What Does the Lord Require?

What Does the Lord Require?
Dreaming God’s Dreams
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Micah 6:1-8, Amos 5:14-24

He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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We talk a lot about social justice these days, and indeed, we cannot truly call ourselves followers of Christ without working toward justice for all people.  The problem is that we tend to define justice in political terms rather than biblical terms.  What the "left" often calls "paying our fair share" so that everyone can have what they need, those on the "right" tend to say is stealing from their hard earned gains.  Just like the classic story of Robin Hood, justice becomes a matter of perspective.  Are Robin Hood and the poor people he is helping suffering from a systemic injustice fueled by the greed of the wealthy or are the rich being treated unjustly because Robin Hood is stealing what rightfully belongs to them?

So long as we talk about justice in such either-or terms, we may never agree on what kinds of policies will truly bring about "justice for all."

But what if justice is not our starting point, but the product or fruit of our life of faith?  Micah, Amos, Hosea, and countless other prophets, not to mention Jesus himself, emphasize that justice and righteousness are absolutely necessary in bringing about the Kingdom of God.  Micah specifically declares that God requires justice, faithful love, and humility, but what if these are not three separate characteristics of our lives?

What if instead, these characteristics actually represent the process of sanctification, or growing in grace, and perhaps even the process of our very salvation.

People can promote policies for social justice without embracing faithful love or demonstrating humility.  But the reverse cannot be true.  We cannot walk humbly with God without growing in faithful love and we cannot grow in love without that love manifesting itself through justice and righteousness.

Remember the classic children's book, Charlotte's Web?

Charlotte, the spider, is working to help save the life of a pig named Wilbur.  Fern, the farmer's daughter, thinks that slaughtering Wilbur just because he was the runt of the litter would be a horrendous act of injustice.

Charlotte proceeds to write descriptive words about Wilbur in her web to make the world take notice of just how special this pig is.  The last of those words was "humble."  Here is Charlotte's definition of humility.

Humble. Humble has two meanings: it means "not proud" and and it also means "near the ground." That's Wilbur all over.

Most of us don't view ourselves as proud, at least not in a negative or arrogant sense, but perhaps we should pay closer attention to the second meaning, "near to the ground."

For Wilbur, this was quite literal.  He is a pig, after all.

But what if God is calling us to live our lives "near to the ground" as well?  What if walking "humbly with our God" might require walking with the lowest of the low, or the "least of these" as Jesus says in Matthew 25?  What if it means taking notice of the little ordinary ways God is at work in our everyday lives and in the lives of others, even if we or they don't recognize it yet?  What if it means seeing everybody, even the "runts" of society, as people created in the image of a God who loves them as much as God loves us?

When we begin to live this way, our perspective shifts.  The Holy Spirit moves us with love and compassion for those who live on the margins of society.  It may not solve the problem of our political policies and social justice programs, but this perspective will motivate us to do justice for those individuals, families or groups God puts directly in our path.

We may not be able to end all poverty, but we might, for example, be able to help one person finish their education or find a job so that they can begin breaking the cycle of poverty in their family.

Walking humbly, or "near to the ground," is the first step.  It is only from this perspective that we can move past our stereotypes and notice people for who they are.

If humility is the seed, love is the tree and justice is the fruit we bear.


Let us  pray...

 

All those people goin' somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see 

(Brandon Heath, Give Me Your Eyes)

 

 


Pure Desire

Pure Desire
A God Who Weeps - Part 7
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Jeremiah 31:27-34

They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.

Jeremiah 31:34 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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“Last evening my dog saw a rabbit running for cover among the bushes of the desert and he began to chase the rabbit, barking loudly. Soon other dogs joined in the chase, and they were barking and running as well. They ran a great distance and alerted many other dogs. Soon the desert was echoing the sounds of their pursuit but the chase went on into the night.

 After a little while, many of the dogs grew tired and dropped out. A few chased the rabbit until the night was nearly spent. By morning, only my dog continued the hunt. “Do you understand,” the old man said, “what I have told you?”

 “No,” replied the young monk, “please tell me father.”

 “It is simple,” said the desert father, “my dog saw the rabbit.”

 —-Sayings of the desert


I can’t help but wonder if this little tale from the Desert Father’s reflects something not only of our own spiritual lives, but also of Israel’s history with God.  Just like the dog continued on because he had seen the rabbit, so Moses pressed on through the wilderness because he had “seen” God.  His face literally radiated the glory of God.  The people followed for awhile, having seen God’s miracles that set them free from Egypt and following the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.  But eventually their sight began to fade. 

By the time we get to Jeremiah and the exile, God sightings were practically relegated to the realm of myth and legend.  They knew the stories of their ancestors, but in their lifetime, watching their beloved Jerusalem burn and the temple crumble in the rearview mirror as they are dragged off into Babylon, it might have been hard for many to keep pursuing God with the same fervency they once had.  Did God abandon them?  Was God angry with them?  Was God even really there to begin with, or was it all just a bunch of folk stories from long ago? 

In this place of despair and exile, God speaks once again through the prophet, promising a day when the covenant and the law will no longer be written on stone tablets, but etched into the very hearts of the people.  Loving God and loving others would become second nature to them, as natural as a heartbeat or the breath in their lungs.  The day would come when they would truly “know God.” 

Has such a day come for us? 

Is God’s covenant written on our hearts? 

Is following the prompting of the Holy Spirit as natural as breathing? 

Are we  clinging to ancient stories of God’s work to sustain our spiritual lives, or do we have the passion of one who has “seen the rabbit?”

 


Blessing Your Enemies

Blessing Your Enemies
A God Who Weeps - Part 6
Sunday, October 9, 2022
Jeremiah 29:1-7

Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.

Jeremiah 29:5-7 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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There are few verses in scripture more quoted than Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  It’s often used for big moments or transitions in our lives like graduations, retirements, etc. as a way of offering encouragement as we enter into new and unknown chapters in our lives.  The problem is that far too often, we view God’s plans like a set of puzzle pieces that we have to put together in a particular way.  The “plan” involves the getting the right job, marrying the right person, or any number of other “right” decisions that will keep us aligned with God’s “perfect will.”    

The more interesting verse for me in this chapter, however, is verse 7… “promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.”  Yes, God has a plan to restore Israel to their rightful land, but not in the lifetime of most who are hearing this message.  For them, God’s plan is about how they live among strangers and enemies.  It’s about breaking them of their arrogance and self-reliance as God’s people, thinking they could get away with anything simply because they were God’s chosen and because God had a perfect plan for them.  Exile is a reminder that God’s “plan”, whatever that may look like, is not about a prosperous life, but about a faithful life in both prosperity and in desolation. 

Jeremiah 29 is far less about God making everything work out the way the people want and far more about how to live faithfully in exile, especially since they were unable to live faithfully in their God given homeland.  In exile, God is teaching them what it means to be a blessing to all the nations rather than elevating themselves above everyone else.  God’s message is perhaps one of the most radical things they could ever imagine… “I care about Babylon too.”  In other words, God loves  Israel’s enemies as much as God loves them, and in exile, they too must learn what it means to truly love their enemies. 

God’s people were not called to retaliate or seek escape from Babylon.  They were called to work toward the welfare or “Shalom” of this foreign land.  They were to bring God’s peace among their enemies.  This isn’t just a matter of biding their time and trying to live isolate lives, separate from the world around them.  It was a radical call to fully engage in Babylonian culture and work toward wholeness, prosperity and the overall wellbeing of everyone.

In a nation where the church is entrenched in one culture war after another with warring factions or “parties”, this message is as relevant today as in Babylon.  We do not glorify God by “converting Babylon to Christ” or “forcing Babylon to pass laws to make it easier or more comfortable for us to live out our faith.”  Rather, we glorify God by loving our neighbors, even if they are our enemies, and working together for the peace and well-being of all.

 


Learning to Lament

Learning to Lament
A God Who Weeps - Part 5
Sunday, October 2, 2022
Lamentations 1:1-6

Why do you forget us continually; why do you abandon us for such a long time? 

Return us, Lord, to yourself. Please let us return!  Give us new days, like those long ago.          

Lamentations 5:20-21 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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As a culture we are not good at lamenting.  Of course everyone grieves, especially over a profound personal loss such as the death of a loved one, but even those around the grieving person are often quick to encourage them to move on.  We don’t like sitting with our grief long.  We prefer to be active, to stay busy, to distract our minds and hearts from the pain. 

In the case of larger scale tragedies or evil, such as the attacks of 9/11, the line between lament and revenge is significantly blurred.  Of course we mourn the loss of the victims, but before we can even process the magnitude of what happened, we turn immediately to blame and hatred. 

In the case of the over 1 million deaths in the US and over 6.5 million deaths worldwide over the recent COVID-19 pandemic,  blame was not always as easy to assign and so we took our revenge out on one another by politicizing every attempt at prevention, treatment and rebuilding.  It’s difficult to grieve when we are caught up in the passionate firestorm of accusations and rage from every side.

No matter the evil that befalls us, personally or as a nation or world, our first response is to seek and explanation or a scapegoat and then to fight.  The trouble with this cultural mindset is that it leaves no room for healing, and so we become wounded warriors, tearing ourselves apart mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, economically, and in every other way all because slowing down is not an option.  If we pause from the fight too long, the emotion will overwhelm us and the pain is too deep to process.  So we press on.

I tell the story in my upcoming book of a pastor who abruptly entered a hospice room shortly after the patient had died, offered a vibrant (and loud) prayer of celebration for this person’s eternal life, and disappeared as quickly as he came, leaving the family stunned and numb as their time of holy silence, mourning and sharing together had now come to an end far too soon.  Yes, as Christians there is joy in death because of our hope in the resurrection, but even Jesus, the resurrection and the life himself, wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus, with full knowledge that he was about to do the impossible by calling him forth from the tomb. 

Some things in life simply defy words and easy explanations.  Lament does not answer all of our questions or solve our problems, but there is nevertheless a deep need for humans to have the space to pour out the raw brokenness of our hearts before God, both for our own sake and for the healing of the larger community. 

As we receive the broken body and blood of Christ this week, may we enter into solidarity with all who suffer around the world.  For many, the joy of Sunday has not yet come.  Sunday does not erase the pain one feels on Friday and Saturday.  The scars remain. 

In order to heal, we must make space for honest lament.

 

Investing in Hope

Investing in Hope
A God Who Weeps - Part 4
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15

“The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: Take these documents—this sealed deed of purchase along with the unsealed one—and put them into a clay container so they will last a long time. The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

Jeremiah 32:14-15 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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One of the biggest factors that separates those trapped in generations upon generations of poverty and those who seem to quickly climb to the top of the economic ladder is the difference in real-estate.  Real estate offers what economists call “generational wealth” because unlike cash, property generally maintains and most often increases in value from generation to generation.  Whether or not we personally have wealth invested  in property, it is easy to see the significant role real estate plays in our economy, especially among the richest and most elite. 

The three keys to good real estate investments, however, as any realtor will tell you, are “location, location, location.”  Purchasing land in an up and coming development on the outskirts of a booming city or town is a smart move.  Purchasing in a place with no prospect for growth, or even the strong possibility of decline or destruction, on the other hand, is not smart.  How many times have we seen bad locations where restaurant after restaurant moves into a building and nobody can make a go of it?  Some locations will simply never be successful without radical change in the larger community. 

Such is the case in a war torn land, especially when the war is still in progress and the property will soon be taken over by the occupying government .  This was the state in which Israel found herself in Jeremiah’s day, as the Babylonians continued moving in more and more troops and taking more and more Israelites into captivity and exile never to return. 

Let’s just say that such a place is not a sellers market.  Who wants to buy property that will be razed by an enemy army and evacuated within the year?  Well, apparently there is one person.  Jeremiah.  That’s exactly what he does when he buys the field in Anathoth from his cousin.  One wonders about the character of this cousin who appears to be trying to rip off Jeremiah and get out with as much as he can manage before Babylon moves in and ruins the neighborhood.  Talk about decimating property values.

Jeremiah knows he may never see this property again.  He may never build a home on it.  He may never plant a vineyard or even a garden.  His children and grandchildren may never even know the land existed.  Nevertheless, Jeremiah buys a field in his war torn homeland right before the end.  Why? 

Because God said his people would one day return.  This wasn’t just an investment in real estate.  It was an investment in hope.  It was a deed signed openly in public as a declaration that their exile would not last forever.  Even if nobody from his generation ever saw their beloved homeland again, God would bring God’s children back, and that was a future worth investing in.

How are you investing in hope?

 


Rethinking Judgment

Rethinking Judgment
A God Who Weeps - Part 3
Sunday, September 18, 2022
Jeremiah 18:1-11

So I went down to the potter’s house; he was working on the potter’s wheel. But the piece he was making was flawed while still in his hands, so the potter started on another, as seemed best to him. Then the Lord’s word came to me: House of Israel, can’t I deal with you like this potter, declares the Lord? Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in mine, house of Israel!

Jeremiah 18:3-6 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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Mold me, make me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.

We sing these words.  We pray these words.  But do we really mean these words?  Of course we want God to bless us.  Of course we want God to heal us and our loved ones.  Of course we want God to take care of us.  But do we really want God to mold us, to make us, to fill us and to use us?

To understand exactly what this means, God sends Jeremiah to the potter’s house… a place in the Hinnom valley outside the city walls, a valley that would later be called Gehenna which would become a metaphor for a place of eternal punishment.  It was a valley filled with he fire and smoke of industrial work including pottery, but it was also a place known for the devouring fires of child sacrifice (called Topheth in 2 Kings 23 and Jeremiah 7 and 19).  We can imagine Jeremiah walking down the steep hill beyond the city gate into this valley of black smoke and fire, stepping carefully through piles of clay, heaps of broken potsherds and filthy hard working people like we might imagine in the industrial era sweatshops of the early 20th century.

There in the midst of industrial fires and piles of broken potsherds, among some of the lowest classes of people in Jerusalem, Jeremiah sees a man shaping and then casting aside a flawed piece of clay  In this man covered in mud and clay, he sees the hands, the face and the heart of God. 

Are we willing, like a piece of clay, to trust the potter’s judgment, even if it means being cast aside or entirely absorbed into something new because we are not useful in our current flawed state?  The potter does not destroy flawed pieces of clay out of anger, but he or she will do whatever it takes to make the clay useful and to be certain that no flawed piece will ruin the whole of the pottery.  What if God’s judgment is like this?  What if God’s declaration of coming disaster for Israel is less about destruction, vengeance or punishment and more about redemption and restoration? 

Yes, judgment is painful, whether individually or at a national or even global level.  It is painful in the same way a sentient piece of marble would feel pain under the blade of a chisel or as C.S. Lewis says, a sentient painting would feel after being rubbed and scraped away and restarted for the tenth time in the process of creating a masterpiece.   Lewis observes that in such a case, we may prefer to be just a thumbnail sketch that does not require much work.  But this is not for God to love us more by leaving us to our own comfort… rather it is asking God to love us less, to let us settle for far less that who God created us to be.  And so we must ask ourselves again… do we really want God to mold us, to make us, to fill us, and to use us?  If so, let us pray...

A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

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For a deeper reflection on what it might look like to be molded and shaped by God, check out the video below from the Skit Guys.

 


A Heartbroken God

A Heartbroken God
A God Who Weeps - Part 2
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Jeremiah 2:4-13

My people have committed two crimes:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water.
And they have dug wells, broken wells that can’t hold water.

  Jeremiah 2:13 (NRSV)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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“Look at all I’ve done for you… and this is how you respond?  This is how you treat me?”

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of a parent trying to navigate the tumultuous years of a rebellious teenager. 

It’s easy to see the anger of God in passages like this, scolding Israel for their idolatry and disobedience, but perhaps the teenager analogy actually gives us some much needed perspective.  What if God is not simply exploding with anger and wrath against a sinful people?  What if God does not want to destroy Israel by sending them into exile?  What if despite all the horrible things they have done, God still loves them and wants the best for them?

Are there consequences for their choices?  Absolutely! Just like there are consequences for the unlicensed and underage teenager who takes off in his or her parent’s car at night for an unsupervised party where they drink far to much and end up totaling the car on the way home.  This may be a pretty extreme example that is hopefully more common in movies and TV shows than in real life, but the point is that even with such an extreme act of rebellion, the rightfully angry parent still does not wish harm on their misguided child.  They don’t wish their teenager had died in the accident.  Before they are angry, they are first relieved when nobody is hurt. 

What we see here in Jeremiah 2 is not the wrath of a God who is ready to wipe a rebellious people off the face of the earth, but the overwhelming heartbreak of a parent who has given their now adolescent child every possible opportunity only to find that the child would rather run away from home and throw away their lives on temporary pleasures that will never satisfy. 

Living on a friend’s couch might work out in the short term, but eventually the tearful parent peers into the child’s empty room with all the luxuries of home and wonders why this wasn’t good enough for them.  In the language of the Biblical prophets, the cry sounds something like this… “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

Building cracked cisterns is Jeremiah’s way of saying, “why are you trying to do it yourself when God has already given you everything?”  Today we might ask the same question.  Why do we turn to politics, money, fame, weapons, walls, divisive speech and action, and even religion to “protect us” and make us feel secure, included, or even loved as if somehow God is not enough? 

What cracked cisterns have we built to sustain ourselves that continue to break God’s heart?

 

An Impossible Call

An Impossible Call
A God Who Weeps - Part 1
Sunday, September 4, 2022
Jeremiah 1:1-10

The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of Judah’s King Josiah, Amon’s son,  and throughout the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, Josiah’s son, when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.

The Lord’s word came to me:

“Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I made you a prophet to the nations.”
“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
    because I’m only a child.”
The Lord responded,
    “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
        Where I send you, you must go;
        what I tell you, you must say.

 Jeremiah 1:2-7 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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God calls pastors.  God calls missionaries.  God calls chaplains.  God calls prophets.  Maybe God even calls seminary professors or Sunday School teachers.  But what if I were to tell you that God has called you, that God is calling you, and that God will continue to call you until you breathe your final breath on earth?

The point of Jeremiah’s call story is not, as so many argue, to make a scientific claim about when life technically begins.  The point is to show Jeremiah, and all of us, that God has been intimately involved in our lives from the very beginning, and even before the beginning. 

This is not to say that God predetermines some to be born into riches and others to grow up as slaves or that God’s plan requires some to live healthy lives while others suffer and die as infants or children.  God’s so-called “plan” for our lives is not a mystery to solve or a puzzle that can only be put together one way and requires that we somehow find all the right pieces hidden somewhere throughout our lives by making the right choices along the way. 

What it does say, however, is that God knows and loves each and every one of us before we are born, and that God invites us to participate in God’s redemptive purposes for the world long before we could even hear or process such an invitation.

The question for us, as it was for Jeremiah, is how do our lives, our gifts and abilities, our heritage, our circumstances, our geographical and socio-economic position, our choices, and so much more shape us in ways that God can use for the sake of the world.

Jeremiah was not waiting as a baby soul in heaven for the right body to come along to be placed into on earth so that he could become a prophet.  But Jeremiah’s location in life, as a member of a priestly family during a time of tremendous social, political, and religious upheaval and renewal in Jerusalem, prepared him well to proclaim God’s good news to the exiles in Babylon and to the remnant left behind in the ruins under foreign control. 

  • What have you learned from your own experience that can help others? 

  • Where do your gifts and passions intersect with the needs of the world? 

Perhaps these questions are the beginning of hearing God’s call for yourself? 

If we listen close enough, maybe even a child or teenager like Jeremiah will lead the way.

 

Just Your Boy

Just Your Boy
Let the Children Come - Part 4
Sunday, August 28, 2022
1 Samuel 16:1-23, 1 Timothy 4:12

Then Samuel asked Jesse, “Is that all of your boys?”

“There is still the youngest one,” Jesse answered, “but he’s out keeping the sheep.”

“Send for him,” Samuel told Jesse, “because we can’t proceed until he gets here.”

 1 Samuel 16:11 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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Though he didn’t become king until around the age of 30, David was most likely between 8 and 15 when Samuel first called him in from the fields and anointed him as Saul’s successor to the throne of Israel.  He was quite literally “just a boy”.  He was so young and insignificant, in fact, that his father didn’t even see the point in bringing him along when Samuel invited his family to the sacrifice.  While his father and older brothers were going through the ritual purification to be cleansed before God for worship, young David was out in the fields with the sheep composing psalms of praise. 

How appropriate that God would use Samuel, himself called as a child, to anoint another child king over all Israel.  We know the stories of David’s heroism, how he defeated Goliath and the Philistine army with just a sling and a stone, and how he united the tribes of Israel and strengthened the whole nation with its most expansive borders ever from Dan to Beersheba.  We know how he spent so much of his life on the run from King Saul who sought to kill him because he was a threat to his own dynasty, despite God’s clear ruling that Saul’s family would no longer reign in Israel due to his own sin.  And we see David at his lowest point, committing adultery and murder to attain what he couldn’t have.  We read and sing his psalms of praise and lament, of joy and of repentance.  Yet despite all his accomplishments and all his mistakes, in the end only one thing mattered… He was just God’s beloved child singing praises in the field.

As you look at your own life, your highs and lows, what matters most to you?  What matters most to God?

 

Heaven's Whisper

Heaven’s Whisper
Let the Children Come - Part 3
Sunday, August 21, 2022
1 Samuel 3:1-21

Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.”

1 Samuel 3:10 (CEB)

Listen to this week’s sermon here:

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According to the religious hierarchies of the day, the people who should have heard God's voice in this story were Eli and his sons.  They were the authorities, the ultimate insiders by birth and by vocation.  But they were not the ones God chose.

 Instead, God chose Samuel.  A child.  A boy on the periphery, one whose capacity for openness and wonder was dulled, perhaps, but still recoverable.  A child who wasn't bound by the political interests of his elders.  A child who could tolerate an unfamiliar voice and an uncomfortable message — a message that would upend the very institution he knew best.

Debie Thomas, journeywithjesus.net (Lectionary Essays)

The historian Josephus writes that Samuel was likely around 12 years old when he heard God’s call, and as we might imagine, he was extremely confused.  He had been raised in the home of a priest and knew all of the inner workings of the religious system, but he also had a front row seat to the scandals and brokenness even within the priest’s own family.

The system was so broken, in fact, that the writer says in verse 1 that the word of the Lord was rare in those days.  How tragic, that this 12 year old boy whose mother dedicated his life to the service of God and who quite literally grew up in the church, would not recognize God’s voice and in fact would find himself quite surprised to hear a word from God at all. 

And yet if we consider our own lives, especially among those who have spent most of our lives in church, I wonder if we should not be so surprised after all.  I’ve met people who sat in churches for 80 years who had never heard of Jacob (Abraham’s grandson and the father of the 12 tribes of Israel).  Biblical illiteracy is as common in the church if not more-so than in the culture at large.  We take our identity as God’s people for granted to the point that we no longer actively listen for God’s voice.  It’s almost as if God has already said all there is to say.  We believe the Bible, even if we don’t read it or actually know what it says.  What more do we need?

What if what we need is the open heart, the discerning ear, and the humble yet courageous voice of a child to remind us that God is not finished talking yet?  And maybe, just maybe, God’s word is not as rare as we may think in our world today.  Maybe it is simply being heard by those who choose to ignore it, or those who don’t recognize it, or even worse, those who know it and speak it while we ignore them because they are too young, or too different, too radical, or too unexpected a person to carry the message of God to those of us who think we know better.

 

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