Sermon January 15, 2012

1 Samuel 3:1-10 [11-20] Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 John 1:43-51 

 
"Called and Recalled”

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away.

Some folks, and occasionally I may be one of them, find this a very scary thought—knowing very clearly that God knows us inside and out and then being reminded of it very clearly. It's a little disconcerting, in my case, not because I necessarily have that much to hide, but that idea that someone has such intimate knowledge of my most private thoughts and feelings. God knows me better than I know myself—and knows what makes me tick. That kind of self-knowledge is a lifetime's work—and most of us will never know all there is about our own bodies, let alone our minds and souls.

And yet God knows and always has known. God stands outside of space and time and within space and time and sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches . . . moving within us, knowing us and our motivations and our fears.

Some folks, and sometimes I am also one of them, find this to be very comforting that God knows me better than I know myself. And so God understands me and loves me more than I could ever imagine. In God's eyes and heart, I am realized as the full and healthy human being that God has made me to be and through the desires of God's heart, I am called to be exactly that, not perfect, but whole and healthy. And in God's eyes and heart, you are realized, each one of you, as the full and healthy human being that God has made you to be and in the desires of God's heart, you are called to be exactly that whole and healthy person, too. We are called to do the will of God because God's hand has touched each one of us with life and our living, and our true selves want nothing more than to move closer to God with each choice that we make.

Whether we fear or love the idea that God knows us inside and out—and we probably feel a combination of both sometimes—that means that God knows our capabilities and our choices and our fears when we are presented with opportunities for ministry. God knows how we are able to respond when presented with a need from another person and God knows, too, how we are likely to respond despite our capabilities.

The texts today describe people being called to serve God in some way, from prophecy to discipleship to apostleship, in a child prophet, and unknown poet, a young adult disciple to apostle to an aging priest and leader. All of them struggle with the voice of God, which is variously: unfamiliar, awe-inspiring, absent or mysterious. The voice of God can contain difficult messages to share. In 1 Samuel, in the verses that follow what we read this morning. God gives Samuel a hard message about Eli and his sons because of what his sons had done and he had let them get away with. “the Lord said to Samuel, ‘See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. ¹²On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. ¹³For I have told him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. ¹⁴Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering for ever.’¹

Samuel was a young boy, probably under 10 years of age, was to give his mentor, the high priest Eli, the message that the consequences of his sons' actions would never end. As priests they were entitled to meat and other food given to the temple, but instead of taking their share, they stole from God's portion. And God told Samuel to give this message of judgment to Eli—a very tough message and the first of many that Samuel would deliver. But Eli understood that the message was from God. So Samuel became trusted as a prophet because he spoke the truth that God had given him to speak.

Eli was old enough and wise enough to know that we can't escape the consequences of our choices—or the consequences of the choices that those closest to us make. What our friends and family do often cause us pain and suffering and make it hard for us to believe in the blessings of grace and forgiveness. And though we often can't escape the consequences of our actions, in God's love, we can be forgiven and choose to live better, more just, more righteous and more loving lives.

This weekend we also celebrate a prophet and preacher of our own age—though he died almost 44 years ago, Martin Luther King's message from the voice of God to a generation of people in this nation and elsewhere lives on. He preached a message of justice that many people did not want to hear and yet his message was embedded deeply in God's voice of justice that echoes throughout the prophets of the First Testament of the Bible.

When he led the bus boycott, to desegregate public transportation in Birmingham, Alabama, pastors in white churches urged him to be more cautious and slow down. In response, he wrote a letter from the Birmingham jail. I'll read a portion of this letter, including the beginning, but then I will highlight those parts which express his disappointment at religious people content with the status quo of systemic racism and racial segregation.

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. . . .But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate . . who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; . . .who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; . . .Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception . . . that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. . . .I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother."

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr. ²

He addressed the religious leadership of the day for their desire to protect what was, even though he had a message of transformation, justice and freedom that came directly from God's word, God voice to the generations, to the entire world. It was not a cheerful message to the preachers and teachers of that day and time—God's voice is often a difficult sound to hear and often carries a hard message of confession, repentance and transformation from who we are to who God wants us to be. And the message is to be received and make changes in all lives—even those lives which change for the better may grieve the losses that are inevitable.

The Disciples Women Book Club just finished The Help and one example of the pain of change is in one of the final scenes of the book describing how one of the black maids had to leave behind the white family's small children, who she had loved and treated with more affection than their own parents. The civil rights movement was producing a world changed for the better, but that change produced trauma even in those people who benefited most. The word of change is hard to hear and change itself is even harder to live through and understand. And yet, in God's message to Samuel, to the word of the Psalmist and the experience of the disciples and those sent out to share the word that Jesus gave them to preach—confession, repentance, and the consequences of evil choices and even the grace God offers to the people who hurt others most—are messages that are hard to preach and hard to hear and even harder, sometimes to live.

And we are called to live those difficult lives and proclaim those difficult messages with the choices that we make and the words that we use. We are called to realize that God knows we are capable of living just and good lives—and calls us to do so. We have and are called to share a message of salvation which does not just affect the soul of a human being, but concerns the whole person. Jesus' message relations to bodies, too, the totality of what makes a person a real person, body and soul. The message is about changing the conditions and behaviors that made people blind, deaf, bowed down, paralyzed and possessed. The message isn't just about curing the disease, but stopping the causes of it. It is working toward the just world of God's vision for human beings—body and soul, mind and heart, for now and for all of eternity. That is what we are called to do—from the earliest hearer of God's voice to now. Let us carry out the message, in words if we must, but in lifetime's choices and in each stage of life.

To God's glory, in the present and in all of time and beyond. Amen.

11 Samuel 3:11-14

2http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html (I edited this excerpt for this sermon, but you can read the whole letter at this website. I have always been impressed by the scholarship evident in the letter, not to mention the incredible theology.)