“Call Waiting”

1 Samuel 3:1-10, 19-20

January 15, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Andrew Fleming

Ah, to hear the voice of God. Our scripture lesson from last week, John’s version of what happened on the day of Jesus’ baptism, has Jesus coming up out of the waters and the voice from heaven, meant only for him, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved. With You I am well pleased.” Wouldn’t it be nice to hear the voice of God from time to time, just to make sure that your life is on track, just to make sure that you are making the right decisions, just to make sure that you are in God’s will?

Some pastors, though admittedly not many, when they tell the story of their call to the ministry, tell of hearing a booming voice of God telling them exactly what God wants them to do with their lives. Some of these preachers tell of God blinding them like God did to Paul on the Damascus Road. Others mention that God reached down to them in their sin, in a miry bog of a place and with His large hand pulled them out and saved them. That is all well and good, but it’s not my experience. In fact, God uses a whole lot of different people to get my attention. In my life, God has always done that. What about in your life? You see, God doesn’t just talk to the preachers. Many people think that.

When I served the Harmony Grove Church, right out of seminary, there was a group of people who were assured that there was a red phone, in addition to the other phone on my desk that I used to talk to God. I denied that it was there, and told the guy who kept talking about the red phone that the call would be a long distance one. I told him that I preferred the free call that I called prayer. I know, I know. That theology is a little cheesy! Still, I think that it would be nice to hear back from God from time to time, don’t you?

There is a great movie, one that I own, that many people feel is blasphemous. It is the story of Bruce Nolan, a television reporter who is hoping to land the job of the co-anchor of his station. He doesn’t get the job and his life goes from bad to worse when he loses it while reporting a story. By the end of the day, Bruce has lost his job, been beaten up by some thugs, who then vandalize his car. Bruce is at the end of his rope when he rails and rages against the Lord for his rotten luck. In a moment of fury, he cries out to God and says, “Answer Me!” In the end, Bruce gets the chance to take over for God for a week, to play God, at least in his part of Buffalo, New York. Not everyone likes the movie. Many think that it is irreverent.

One of the movie’s great scenes is the one where God is trying to get Bruce’s attention. He does that using Bruce’s pager. The first time God pages Bruce, the number 555-0123 appears on the pager. Bruce says, “Sorry. Don’t know you. Wouldn’t call you if I did.” Ironically he had already called on God. The next morning, the pager wakes Bruce up. He promptly lifts one of the windows in his apartment and throws the pager out the window. I once had a pager. I wanted to do that. Outside the pager is run over. When Bruce goes outside to walk his dog, the pager continues to beep even though it is smashed and even though it now has no battery in it. That leads Bruce to go back inside and dial the number. On the other end of the line is a voice that says, “Denied that promotion at work? Is life unfair? Is someone less talented than you reaping the benefits? Is your name Bruce? Then do we have the job for you. So come on down or we’ll just keep beeping you!”

Or we’ll just keep beeping you. The technology was different when the movie Bruce Almighty was made in 2003, but back in the days of young Samuel, God kept after the young boy until he understood who it was who was calling him. The lesson, taken from the third chapter of First Samuel is one of the great ones in the Old Testament. Samuel was there in the temple, working with the old priest, Eli, whose eyesight was just about gone. It had been a hard row to hoe for Eli. His boys had done many horrible things and he had not stopped them and so his time is nearly over.

Samuel was in the temple, you might remember, because his mother, Hannah, who had not been able to have children, had begged God for a child. I am not sure about this, but I think that Hannah had more children after Samuel. But for sure Samuel was the first one. She promised God that if she could just have a child, she would give him to the Lord. And when the time came, she took her child to the house of the Lord and offered him back to God, this time with another prayer. All of this was an incredible act of faith. Hannah gives her son to Eli, the priest, who was now too old to get things done. His eyes had grown dim. His mentor skills had lost a step or two.

I get the idea that there wasn’t a whole lot of excitement there at the temple. It wasn’t a daily religious high and low. There weren’t hundreds of miracles happening so that they were too many to count. The reality is, that by all reports, experiences of the Lord were hard to find hard to come by. It wasn’t a particularly holy time. You will remember that the author of First Samuel writes, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

That is the setting; that’s the scene. That is where we pick up the lesson this morning. Samuel is there in a religious boarding school of sorts. His sleeping quarters were in the sanctuary. I hope that he didn’t have to sleep on a pew. His bed was next to the Ark of the Covenant, the place people believed God was. Eli and the boys are sleeping when God calls out to Samuel in an audible voice, “Samuel! Samuel!” It happened early in the morning, still before dawn, while the lamp of God was still burning bright. Our Bibles don’t tell us this, but I think that Samuel was groggy when all of this happened. I would have been. We all know what it is like when we first wake up. Samuel assumes that it is the priest who is calling out to him, that it is Eli who needs something, maybe a glass of water. So he calls out,“Here I am” and then runs to where Eli is sleeping. I guess the writer of that great hymn that the choir sang this morning, remember that song when he wrote the words, “Here I am, Lord; it is I, Lord. I have heard you calling in the night. The problem was that it wasn’t Eli who called. His instructions were for Samuel to go back to bed. Perhaps he was almost asleep when he heard the voice again, and then a third time, and finally a fourth time. Preachers can’t tidy this thing up and say that God called out to the boy three different times, for the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

There are four calls and after the third, Eli suspects that something is happening. It seems to me he should have done that after the first time. Because he suspects it, Eli gives Samuel the instructions; he tells him what to do and what to say. You will remember his words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I love this lesson. With the instructions in his mind and heart, Samuel lays down. The writer of this story writes, “The Lord came and stood there.” I am hoping that God is doing that with me these days.

Now let’s turn this back towards home. How can this story really speak to us? One thing is abundantly clear to me, most of you will tune me out if I start talking about a call to be a pastor, to be an ordained minister, to do what I do. I told my call to the ministry story my first Sunday here back in 2002 and on a Sunday or two since. Most of you know it. When I tell it again, you are polite and I appreciate that. You listen to it even when you have heard it before. So if I go down that road this morning, you might start planning your week, cooking your pot roast, or deciding which restaurant will have the shorter line. That is all right. I am not offended by it. It is okay.

You will notice that the one that God wants to talk with in the story isn’t old Eli, the priest, it is the young boy. Samuel, we are told, did not yet know the Lord. Eli, I guess, isn’t all that important now, if he ever was.

I do not know if you have watched the controversial new mini-series whose name is the Book of Daniel. It was picked up by a network here in Arkansas when one of the major ones passed on it. It’s supposed to be controversial. Someone described it to me the other day in words that I could understand they said that it had many soap opera type characteristics to it. There is money that it taken from the church treasury. The priest is also addicted to prescription pain killers. Everything seems to be a mess. The one who described it to me said “You know, it’s a religious version of Desperate Housewives. My ears perked up. You all know that I love that show and hardly ever miss it. There is a new episode on tonight.

In the show, The Book of Daniel, the priest has the chance to have regular conversations with Jesus, usually while he is in his car. When it first happens, the priest asks, “Am I special? Have I been chosen for something great and wonderful?” To which Jesus says something like, “No, I do this for everyone.

I can remember one of my college religion teachers telling me that this story of Samuel’s calling, has always been one of his favorites. When he was a kid he asked for his mother to read it to him over and over again one day he looked up and asked, “Momma, when is God going to call me?” The thing is that God has called us, every one of us. Are we special? Sure. Have we been chosen for something great? Maybe. Perhaps we have been chosen for something ordinary, too.

How is it that God speaks to us these days? That’s what I want us to think about. God may not page us. God may not sit in the car beside us. God may not wake us up out of our sleep. How does God speak to us these days? Here is the more important question for me. Does God, as this story tells us, come and stand near us? I am counting on that!

Do we believe what I preached last weekend, that being baptized means that God lives inside of us, that the very word of God is as close to us as our hearts are? If we do, then we will pay attention to the nudges. We will notice the voices that bring God into a situation where otherwise we might not notice God. If we believe it, we will expect to hear God in the doctor’s voice. If we believe it, we will expect to hear God’s will through a judge. If we believe it, we will not listen for a voice from the clouds, like one movie portrays a voice that says, “If you build it, he will come.” If we believe it. If we really believe it, we will hear God’s voice through the ones we trust the most who might say, “Have you thought about this?” We will hear God’s voice through the invitation to do ministry in this church, a voice that says, “You can do that. Why don’t you do that?”

And so instead of going to God with options. Instead of asking God to chose from one of the things we are sure should happen, why don’t we do as Samuel did. Why don’t we lay down and say, “Speak, Lord. I am listening.