we can hear God’s speaking in everything that is. And I believe God speaks within us, not just in Creation but in our innermost selves, where the Holy Spirit prays within our spirits in ways too deep for words. I believe every moment of our experience, every nanosecond of our being, begins with an impulse from God, a call from God to become what God knows we can be. I believe God is speaking to us all the time.
But what often prevents us from listening to what God is speaking to us, is the same thing that tripped up Samuel when God called to him. In the story, God’s call seems so ordinary, so normal, so much a part of the usual background noise of life, that Samuel has to stop and listen specifically before he can recognize that it is God. And for us too, more often than not, God speaks to us in ways that are very ordinary, very normal, very much a part of the typical flow of experiences in life. To Samuel, God’s call sounded like the voice of his mentor and teacher. To us, God’s call might sound like the voice of a parent, or a child, or a spouse; to us, God’s call might sound like the phone ringing at an unexpected moment, or a fortuitous coincidence, or someone mentioning the name of a friend just as we were thinking about them too; to us, God’s call might sound like a sudden insight into a question we’ve been puzzling over for weeks, or an impulse of compassion to reach out to someone we’d normally avoid, or a calm conviction that we will after all have the courage to face a situation we know we have to face even though we certainly don’t want to. For us, as for Samuel, more often than not God speaks to us in ways that are so much a part of the ordinary texture of our lives that they’d be easy to miss if we’re not openly and intentionally listening for them.
One way to listen for God speaking to us in ordinary voices is through a simple practice of theological reflection. Now I know that, for a lot of us, the word “theological” conjures up images of discourses that are intellectual, abstract, abstruse, and generally beyond the ken (and beyond the interest) of most faithful people. But the practice of theological reflection, at its heart, is simply the art of looking a thing, an object, a person, a memory, an action, an experience — looking at something and asking “Where is God in this?” God is always already here — but asking ourselves “How is God here?” opens up our thoughts and our musings and our reflections to be guided by God, so that God’s own Word can be formed within our mental words, so that we can listen to God’s speaking in our own thoughts. The phone rings at an unexpected moment, and instead of doing what you’d planned on doing, you find yourself called to do something far different; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and in your reflection you recognize God’s call to respond to the unexpected with compassion and calmness and grace. You hear the name of a friend, and you feel a sense of familiarity and affection and joy; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s gift of friendship and return a gift of gratitude. You look up at the mountains one day, and instead of just sliding over them your gaze stops and is held by their beauty; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s call to be a steward and a protector and a celebrant of this environment and this land. A simple practice of theological reflection, pausing to ask “Where is God in this?” for any given moment or experience, can help us recognize God’s call, can be for us a way to say, like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
May God grant us grace to pause and reflect and listen for what God is speaking to us, this day and always. Amen.
This sermon is based on 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
An audio version of this sermon is available here.
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Those words from our First Testament lesson this morning sum up the attitude with which Samuel responds to the call to become God’s prophet — and they sum up an attitude we can have in recognizing and responding to God’s call to us, too.
The situation in the story is this: Samuel has been dedicated to serve in the Temple at Shiloh from the time that he was very young. He’s been learning priestcraft from Eli, the old priest, but he’s still pretty new at it, and he doesn’t know much yet about the ways of God. Moreover, the story makes the point that the word of God was rare in those days; there weren’t many visions; the people felt as though God had somehow grown distant from them, that God was really not very much involved in their regular, daily, down-to-earth lives. So God acts to minister to the people, to re-enter, to re-connect, with the lives of the people. God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to be someone who can listen for God’s word, and speak God’s word to everyone who’s willing to listen in turn.
But Samuel doesn’t know God’s word, either, yet; and it takes God a while to get through to get Samuel’s attention. Samuel is sleeping on his little pad in a corner of the temple building, when God calls, “Samuel, Samuel!” And that call seems so ordinary, that voice sounds so normal, so much a part of Samuel’s regular experience, that he immediately gets up and runs to Eli’s bedroom, and wakes the old man up, and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” And Eli says, “Do you know what time of night it is? I didn’t call you. Go back to bed!” This happens three times, God calling Samuel, and Samuel thinking it’s Eli, and Eli thinking Samuel is having some kind of sleep disorder — until finally Eli gets it: this is God calling, and the ordinary-sounding voice is opening up to Samuel an extraordinary word of God. So Eli tells Samuel, “The next time the voice calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” The next time God calls, listen carefully, open yourself to recognize what God is doing with you here and now, open yourself to respond to God’s call with all that you can do. And that’s what Samuel does: the voice calls, and Samuel says, “Speak, for your servant is listening,” and God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to hear and to speak God’s word, for the rest of Samuel’s life.
And that is the part of the story that speaks to us, that invites us, like Samuel, to learn how to recognize and respond to God speaking into our lives. The story asks us, how willing are we to stop and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”?
Because we do have to be willing to listen to God speaking to us. I believe that God is speaking to us all the time. I believe the whole entire Creation is part of God’s self-communication. As John’s Gospel says, it is through God’s Word that all things come into being; therefore all created things are like echoes of God’s Word, we can hear God’s speaking in everything that is. And I believe God speaks within us, not just in Creation but in our innermost selves, where the Holy Spirit prays within our spirits in ways too deep for words. I believe every moment of our experience, every nanosecond of our being, begins with an impulse from God, a call from God to become what God knows we can be. I believe God is speaking to us all the time.
But what often prevents us from listening to what God is speaking to us, is the same thing that tripped up Samuel when God called to him. In the story, God’s call seems so ordinary, so normal, so much a part of the usual background noise of life, that Samuel has to stop and listen specifically before he can recognize that it is God. And for us too, more often than not, God speaks to us in ways that are very ordinary, very normal, very much a part of the typical flow of experiences in life. To Samuel, God’s call sounded like the voice of his mentor and teacher. To us, God’s call might sound like the voice of a parent, or a child, or a spouse; to us, God’s call might sound like the phone ringing at an unexpected moment, or a fortuitous coincidence, or someone mentioning the name of a friend just as we were thinking about them too; to us, God’s call might sound like a sudden insight into a question we’ve been puzzling over for weeks, or an impulse of compassion to reach out to someone we’d normally avoid, or a calm conviction that we will after all have the courage to face a situation we know we have to face even though we certainly don’t want to. For us, as for Samuel, more often than not God speaks to us in ways that are so much a part of the ordinary texture of our lives that they’d be easy to miss if we’re not openly and intentionally listening for them.
One way to listen for God speaking to us in ordinary voices is through a simple practice of theological reflection. Now I know that, for a lot of us, the word “theological” conjures up images of discourses that are intellectual, abstract, abstruse, and generally beyond the ken (and beyond the interest) of most faithful people. But the practice of theological reflection, at its heart, is simply the art of looking a thing, an object, a person, a memory, an action, an experience — looking at something and asking “Where is God in this?” God is always already here — but asking ourselves “How is God here?” opens up our thoughts and our musings and our reflections to be guided by God, so that God’s own Word can be formed within our mental words, so that we can listen to God’s speaking in our own thoughts. The phone rings at an unexpected moment, and instead of doing what you’d planned on doing, you find yourself called to do something far different; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and in your reflection you recognize God’s call to respond to the unexpected with compassion and calmness and grace. You hear the name of a friend, and you feel a sense of familiarity and affection and joy; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s gift of friendship and return a gift of gratitude. You look up at the mountains one day, and instead of just sliding over them your gaze stops and is held by their beauty; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s call to be a steward and a protector and a celebrant of this environment and this land. A simple practice of theological reflection, pausing to ask “Where is God in this?” for any given moment or experience, can help us recognize God’s call, can be for us a way to say, like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
May God grant us grace to pause and reflect and listen for what God is speaking to us, this day and always. Amen.
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