Community Church Sermons
Year B
The Second Sunday After Epiphany
1 Samuel 3:1-10
Rev. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
The Lord spoke and creation
burst forth into being!
The Lord spoke and called out to Moses from a burning bush, “Set my people
free!”
The Lord spoke and the Red Sea opened up a dry path for God’s children!
The Lord spoke and issued a hand carved decree we call the Ten Commandments!
The Lord spoke and the Jordan River stood still; God’s children entered the
Promised Land!
However, by the time young
Samuel entered the scene, we are told, “The word of the Lord was rare.”
There have been
many times in my own faith journey when I have felt that “the word of the Lord
was rare.” Times in my own faith journey when I wondered if God was simply a
fairy tale. Times in my own faith journey when I could not sing “God Answers
Prayer” like we sing every Sunday.
As a young woman
pursuing God the best way I knew how, I always envied the people who would say
things like, “God told me this” or “God told me that.” I envied the two or
three sincere people who told me that they’d seen an angel. I REALLY envied my
two friends, people I trusted, who told me that they had heard the audible
voice of God.
So I tried to
become one of those people. I remember locking myself in a prayer room when I
was in college . . . I had a big decision to make. I resolved I was not coming
out of that prayer room until God spoke to me. Audible voice preferred.
Loneliness
combined with catching a waft of pizza being served in the next room broke my
resolve. I left that prayer room after a few hours with direction, but it was
way more subtle than some thunderous, James Earl Jones like voice booming out
at me. Even saying something like, “God told me the path to follow” seemed
overstated.
And so it went
with God and me. I eventually got so fed up with The Silence of God that I quit
praying altogether for a time.
I wonder if
that’s how Samuel and his countrymen felt at the time our scripture lesson
picks up. The irony of this passage is that Samuel lived and worked and even
slept in the temple, the very dwelling place of God. Yet Samuel never heard the
Lord’s voice. Though God’s dwelling place was right there in the temple, God
could not be found. Right?
Not so fast. Read just a little further and we are told,
“The lamp of God had not yet gone out.” Perhaps it just seemed like God was sleeping. Instead of God being asleep, maybe it
was the people of God who were asleep. Perhaps, like Samuel, we sleep while God
is delightfully awake. I’m convinced that most of us sleepwalk through life
completely unaware of the “divinity all around us.” [1]
In
the movie, The Bucket List, Carter
Chambers, played by Morgan Freeman, tells a story about a man who climbed Mount
Everest. The man described a spiritual moment he had on the mountain. As he
reached the summit, a profound silence engulfed him. He said that he heard the
voice of the mountain. ‘It was like he heard the voice of God,’ said Carter.[2]
Maybe
it is precisely in the silence where God can be found!
In
the latest issue of Discover, a
magazine dedicated to science and technology, there is an article called,
“Physicists Launch Search for the God Particle.” The article deals with the
high hopes scientists have for the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most
complex scientific instrument ever built. It spans 17 miles in circumference
underneath the border between France and Switzerland. It launched back in
September but shut down nine days later because of a malfunction. When the
Collider is up and running again later this year, scientists hope to discover
new particles similar to quarks and electrons. To use scientific terminology:
itty bitty things. One such particle they hope to discover already has a name:
the Higgs boson, also known as “the God particle.” The theory is that this
particle, if it exists, endowed all other particles with mass. If it exists, it
is the source of every material thing that is. So they call it “the God
particle.” This is one of untold numbers of particles they hope to discover in
what currently appears to be just empty space. One Nobel laureate physicist
says that all the equations indicate that “what we perceive as empty space is
in fact not empty.”[3]
If scientists can
believe that empty spaces are not empty, maybe we can too. Perhaps God is in
the empty spaces. Perhaps God is in the silence.
Though young Samuel
never heard God’s voice, the lamp of the Lord was still burning. And then the
Lord spoke, waking him from his slumber, calling him to a difficult task.
This week we celebrate
the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King didn’t set out to be a national
civil rights leader. He planned to be a preacher, mostly because daddy was a
preacher and young Martin always did what daddy wanted. He desired a quiet life
as pastor and professor, with hopes to become the President of Morehouse
College one day. But through a strange turn of events, the young pastor found
himself in the middle of a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. When he got home
late one evening, exhausted and scared, the telephone rang. A menacing voice
threatened over the receiver, “We’re going to get you, Nigger!”
Martin stood in his
kitchen, frozen . . . terrified. He wanted so much to be able to call his
father for reassurance and advice. But his father wasn’t there. Then he heard
what seemed like a voice saying, “Martin, you do what’s right. You stand up for
justice. You be my drum major for righteousness. I’ll be with you.”[4]
King, like Samuel, heard
his name called out by God. And the world would never be the same.
Yet
despite stories like Samuel’s calling and Dr. King’s calling, many people in
our world still imagine that God is silent, and you know, I have to admit that
I’m thankful for what the world perceives as The Silence of God. It means job
security for people like me and Marty and Tim and Bob![5]
If God spoke in audible ways to everyone every day, there would be no need for
preachers. And an unemployment lines full of preachers is nowhere I want to
stand!
I’m
convinced that God’s voice is all around us . . . every day, in every
situation. I no longer believe God to be silent. I thank God that my eyes were
opened to see God in the simple things like a note from a friend or a hug from
a toddler. I can see God in the mist on the water and in the change of the
seasons. I can see God in life and I can see God in death. I can see God in
every dollar raised for Iva’s Place and in the faces of the volunteers at the
Good Neighbor’s Shop. I can even see God when I look out at you! Take heart my
friends! The lamp of God is burning strong!
Not only can I see God, but I can hear God as well. In the singing
of the birds or the crackling of a fire. I can hear God in laughter and I can
hear God in sobs. I can hear God every time a hammer strikes a nail at a
Habitat build. I can hear God when you sing “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
or “Amazing Grace” (unless I’m standing next to Puckett, then he’s all I can
hear!)
I can hear God calling us as well . . . not in any audible way,
but in subtle ways, leading us to be more compassionate. Leading us to deeper
love for people in our own families, in our own church, and in our own world.
Leading us to give of our time, our talent, and our treasure. When I can shut
up for half a second the voice of God can be heard. [Silence.]
The Silence of God is an illusion. Shhhh. Listen. Can you hear?
Let us pray:
Wake us from our slumber, O
Lord we pray.
Help us see your lamp still
burning in the darkness.
Help us hear your voice still
whispering in the underneath the cacophony we call life.
Open our eyes to see your
beauty all around us.
Open our ears to hear you
calling us into higher ways of living and being.
Remind us that our very lives
are the miracles we long to see.
Wake us from our slumber, O
Lord we pray.
Amen.
[1] Lawrence Wood, “1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20): Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, 2008, Westminster John Knox Press, p. 243.
[2] http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0003589.cfm
[3] Robert Kunzig, “Physicists Launch Search for the God Particle,” Discover Magazine, January, 2009, p. 22.
[4] Will Willimon, “The Dangers of Going to Church,” January 19, 1997.
[5] Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent, 1998, Cowley Publications, p. xi.