1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
When you walk around wearing head to toe black with a white band around your neck, you hear a lot of people’s opinions about the Church. Sometimes people rush to tell you where they go to church and who their pastor is, or how often they go to church, or what denomination they are. Occasionally someone will share a story of a deferred calling, a childhood dream of becoming a minister or a monastic that was seemingly thwarted by marriage or the arrival of children. If you’re in the Lynchburg Kroger, people will ask you if you know the other person they’ve seen in the same outfit one aisle over and you get to tell them he’s your husband. Most of the time, they’ll ask you where you serve. But every once in a while, you’ll meet someone in pain, and you’ll need to listen to the list of ways your religion has wounded them. You’ll hear about the clerical negligence, the rejection, the exclusion after a divorce or a coming out, the church people who gossiped and scoffed and rolled their eyes when certain people spoke up in meetings or Bible study. You’ll hear about the horrors of clerical abuse and the individuals and institutions that covered it up and ignored the victims. You’ll listen as they share their anger and grief and disappointment at the silence of the Church on issues of deep importance to them. You’ll nod as they tell you they’ve found solace in a personal relationship with Jesus, apart from the church, or that they’ve walked away and found spiritual fulfilment in yoga or Eastern philosophy or hiking. You won’t blame them, because you’ve heard it all before, seen the same pain and loss in so many eyes. The church is made up of human beings, and we’ve caused a lot of hurt over the last two thousand years.
It helps me in my own faith, when I encounter church wounds in others or in myself, to remember that none of this is new. In the time of Eli and Samuel, centuries before the birth of Christ, generations before the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, there were corrupt priests. There were people who were hurt by those who wielded religion like a weapon. There were elders in power who looked the other way. And there were times when God’s word seemed scarce, and visions of a better world succumbed to cynicism and contempt. And God didn’t leave them then, just as God has not abandoned us now. God still showed up, still worked through the lives and the institutions of the time, as flawed as they were. God kept calling for change, and kept calling people to proclaim that change until someone started listening. I would never minimize the truth of the reasons people have to distrust the institutional church and religion itself. But I know from the Biblical witness that anything is possible with God, including the redemption of imperfect institutions and the reconciliation of the imperfect human beings who make up those institutions. When Eli could not ensure a just successor to the priesthood, God called Samuel. When Samuel answered, a new chapter in the story of the people of God began.
The calling of Samuel is a lovely story. It feels almost like a fable, a bedtime story about listening to God and always telling the truth even when it is a hard truth. But as with all scripture, context matters. Samuel is an acolyte, a young boy serving the altar of the Lord under the mentorship of the priest Eli. Eli is aging, and the sons who were meant to take his place in the service of the Lord have proven themselves to be corrupt. Just before we meet Samuel in the temple of the Lord, the text tells us that the sons of Eli are scoundrels, embezzlers, and abusers. They take more than their fair share of the meat that supplicants bring forward as offerings, they keep the best cuts for themselves instead of burning them on the altar as they are meant to do, and they abuse and assault the young women who work for them. They are depicted as crass, harsh bullies who hold the peoples’ offerings in contempt and have no respect for the holy work their family has done for generations. In short, they are bad priests in every way.
And to make matters worse, Eli knows exactly what his sons are up to. He has confronted them once, but has done nothing to reduce their power or access to vulnerable people. He has the power to make a difference, and he turns away, shutting his eyes against the suffering of his people at the hands of his own children.
This is the environment in which Samuel is growing up. This beloved little miracle of Hannah’s, who she prayed for so fervently the priest thought she was drunk, is being raised in the same household as the scoundrels. He is doing the same work for Eli that the fallen sons had done in their youth, and he is very likely witnessing their corruption firsthand. Samuel is a child of the religion of his people, and his only examples are a faithful mother and faithless priests.
So the word of the Lord comes to Samuel. It did not reach Eli’s sons, it could not compel Eli to take action directly, and so the Word of the Lord comes to a child. And Samuel hears the voice of God, even if he doesn’t understand it at first. God calls to him by name three times, and three times Samuel runs to Eli, believing it must have been his mentor’s voice calling for him. Finally, the weary and guilt-ridden Eli, who has heard the voice of God for himself, realizes what is happening, and teaches Samuel how to listen. So Samuel goes, and when God calls to him Samuel answers, and listens, and speaks the words God has placed in his heart even when it pains him to share them. And thus a prophet is born, the prophet who will grow up to crown the first kings of Israel.
Samuel had ears to hear the voice of God, but he needed the wisdom and guidance of Eli to discern the source and understand the message. Eli had all but given up on his own sons, but he saw a better future in the truth-telling of the child prophet. God’s word is difficult to understand and follow alone. We need community, even when that community is less than perfect. We need each other. Even as she faces tumult and necessary change, we need the community of the Church.
Even in the midst of corruption, the Word of the Lord breaks through. Even in the hearts and minds of sinful people, God shows up. When the Good News of God’s love is falling on closed eyes and ears of those in power, that Good News is also given to the children, the students, the ones with ears to hear and voices to speak the truth. Like Eli, we must listen for the Word of the Lord in the voices of young people, and heed what truths they tell us about ourselves. Like Samuel, some of those voices are here in the church, already serving. They might need wisdom to know the difference between the voices of the world and the voice of God who calls and equips them. They might push us to change, even when it seems impossible. Like Eli and Samuel, we need each other to make sense of God’s will for us. I believe that the Church will have a better tomorrow, because of the elders and young prophets of today. The Word of the Lord is still speaking in our midst. May we all be like Samuel, and answer “your servant is listening.”
Mother A Writes 