1 Samuel 3. God Talks
Some things in the Bible are literal and some things are just symbolic or figurative. For instance, the beast out of the sea in Revelation, is figurative speech, there isn’t going to be a literal beast out of the sea. Some things are literal and figurative. People got baptised literally, but that baptism also had symbolic meaning and significance. Sometimes there are disputes about what is literal and what is figurative and what is both. There are people that say Jonah wasn’t really in a fish because it is symbolic language utilized to communicate his state rather than a physical reality whilst others say he was really in a fish.
I think that in the first few verses of this story we have read, we have to do with something literal as well as figurative. There were literally few people who heard from God. Eli’s eyes were literally getting weak and he literally lied down. Samuel literally lied down close to the literal ark of the covenant whilst some kind of lamp was still alight…literally.
But below this literal surface much is pointed to in these few details. It tells us something of the spiritual state of mankind at the time. They were disengaged, uninterested in spiritual matters. They did not see it as having much relevance for their lives and situation. There was a lack of strong leadership. Eli as a spiritual leader has passed his best before date. The fact that it says that people didn’t see visions often and Eli’s eyesight was fading indicates that Eli himself, the spiritual leader, did not hear God all that clearly anymore.
But these verses also contain something hopeful. God’s presence hasn’t left the people. Fire is often used to indicate God’s presence, so that this lamp of God was still burning is a way to say God wasn’t lying down sleeping and neither was there anything wrong with his eyesight. There is also a young boy. The fact that he lies close to the ark of the covenant is an indication that God is about to pull him close into his covenantal fidelity to his people and its unfolding in the next season.
I almost wonder if, had this episode played off in our time, it wouldn’t have went something like this: “People didn’t talk about God and his ways often, few dared to speak his word. Even the pastors were confused as to what exactly God’s will was. But God showed up in surprising and unexpected ways to unexpectant people and this night with Samuel, was no exception”.
God’s voice sounds like familiar voices
Last week we read about Jesus’s baptism in Mark. In John’s account of the same event, when God the father speaks, the people confuse it with the sound of lightning. But when Samuel hears a voice, he doesn’t look outside the window, thinking it was lightning. He goes to Eli’s room. God’s voice sounded to him like a familiar ordinary voice of somebody he lived in community with. But God’s voice isn’t Eli’s voice, it just sounds like it.
So, if I am a detective of God’s voice, I would pay attention to the people who share with me community, habits, and life. Those are the people God placed you among. God speaks to you through them in different ways. Most often these people are unaware of that and how God is speaking through what they say. Eli suffered from ailments and familial problems at this stage. God often speaks to us potently through people that has gone through or is going through difficult times. But one cannot really ever equate what a person says 100 % with what God is saying. It is sometimes almost as if one discerns God’s voice in your conclusion from what people close to you have told you. Like you have to ask yourself: “What is God saying through the sum total of the voices in my life and the attitudes it is spoken with?”
People often search for God’s voice in all the wrong places. We tend to expect to find God’s voice in exotic places. Boat cruises and expensive vacations. During this pandemic I’ve heard of more people saying they heard God’s voice about matters, than I have ever heard people returning from a boat cruise said that God spoke to them. We tend to listen to the high, mighty and powerful as if they are spokespersons for God himself. Though it is true that God can sometimes speak through these people, we should be careful to only seek for God’s voice in people that doesn’t know us at all. We tend to look for God’s voice in the extraordinary and dramatic. Yes, God can speak through earthquakes and disasters, but people often hear God when they learn to see the beaty in their everyday lives.
There is also a lesson in this story of how we should respond when people look up to us and hear God’s voice in ours. It might be every politician’s dream that people think God speaks when they open their mouth but we should do what Eli did here. We should always send people back to make sure from God Himself when we told them something we believe is from God. The thing is sometimes we could be spot on about what God is saying but doubt that we are, just as we can sometimes be confident that we hear from God when the truth is far from what we have to say. God leads us through a community of saints rather than just through a few individual superstars.
God’s voice comes repeatedly
It is notable that God speaks until Samuel understands and knows how to respond. It also doesn’t state that God called harder or shouted so that Samuel could here faster. At Bible study we do a series on non-violent communication. It is a misconception that to communicate effectively, you have to communicate violently. Does anybody in the world have a greater understanding and compassion for the guys that stormed the capitol in the US the other day? Not at all, as a matter of fact most have now decided they are done listening to these guys. If we want to be effective communicators, we need to emulate God’s communication, not violent forms of communication. God speaks patiently, softly and repeatedly.
Think of how many times you had to hear something, before it sank in. Think of how many times you had to teach a child something before it became a deeply instilled habit. (I won’t be able to tell you how many time yet because I’m still at it with my own children). We all need to ask ourselves this: “What message does God want me to repeat?” What truth is worth repeating to me? Who is worth repeating the truth to, to me?
Also, pay attention to what has come to you through more that one source at more than one time. In discerning God’s voice there is such a thing as synchronicity. It is when different people and places gives you the same message without them knowing of each other. That is usually a sign that God wants to tell you something. I always tell my daughter that life teaches you a lesson harder and harder until you get it. I should also tell her that God keeps on giving you advice and wisdom patiently until you get it.
God’s voice doesn’t always sit well with people
Sometimes you find yourself in a mood for lighthearted chatter. Nothing wrong with that sometimes. When you are in such a mood and then meet up with somebody that wants to go deep and heavy, you probably walk away thinking that person is no fun, he or she is too heavy. People can misjudge when to be serious and when to be lighthearted. But God doesn’t. And if you are only open to the kind of messages you can listen to while eating chocolate, you will end up with a very superficial relationship with God. If you are always the one that just goes lighthearted in your conversations with loved ones, you might be liked, but you won’t have much influence. Good friends sometimes deliver truth bombs. Truth bombs isn’t the kind of bombs that kill. They might be just as surprisingly unpleasant when dropped like other bombs, but unlike other bombs they heal rather than rip asunder and destroy. They are the kind of bombs that are most effective in this way, when they are wrapped in love.
When Samuel approach Eli, I suspect he felt an urge I often feel when preparing a sermon. That is to stick with the sweet and juicy parts you know people will like to hear. “People are challenged and confronted enough, I am challenged and confronted enough”, the thinking goes. Thing is we are all probably confronted by too much nonsense and too little by what is important to God! And isn’t Eli’s response remarkable? He is at the end of his life and career but he tells Samuel to spill it all. To not withhold the challenge and the confrontation because if those are from God, they are life giving. May we be as open to hear whatever comes from God even when we are at our most frail and weak.
When God gives Samuel his message, he tells him that what he is going to tell and do is going to make everybody who hears it ear’s tingle. We just want to tickle ears, we don’t want to tingle them. We just want to soothe, not confront, and challenge. But the fact is the world need things that makes their ears tingle and their thinking kick started as much as a kid running into a busy road needs to hear that he should come back. May God gives us the courage to make people’s ears tingle and their minds think humbly, patiently but also bravely of things they need to hear.
See, people don’t mind being confronted and challenged when you put yourself under what God says with them. When you yourself accept the challenge, you challenge other people with you best. It is easy to say you are “against’ abortion and never go beyond social media posts in the struggle to protect and value the lives, even of vulnerable children that are still alive. We are compliant in abortions when being against it is where our involvement begins and ends. The same goes for animal abuse, feeding the hungry and protecting the environment. People take you seriously if they can actually see, some of the dirt of the task at hand under your own fingernails. That is why many people got so upset recently about politicians demanding people do not travel and then fly to Mexico for a vacation as if the rules don’t apply to them.
Close
If this story is told today, where would you find yourself in it? Maybe we should say in more than one place. In some sense we need to be where Eli is, aware of our limitations and cognisant of our mistakes yet open and eager to still hear what God has to say from whoever can tell us that, even through young children. In another way, we need to be in this story where Samuel was. Near the ark of the Covenant. Still trusting in God’s covenantal fidelity in spite of many things that is not right in our world. Eager to learn from both the virtues and mistakes of previous generations. Brave enough to dare tell God’s truth to whomever he sends us to.
People who hear God’s voice becomes his voice to others. May God show us how to be and remain such a people.
Amen