Sermon - Epiphany 2 - January 15, 2012

I Samuel 3:1-10

Hearing the Voice
I don’t know if you are a Saturday morning listener of Public Radio. There is a show which comes on at 10 am that is real hoot and on occasion provides a lot of information. The hosts are also the writers of a column which appears in the Saturday Greenville News, in the Auto Section. They call themselves Click and Clack, the Tappert Brothers, and the radio show is simply called “Car Talk.”

The basic premise behind the show is that you call in with some problem you are having with your car and they try to help you figure out what is wrong. Like I said, it is always entertaining, occasionally the information seems helpful.

What I like best are the callers who are hearing engine noises. “I’ve got this noise in my engine.” “Well, is it a clicking, a pinging or a grinding?” “I don’t know exactly, what does a clinking sound like?” “Well, it is a clink that repeats, sometimes in proportion to how fast the engine is rotating.” “I don’t think it is a click. How does a pinging sound?” And on and on and on.......


I enjoy listening to these exchanges in which the person who has heard the sound tries to gain insight from someone who might know what such a sound could means. I enjoy listening to these exchanges in part because I have been in frustratingly similar conversations. Things would be so much simpler if the one who heard the noise was also the one who could recognize. Diagnosis may be possible - if only the one with the expertise had also been the one present for the mishap.

In our first lesson for this morning, there is a similar sort or unfortunate separation. In our lesson, there is a young boy, Samuel by name, who had the opportunity to witness a wonderful event. God speaks to him. But due to his youth, perhaps due to his lack of experience, he doesn’t recognize the sound. He doesn’t know who it is that is calling to him. He thinks it must be his master Eli.

Eli, you will recall, was the priest serving in the temple when Hannah lifted her voice to God, asking for a son. Hannah is in the temple, wailing and causing quite a scene. Eli first thinks she is drunk and tries to send her away. When he learns the nature of her cries, he blesses her and Samuel is born. In response, and out of gratitude, Hannah brings Samuel back to Eli, to serve him in his service to the temple.

Samuel grows; grows in his dedication to Eli, grows in his attention to the affairs of the temple. He serves well, doing all that is required of him.


But, he serves in lean years. As our lesson indicates, there had not been a lot of activity of which to speak. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. We can’t be totally sure what the writer meant by such a description, but certainly a picture is painted in which constant, sustaining and ongoing activity between God and God’s people has been lacking. The word of the Lord as rare in those days.

“What would God have us do?” “How are we to know? There has been no word.”

The way that we bind the various sixty-six books of the Bible into one volume makes it easy for us to overlook or forget the tremendous periods of time between major events. We think that because the story of David’s coronation comes a mere 163 pages after the entering of the Promised Land that a very short period of time has passed. Or, because we read of Noah’s encounter with the flood and Joseph’s coat of many colors within 14 chapters of Genesis that they must have lived within a few short years of each other. But this isn’t true. Centuries passed between these events.

In biblical times, no less than our own, there were long periods of time during which there came no clear word from Yahweh. Often, the word was rare and visions were not widespread. It was during these times that the people found it most difficult to remain faithful. Scoffers would ask, “Where is your God?” Unbelievers would challenge, “If there is a God, why isn’t something being done to correct this evil?”

Maybe we live in such a time. A time when the word is rare, a time in which visions are not widespread. It appears as if our world lacks a sense of vision, of direction for the future. Even our churches seem to miss the mark or fall terribly short. In the times when the word is rare, when visions are not widespread, surviving can be difficult.


The only real hope we have, in the face of such times, is the knowledge that God never abandons us forever. Whether it be in our personal lives or in the continuation of God’s history with humanity, there comes a word - a vision is received.

However, God’s decision to speak is only half the problem. Look again at our story. God speaks to Samuel, but he doesn’t know who it is. God speaks to him, yet he runs and wakes Eli. The word was rare, the visions infrequent, and as a result the recipient doesn’t recognize that word when it does come.

Some of you know of my love for the writings of novelist Walker Percy. In one of his novels, The Second Coming, the main character, Will Barrett, devises a plan to test for God’s existence. Without leaving any notes, he crawls into a cave, carrying a flashlight, a clock and some pills designed to kill the pain associated with starvation. “If God exists,” Barrett decides, “someone will find me and I will be saved. If there no God, I will die. And if there is no God, it is just as well.”

Something insignificant happens. His alarm clock breaks so he can’t keep track of how long it has been since he took the last of the pain pills. So he decides that he needs to move to where he can see the light of day. As he crawls through the cave, he falls into the underground greenhouse of an escapee of the local insane asylum. She nurses him back to health.


For most of the remainder of the book, Will believes that his “test” has been nullified. It is only after he has fallen in love with the young woman that he sees her as God’s salvation, sent to save him from death; sent to save him from a live of emptiness.

When God’s word comes, we are often so unaccustomed to hearing it that we fail to recognize it for what it is. We go and ask Eli, “You called me?” There are times when God’s word is rare. But is equally true that there are times in which we just are not prepared to hear God’s word for what it is.

Samuel was fortunate, Eli was there to help. Our scripture reads, “Now Samuel did not know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him...(but) Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy.

We pass over the story involved here. Eli was the priest. Samuel was his servant. There had been no frequent vision; the word of the Lord was rare. And now, the word comes not to the master, but to the slave boy.

How it must have crushed Eli to know that another was to receive the long awaited vision. How it must have tested his faith to realize that God was going to speak to this young lad not to him.

If we read on, we understand even better how horrible this is, for the word revealed to Samuel is that the house of Eli is to be destroyed. Because Eli’s sons had misused their priestly office, and because Eli had not punished them sufficiently, God is going to remove Eli from his post and appoint another.


How it must have crushed Eli to know that another was to receive the long awaited vision. How it must have tested his faith to realize that God was going to speak to this young lad and not to him.

Samuel is the benefactor of Eli’s wisdom and faithfulness. He does as Eli instructs and receives the Word of God. He will become a great prophet. He will serve long among God’s people. But the first lesson he has to learn is how to learn from others; how to grow from their experience, how to benefit from their insight, how to profit from their history.

Tomorrow is the official observance of the live and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He may just be the best example we have of what it means to learn from another’s insight. King knew that his struggle wasn’t simply for the benefit of black people. He knew that unless the hatred of racism was removed from our nation it would result in the destruction of us all. White churches, in refusing to allow in their black brothers and sisters, were also making it impossible for God to enter. But his assignation didn’t come when all he talked about was racism. He was murdered after he initiated The War on Poverty. His Memphis speech in which he spoke of the “un-holy trinity” of racism, materialism, and militarism is the word which many sought to silence.

All around us there are those who have seen visions, who have heard God’s Word. If we wish to break the silence, overcome the blindness, our first step is to listen to what they are telling us. To do as they have instructed.

For the times in our lives when there is no vision, when there is no word, we remember that God does not abandon forever.


During those times, we must also remember how easily we mistake the word of God for something else and ignore it.

And, as we struggle to hear and to see, we must turn also to those with clearer vision and sharper ears, willing to learn from them how it is that God speaks.

Amen.