“God Calls Samuel”

1 Samuel 3:1-21

(sermon note: 10-12 sermon note)

¹Meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the Lord by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.

² One night Eli, who was almost blind by now, had gone to bed. ³ The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the Tabernacle near the Ark of God. ⁴ Suddenly the Lord called out, “Samuel!”

“Yes?” Samuel replied. “What is it?” ⁵ He got up and ran to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go back to bed.” So he did.

⁶ Then the Lord called out again, “Samuel!”

Again Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you, my son,” Eli said. “Go back to bed.”

⁷ Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before. ⁸ So the Lord called a third time, and once more Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

Then Eli realized it was the Lord who was calling the boy. ⁹ So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed.

¹⁰ And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.”

¹¹ Then the Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do a shocking thing in Israel. ¹² I am going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family, from beginning to end. ¹³ I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them. ¹⁴ So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or offerings.”

¹⁵ Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then got up and opened the doors of the Tabernacle as usual. He was afraid to tell Eli what the Lord had said to him. ¹⁶ But Eli called out to him, “Samuel, my son.”

“Here I am,” Samuel replied.

¹⁷ “What did the Lord say to you? Tell me everything. And may God strike you and even kill you if you hide anything from me!” ¹⁸ So Samuel told Eli everything; he didn’t hold anything back. “It is the Lord’s will,” Eli replied. “Let him do what he thinks best.”

¹⁹ As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him, and everything Samuel said proved to be reliable. ²⁰ And all Israel, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord. ²¹ The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh and gave messages to Samuel there at the Tabernacle.

This morning’s reading reminds me of the one about a cowboy who was riding across the plains when he came across a Pawnee Indian lying down with his ear placed against the ground and mumbling something. Knowing what great trackers the Pawnee were, the cowboy got off his horse and put his ear to the ground, but he couldn’t figure out anything just from listening. So he got up close to the Indian to hear what he was saying. “4 horses. Pulling covered wagon. 2 people riding in front of wagon. 1 man, one woman. 2 children in back of wagon. 1 boy, 1 girl. Girl have cake on lap. Writing on top of cake say, ‘Happy Birthday Jenny!’” The cowboy jumped up in amazement and said to the Indian, “Wow! That’s fantastic! You can tell ALL that just by listening to the vibrations from the ground?!” The Indian replied, “No…them run over me half hour ago!”

Now who said a little dark humor wasn’t good for you every once and a while? It keeps your blood flowing properly. Ole boy may have been an excellent tracker with keen listening skills, but his luck wasn’t particularly good. Wrong place at the wrong time. Not like our friend, Samuel, in today’s reading. He was certainly in the right place at the right time, but his listening skills weren’t all that good. It took him three times and a little help from Eli to realize it was God calling out to him in the middle of the night. We can’t really criticize him though. He was just a young boy at the time and had never had such a personal interaction with God before. Sure, he had grown up in the confines of the temple under Eli’s careful tutelage, but God had never had a reason to reach out to him before this. And besides, we heard at the start of the reading that God hadn’t reached out to whole lotta anyone in that time: “Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.” Yet God chose to reach out to a young boy, no doubt filled with distractions, to relay an important message to Eli, the chief priest at the time. Interesting how God works in this world sometimes…

And what an interesting message to entrust with such a young, impressionable person! It’s hard to appreciate what’s going on in this encounter between God and Samuel without a little backstory. Recall that Samuel was born to the seemingly barren woman, Hannah. In exchange for his miraculous birth, Hannah vowed to give Samuel to the temple so that he could serve God for his whole life. The chief priest, Eli, was aware of Hannah’s vow and gladly accepted Samuel at a very young age. Meanwhile, Eli’s own household was in a bit of disarray. Eil’s two sons were wicked sons who didn’t appreciate being born into such a powerful religious family. They would blaspheme God by eating of the sacrifices left on the altar. They brought great shame upon their father who chose not to discipline them and raise them with a proper fear of God. Along came Hannah who bestowed her son to the temple and Eli considered him as a means of redemption for having raised wicked sons.

It’s no wonder the messages from the Lord were so rare with such broken households of the temple’s leadership. But the messages eventually came as we heard in today’s reading. God entrusted Samuel with a message of woe to Eli and his household: “I am going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family, from beginning to end. I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them. So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or offerings.” The message is both a message of warning and a test for Samuel. Would he faithfully relay the message to Eli or not? Who among us would faithfully relay such a message of woe to someone in authority over us? “God isn’t happy with you, boss, and he’s going to punish you!” Well, perhaps your faithfulness is strong, but I suspect you’d be a little hesitant. Even Samuel was a little hesitant. But again, with the urging of Eli to relay God’s message faithfully, Samuel was able to satisfy the test.

So, Samuel may have had poor listening skills to begin with, but his faithfulness and obedience adequately compensated for them. Sometimes that’s all that God expects from us. Are we faithful and obedient to his Word? We can have any number of distractions in life. Life is full of distractions! But God speaks to us all the time. Through his Word, through his creation, through the people around us, through the situations we find ourselves in. God is always speaking to us, and it is our responsibility to listen and obey. Heck, it is to our benefit to listen and obey!  We need to faithfully obey him if we want to experience his goodness in this world.  And we do this by faithfully listening…listening with discernment. Jesus tells us in the book of John, “Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God.” (8:47) We want to experience God’s goodness and belong to him. We want to sing out as in the 25^th psalm, “Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you.” (vs. 4-5)

Samuel was young and naïve in this encounter with God. But he listened and faithfully relayed the message to Eli. Let us listen to the words of God in our own lives and faithfully obey them, even when they’re difficult words to obey. God’s words are good words, and we need them. So let us give thanks for them. Thanks be to God!