First of all, I hope that you listening to this are well, and that if you are not well, that the healing power and the comfort of God might come to you. These are trying times that we are living in, and I know that those of us here in Ireland are concerned about the rise in numbers of Covid-19 infections.
During such trying times, we have a unique opportunity to do something that we might normally avoid doing: listening to God. Listening to God is tough: we may feel that we don’t know how to do it, we may not know when we are hearing God or hearing something else, and we may not know what to do in response. These are all questions and concerns that may come to us. But the good news is that God knows us through and through and is always listening to us. And more good news is that as we learn to listen to God, we grow more and more in oneness with God.
The readings today are about people listening to God. The people do not realise at first that this is what they are doing.
The first reading, from the Old Testament, is about a young lad named Samuel. He has been left in the service of the Lord, essentially as a young assistant to the old priest Eli. He is still a boy; as the reading says, he “did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”
But then one night he is lying down to sleep. He’s in the holiest part of the temple, by the way. And three times he hears a voice calling him, “Samuel! Samuel!” And he runs to Eli the priest, thinking that Eli has called him. Finally after the third time, Eli realises that the Lord is speaking to Samuel and tells Samuel to answer with these words, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” So Samuel does, and God delivers a message to him.
We’ll leave this one aside for the moment and go to the Gospel reading. This is at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, as he is calling his disciples, in this case Philip and Nathanael. Philip recognises Jesus as someone special, even the Messiah, the Holy One of God, but Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Jesus and Nathanael have a little exchange of words which boils down to Jesus saying that Nathanael has no deceit in him, Nathanael proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus telling him that he will see greater things than just Jesus recognising him for who he is.
What happens in both these readings is that God speaks to someone — Samuel or Nathanael. And as that person listens and pays attention, more is unfolded before him. Each of them grows in the knowledge of God and God’s ways. In other words, because Nathanael is willing to get past his initial prejudice that nothing good can come out of Nazareth and instead see that Jesus is the Son of God, because he is willing to open his eyes and his mind to the holiness in Jesus, he will become one of Jesus’ disciples and will see far greater things.
And Samuel, because he responds to God’s call with “Speak, for your servant is listening,” and then is willing to do what God tells him to do, he becomes a trusted and holy leader of Israel. In fact, the end of the reading tells us that “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground” — which means that everything he did and said was fruitful and was true.
But for Samuel, first there was something he had to do — a test, you might say. When he responds to God with, “Speak, for your servant is listening,” God gives him a message to deliver to Eli. It is a tough and difficult message — not something that would be easy for a young lad to say to his boss. But Eli insists that Samuel tell him God’s message, and Samuel speaks the difficult words.
Well, what does all this have to do with us? We live in different times; we are dealing with a different situation. But it’s not so different in some ways. The reading from Samuel starts off by saying, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” In other words, not many in those days heard and knew the word and the ways of God. And the times in which Jesus and his disciples lived were very difficult.
We also live in difficult times. But during these days, we also are offered a chance to listen to God. What else can we do? Many of our usual ways of living are gone. Our patterns of life have been completed disrupted. Many of the distractions we used before are forbidden. We are being shown that we cannot escape from ourselves, much as we might want to.
And so we are being asked to listen to God. Kirk and I have been praying more — praying for people in the church, praying for family members and friends in the States and elsewhere, praying that what we do might be in keeping with the Lord’s will and the Lord’s word. For myself, I have become more aware of thoughts, speech, and deeds that are contrary to God and praying that the Lord might remake me so that I might be a more faithful servant of the Lord. And if I am so remade, it is only through the grace of God giving me the courage and the strength to do what God calls me to do.
You see, it really is a two-way street between us and God. And the good news — and it is good news — is that God knows exactly who we are. Jesus knows exactly who Nathanael is — an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, he says — as soon as he sees Nathanael. Our Psalm today, number 139, tells us that God knows us completely, from the time we are conceived, and then no matter where we are or what we are doing, God sees it all. We cannot hide from God, no matter how hard we might try. That’s what all those distractions are about — ways to hide from God, and from ourselves. But God knows us, knows our thoughts, and follows our ways. And quite frankly, God is always inviting us to listen, to follow, to find our rest in him.
Ultimately, that is what we are offered: to be transformed by listening to and following God in Christ, to find our rest in him. In my own experience, I know that I am hearing God when the message comes with a reassurance that all will be well. Even if God is chastising me, as does happen, there is still an assurance that God knows me, that I am not lost, and that Christ offers me new life and peace. God always offers us life and peace.
I close with the Collect for today:
Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
Transform the poverty of our nature
by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.