January 14, 2024
A Book – The Word
1 Samuel 3:1-10
January is a time for getting back to the basics, and in these first few weeks of January, we are looking at the basics of Christian worship as we Presbyterians understand it. We call it Word and Sacrament. A Bath, A Book, and a Meal. Last week, we looked closely at baptism, which is the visible sign of our inclusion in the community of God’s people, a visible sign that we belong to God and not to the world. We were blessed to celebrate the sacrament of baptism at the early service today.
Today, we turn our attention to the Word, the Book. Christians are a people of the W/word. We gather around the word of scripture. We listen to the words of the preacher. We listen for the word of the Lord. We worship the living Word, the Word made flesh, the Savior, the Son of God. We are a people of the Word. Listen now for the word of God to the people of God.
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!”[a] and he said, “Here I am!” 5 and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. 6 The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
We are flooded with words. They fall on us like a climate-change induced rainstorm. Thousands of words. Words everywhere. An announcer on TV speaks around 150 words a minute. In an NFL playoff game, like the kind that was on in my house last night, the game like that will deliver nearly thirty thousand words to the air. If you have a news channel on during the day, even running in the background, it produces than 9000 words every hour. The average TV show, 40 minutes of drama, is about 7200 words. If you binge a show, two or three or four episodes at a time, that’s 14,000 or 21,000 or 28,000 words. The weekend edition of the New York Times, published every week, is about 140,000 words. (This sermon is 2,010 words.)
Not all words, though, are created equally. The New Testament, in its original Greek language is only 138,000 words, shorter than most novels, or the weekend New York Times. Not all words are created equally.
Two opposing parties might use hundreds of thousands of words in a lawsuit, taking depositions and filing motions and briefs, when only eight words would change everything. “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” “Let’s start over.” Not all words are created equally.
A couple may spend months or years arguing over the same things, money, kids, jobs, with hundreds of thousands of words, when only six words would change everything. “I’m listening.” “Say more.” “I understand.” Not all words are created equally.
Some words tear down. Most words fill the air. Some words give life.
The disciples who were with Jesus understood the value of words that give life. The sixth chapter of John is full of words, complaining and disputes among the crowds that followed Jesus. They complained about him, about what he was saying, they disputed over what it meant and his right to say it. At one point, many disciples said, “This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?”
Jesus doubled down, and said it again. So, the text tells us, “Because of this many disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” Jesus turned to the twelve, to his core, the ones he had called to follow him, and said, “Do you also wish to go away?”
Simon Peter spoke for the group: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Not all words are created equally.
That’s why we gather each week around this book, the sacred words of these pages. We read from the Old Testament and the New Testament because these words are the word of God to us. These words, Old and New Testaments, bear witness to the Word of God, revealed most fully in Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.
When the words of this book are read and proclaimed, Jesus Christ who is the living Word is present to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. These words have power. These words offer grace. These words pronounce blessing. These words tell the truth. These words open our eyes. These words challenge our complacency. These words call us to obedience. These words stir faith and hope. These words lead us to love. We gather around these words, the words of this book, because these are the words of life, and these words have power.
In the flood of words in which we live, these words can seem small and insignificant. They pale beside the billions of words produced every day in the world. When he was a missionary in India, Lesslie Newbigin was trying to help pastors and new Christians understand the hidden power of the Word of God, and he used this analogy. He said these words are like small seeds that a bird drops from the air. The seeds are small and apparently insignificant, but they contain the powerful potential. If a bird drops a seed on top of a strong stone wall, and if that seed finds a little bit of soil, and with light and water and time, that seed grows, that seed will become a tree that will split the wall.
So it is with the word of God. These words have power. These words, when read and proclaimed, when placed beside the font and the table, the bath and the meal, these words have power. The ancient Episcopal prayer says, when they are “read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested” – these words have power. When they are taken into the life of God’s people and embodied in visible acts of hope and love and justice, these words have power.
Of course, it can be hard to hear the words of life amid the din the all the other words. The opening words of the story from 1st Samuel are strikingly contemporary. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days. Visions were not widespread.” That does not mean that words were rare in those days, it means the words of life were rare in those days.
This reading from Samuel 3 is at the beginning of a series of stories about kingship in Israel and, what we would call, “national politics.” The people were disgruntled, the national mood was sour; people believed the nation was on the wrong track. Sound familiar? They were tired of the occasional judges that God would appoint to settle their disputes. They wanted a king, so they could be like the other nations.
You can only imagine the many words that were spoken on the issue, the many debates in the halls of power and around dinner tables in Israel. So many words, and yet the word of the Lord was rare in those days.
Samuel was a special child, a miracle child, the son of Hannah. She gave him to the Temple, and later he would go on to be an important prophet. At this point, he was serving the elderly priest Eli in the temple as a temple boy. Eli was a powerful man, serving at the center of power, but he was past his prime and his sons were corrupt. They were using their status to satisfy their own desires, consuming the fat of sacrifices, and lying with the vulnerable women – like Samuel’s mother – who came to worship at the tent of meeting. These were heinous sins in Israel’s moral universe, and God’s judgment was on the way. The word of the Lord was rare in those days, the words of life were rare, but God was about to speak.
One night in the Temple, when all was quiet, when Samuel was lying there in the silence, surely thinking about all the things that were happening in the world, and all the words that had flooded his day, he heard a voice: “Samuel, Samuel!”
He thought it was Eli, and he went to him, “Eli, here I am,” but Eli said, “I did not call you. Go lie down.” Again, the same thing happened, again Samuel went to Eli, and Eli sent him back. The third time it happened, the wise Eli, not able to see but still able to perceive, understood what was going on.
“Samuel, go lie down, and if you hear the voice again, say, “Speak, Lord for your servant is listening.” So, Samuel laid down again, once more in the silence of the Temple. By now, all the words he had heard that day were gone completely from his mind. Now, he was straining to hear the Divine voice. By now, all of the troubles of the nation and the Temple and Eli’s corrupt sons had taken a back seat, and Samuel was straining in the silence to hear the word of the Lord.
The voice spoke once more, breaking the silence, saying, “Samuel! Samuel!” and Samuel said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
We gather around the book to listen for the word of the Lord. We gather in worship, in a time and space set apart, to pray that God will silence all voices but God’s own, so that we may hear the words of life. We gather in worship, around this book, because we are weary of all the other words, disputing and complaining, words that harm and the words that just fill the air and words that are not enough, we are weary of articles and novels and papers and columns and opinions and speeches and spin and all the other words – and where else can we go to hear words of life?
We need to sit in silence, with the cries of distress and the words of religious hypocrisy ringing in our ears, and hear these words: “This is the fast I desire, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the ties of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break the yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house”
We need to sit in silence, beyond the steady roar ethical dilemmas that we face, so noisy that we are not sure how to discern what is right, and hear these words, “I have told you mortal what is good: to do justly, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.”
We need to sit in silence, on this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, with gratitude for the civil rights movement and with concern for the needs of our current time, and hear these words from Jesus, words that guided King and led the movement: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i]and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
We need to sit in silence, with our worries and anxieties about our lives, about how we got to where we are, and what happen to us, and what we will do, and hear these words, “I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
We need to sit in silence, with our wounded identities, and our hidden shame, and our longing for acceptance, and hear these words: “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and that I know very well.”
We need to sit in silence, with a past we cannot change, and the hope of a future in which we can be changed, and hear these words, “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
These are words of life. Words with power. We gather around this book, we privilege this book in our life together, because these words rise up from deadly silence with divine life.
In 2005, Fred Buechner – a master of beautiful and powerful words – was honored at the National Cathedral at an evening event meant to celebrate his life and preaching. Some of the greatest preachers of the generation just younger than he were there to fete him with words and acknowledge their debt to his example. There were speeches, and questions and answers, and a panel, and you can imagine it went on for some time.
Eventually, Buechner said, in his lilting New England accent, that it seemed to him it was time for silence.
He said, “I have a feeling we have talked enough — that we need silence. Not much — three minutes; to spend three minutes not saying… [anything.] Can we do that? Are we brave enough to do that?” Much to their surprise, the assembled guests who had come in praise of words did just that.
Then, when three minutes had passed, Buechner pronounced the blessing the Lord spoke to Aaron: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you each other, give you peace, give you life both now and forevermore. Amen.”[1]
[1] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2006/05/05/may-5-2006-frederick-buechner/15314/