To read this sermon from The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr. preached on July 11, 2010 click below.
Sermon based on 1 Samuel 3:1-13
In the book, A Saviour for All Seasons, William Barker relates the story of a bishop in the United Brethren in Christ church who paid a visit to a small, Midwestern religious college. He stayed at the home of the college president, who also served as a professor of physics and chemistry. After dinner, the bishop declared that the millennium couldn’t be far off, because just about everything in nature had been discovered and all inventions created. The college president politely disagreed and said he felt there would be many more discoveries. When the angered bishop challenged the president to name just one such invention, the president replied he was certain that within 50 years, people would be able to fly. “Nonsense!” sputtered the bishop. “Only angels are intended to fly.” If you are wondering who this bishop was, his name was Milton Wright and he had two boys at home who would prove to have greater vision than their father. Their names: Orville and Wilbur.
As we look back over our lives, we can think back to the people who made the most difference in the way we live our lives. Chances are the list will not include many actors, musicians, or even politicians. It would however include names like Orville and Wilbur Wright, Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, Henry Ford, inventor of the automobile and Jonas Salk, who discovered the first vaccine against polio. Perhaps the name Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft will be someone mentioned who has made our lives different. He has made the word “windows” in our vocabulary mean something other than a pane of glass we look through.
I believe that Gates’ contributions through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has donated billions of dollars to many worldwide charities and causes will be viewed as being more important than his contributions to technology in history. Like Bill Gates, all of these people mentioned above can be labeled as visionaries, people who were able to look beyond their present and see what might be possible in the future. Visionaries help us look beyond where we are to where we might be.
An example of visionaries from the Bible would include the prophets of the Old Testament who received a word from God and proclaimed it to the people. In the New Testament, Paul was certainly a visionary as he envisioned a church that included both Jews and Gentiles. This morning’s scripture passage is one of my favorites from the Old Testament, as it tells the story of Samuel’s call into the ministry. This is the story of the Israelite people and their struggle to maintain their covenant with God. God selected the Israelites to be his chosen people, not that they might enjoy the status of the most favored nation, but that they might become the vehicle through which other nations would come to know and experience God. The Old Testament is the story of their righteousness, their waywardness, their joy, and their pain in living out this covenant.
Our passage from 1 Samuel picks up during a time of great unrest. The Israelites have been freed from Egyptian slavery, Moses has died, Joshua has led them into the Promised Land, and he also has died. Following Joshua’s death, the Israelites begin to disobey God. In their disobedience, they’re taken as slaves by one of the neighboring people. They then cry out to God, who rises up a judge to free them. They follow God, until that judge dies.
They would then fall back into their wicked ways, be conquered by another people, cry out to God, and God would again free them by providing another judge. This was the pattern of their existence, as we are introduced to young Samuel. Israel was a loose federation of tribes, facing threats from the Philistines. Not only are they facing military threats, but also corruption in the house of Eli, the chief priest. Eli himself was considered to be a person of integrity, but he had two sons who had no regard for God. God becomes concerned about what will happen when Eli dies and his sons are left to lead Israel. They have very little interest in listening for God’s voice, and they have even less interest in expressing God’s vision to the people they will one day lead. The first verse of scripture from this passage summarizes the situation when it says, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days.”
Young Samuel was the son of Hannah. Hannah went several years without a child, prayed that God might bless her with a son, and she promised that if given a son that she might give him back in service to God. Scripture says that at an early age Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people. (1 Samuel 2:26) Samuel comes to live and learn from Eli. This is why we find him sleeping on the floor of the temple when God begins speaking to him. At first, Samuel has no clue what’s going on. Three times he hears his name called; and three times he presents himself to Eli. The third time, Eli understands that it is God calling Samuel. He instructs him to go lie down, and if called upon again, he was to answer and present himself as God’s servant. God called again and Samuel answered and listened.
What did God tell Samuel once he finally got his attention? Believe it or not God tells Samuel that he was about to punish his host Eli and his family forever. This punishment was a result of the behavior of his sons and Eli’s inability to control them. God said that no sacrifice or offering would ever make it right. Their punishment would be forever. Samuel listened and worried through the night about how he was going to share what God said with his mentor, Eli. Can you imagine being in Samuel’s shoes? Scholars suggest that Samuel was still a youth when he has to tell his mentor, a father like figure and the chief priest, that God was going to punish his household. Samuel kept his promise to God, and told Eli of God’s judgment.
Through Samuel, we learn that God’s vision and God’s calling come to those with obedient and open hearts. God’s call doesn’t always come when we’re expecting it. Samuel certainly wasn’t expecting this call from God, and he certainly didn’t relish telling Eli what was going to happen to his family. Many times the most exciting possibilities are presented to us during difficult times. Too often, we allow those difficulties to overwhelm us and it interferes with our ability to hear God and seek His direction. The key is to follow the example of Samuel who listened and answered God’s call. Answering God’s call will certainly require an open heart and an openness to change. Certainly it goes without saying that a spiritual transformation or change took place in Samuel. Samuel’s challenge was to become a messenger to those who refused to listen.
Our scripture opened by saying that God’s word was rare, but Samuel was now going to become a messenger of God’s Word in what would soon become a period of radical transformation in Israel. As Samuel grew older he prepared himself and responded to the challenge of being God’s messenger. Like Samuel, we must be open to God’s vision and God’s calling in our lives. While our calling may not be on the scale of how Samuel transformed Israel, we must be obedient and open our hearts to His call in our lives.
Many times we assign a calling only to those who enter full-time ordained ministry, but in many respects a calling applies to everyone. Hopefully your vocation is a calling, and hopefully the activities you are involved in at church you feel called to do. Our challenge as a community of faith is how we respond to God’s call. Like Samuel we should be attentive. Once he understood that it was God calling him and not Eli, he stopped and listened.
As the years passed, Samuel exercised the functions of his judicial office, being the friend and counselor of the people in all matters of private and public interest. He was a great statesman as well as a reformer, and all regarded him with respect as one of the prophets of the Lord.
In the book More than You and Me, there is a story about what amazing things can happen when we stop and listen for God and His calling in our lives. The story actually involved one couple that lived in London 145 years ago. For the first 10 years of their marriage, William Booth was struggling with the question of what was God calling him to do in life. His wife, Catherine, was a skillful Bible teacher who was invited to teach in London. One evening in London William took a late-night walk through the slums of London’s East End. Every fifth building was a pub. Most had steps at the counter so little children could climb up and order a drink. That night he told his wife that he heard a voice telling him to make a difference in this community.
He felt this was his destiny to change this area and introduce people to a better life through Jesus Christ. Later that year, which was 1865, the couple opened the “Christian Mission” in the slums of London. Their vision was to reach the “down and out” that other Christians ignored. That simple vision inspired by God grew into the Salvation Army, which now ministers through over 3 million members in over 90 countries. This worldwide organization helps people realize that we never have to face a challenge in life alone.
Samuel too never faced any challenge alone either because God was always by his side. Samuel served a much larger role in biblical history than we often give him credit for. Scholars have called him the last great judge and first of the prophets of the Old Testament. Samuel bridged the gap as the last Israelite judge before Saul became their first king. Samuel brought stability to Israel as he paved the way for Saul, who eventually relinquished his power to King David.
As we think of the calling of Samuel, we must also consider the calling of Jesus’ disciples and its importance to our faith. The gospels provide for us an account of the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. It is through the life and witness of Jesus Christ and his disciples that we all know God calls us to a greater service, a greater vision for Jesus says:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)
Sometimes that vision can become clouded. It’s interesting to note that as the first explorers of our nation arrived hundreds of years ago on the northeast coast; they had a vision and plan. During their first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. In the third year the town government planned to build a road five miles into the wilderness. In the fourth year, the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds and time to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. Who needed to get there anyway people asked?Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. In just a few short years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. This should serve as a lesson to all of us. With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
Together let us be open to hearing God’s call in our lives and respond as young Samuel did. May our hearts be open and obedient as God shows us not only His vision but also our calling in life.
The Rev. Dr. David A. Marcus, Jr.
July 11, 2010