God Still Speaks
1 Samuel 3: 1-20
Whenever we gather for worship and the scripture is read, it has been our practice for the reader to proclaim at the end of the reading: “God still speaks!” To which we respond; “Thanks be to God!”
It’s a fitting reminder to us that in the midst of all the hurt and pain, the doubts and fears, the noise and confusion of life, God has not gone silent, even though there are times when it may appear so to us. It is a reminder that God has not disengaged from our world and from our cares and concerns, even when it feels like God is distant.
But there was a time in Israel’s history, when it did appear that God had gone silent – that God was not present or involved. The story of the call of Samuel speaks to that time.
Dennis Bratcher gives us some important background to that story. The setting is the period of the Judges. Judges were local tribal leaders whom God raised up to deal with specific crises and disputes facing the people.
The people of Israel had been in slavery for nearly 500 years. God heard their cries and led them to freedom and a new land in which they were settled as God’s people - a place where they could be a light to the world.
They had entered the land with great expectations, glorious promises, and a bright future. What else could the future be but bright for a people who had known no other life but that of slavery?
They had entered into covenant with God and promised to love and serve God in response to God’s gracious acts of deliverance. And God had promised them a land in which they could be his people. When they entered the land that God had promised, they built altars and sanctuaries in which to worship and began living as God’s people. But as the years passed, they had settled into the land and become comfortable. The fervor with which they celebrated their deliverance faded as they began to create a new life for themselves.
The people became preoccupied with their own interests and their commitment to God waned. They gradually began to forget who they were as God’s people and what their mission was in the world.
According to the Book of Judges, it was the time when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” And what people did was increasingly vile. Even the sons of the priest Eli participated in the depravity of the day; stealing the choicest parts of the people’s sacrifices and having intercourse with women at the very gates of the Temple.
It is against that background that Samuel enters Israel’s history - at a time of declining interest in and departure from God, so much so that even the word of God was rarely perceived.
Today’s passage, read from the book of Samuel, begins with the boy Samuel working as a sort of apprentice in the temple under the priest Eli, who is advanced in years and limited in vision - reflective of the spiritual decline of the people. In his apprenticeship in the temple, God who searches and knows, forms and fashions, is purposely bringing Samuel to that moment when he, rather than the priest Eli, would hear a word from God; for unlike what many believed, God was still speaking.
It took a while for Samuel to receive that word, and when he did, his response was not like ours: “Thanks be to God!” Instead, he was deeply troubled and did not know what to do with he was told, for it was a difficult message for Samuel to hear and just as difficult for him to pass on – he was afraid to share it. It was a word of rebuke and judgement directed to the one under whom he was learning and serving – who was mentoring him as it were. It was a word of judgement and rebuke against the house of Eli for the sins of his sons and for his own failures as a father and priest. Imagine how difficult, awkward and uncomfortable that must have been for young Samuel!
I want us to focus on the challenge that Samuel faced for a moment.
Imagine this boy, Samuel, having to tell this elderly priest to whom he looked up, and by whom he is being tutored, that the judgement of God was about to descend on him and his family. That the priestly reign of his family would be dramatically ended, that God would not allow his sons to lead Israel; they would be removed and replaced. Imagine how difficult that must have been for Samuel.
That is the word that Samuel received and was expected to pass on to Eli, and Samuel was reluctant to do so.
It takes courage to speak the truth, and even greater courage to speak truth to power.
Eli was a priest, and God could have given that word directly to Eli, but God chose Samuel, a mere boy, to deliver what at best was an extremely uncomfortable message.
God still speaks! To that we are inclined to respond, “Thanks be to God” and it’s an appropriate response. But what if what God says is uncomfortable? How do we respond? What do we do, when it falls on us to pass on such uncomfortable messages? A word of rebuke to someone that we look up to, admire and respect, knowing that we run the risk of losing that person’s acceptance and association? What do we do when it falls to us to hold someone accountable knowing that if we do, that person’s fragile ego will likely cause them to respond in hurtful and vicious ways? What do we do when it is clear to us that we should call out a friend or a loved for their harmful ways, but we are fearful that doing so might jeopardise our relationship?
After the scripture is read, we affirm the fact that God still speaks, and we are rightly thankful for that. Yes, God still speaks, but not only through scripture. God still appeals to our better judgement, to our sense of right and good, justice and equity, respect and honour, decency and integrity. God still calls for the truth from us. And yes, God still send us to call forth the truth from others, however difficult and uncomfortable it may be.
What do we do, when the choice is between being faithful to our consciences and to what we believe God is saying to us on the one hand, and being fearful of the fall-out if we speak the truth that God is calling forth from us on the other?
In a world where increasingly, truth is made to seem stranger than fiction, and persons are growing more comfortable bartering their very souls for the temporal goods, power and privilege bought with lies and deceit, and in a context where such basic decency as speaking the truth can carry a heavy price, what do we do?
Is silence an option?
Not if we believe that God has called us. Not if we believe that God has awakened our consciences. Not if we believe God has called forth truth in us. Not if we believe that God is with us.
Samuel was afraid of the possible fallout if he were to tell Eli what he heard from God. But the very Eli encouraged him to speak, and when he did, there was a quiet acceptance of the word from God, we see humility, piety, a new commitment to God on the part of Eli.
Pointing people to the truth is not about shaming them, it’s about putting them on the path to redemption. It’s not about bringing them down, it’s about helping them to find a truer foundation on which to stand.
When we speak the truth to those who need to hear it, it does not always end the way we would like, but it frees us to hear God even more and it can free the person to whom it is spoken as well.
God still speaks, and ours are the voices he uses. Let’s not silence those voices.
Thanks be to God.
