St. George's Episcopal Church
Roseburg, Oregon
Second Sunday After Epiphany
15 January 2006
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1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA
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. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 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. Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” 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. 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.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 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. 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. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the LORD said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.” Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.” As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD. (1 Samuel 3:1-20)
Called into Community
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
Revised 15 January 2006
“I bind myself to thee today, the strong Name of the Trinity. I bind this day to me forever, by power of faith, Christ’s incarnation; his baptism in the Jordan river; his death on cross for my salvation; his bursting from the spicèd tomb; his riding up the heavenly way; his coming at the day of doom. I bind unto myself today.”
With these words from Hymn 370 of the 1982 Hymnal, my good friend and colleague, Suzanne Stoner, processed last Sunday into St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas to be ordained as a deacon in Christ’s One Holy and Apostolic Church. It was a privilege and an honor for me to be among those who were invited by the Bishop of Arkansas to participate in this ordination.
Our Old and New Testament texts for today both describe the calling of individuals into vocational service for God. In the Old Testament reading, it is Samuel who hears or senses something that wakes him from his current situation and propels him to another vocation, that of God’s prophet. In the Gospel from John, Nathanael is recognized by Jesus as an Israelite who has no deceit, and begins his journey with Jesus as one of the twelve.
Fundamental to these two Bible stories of call, and to my friend Suzanne’s modern day call to the ordained ministry, is God. God lies at the very heart of all things, pulsing in the right here and right now of daily existence. But it seems to be the nature of God to be just below the surface, where we can sense or feel God’s presence and action, but not necessarily perceive any other physical manifestations of it. God seems to be a little bit like the current of electricity in the outlets of our houses: Always present, humming almost imperceptibly like an undercurrent; but quite capable of energizing us when we tap in, just like plugging an appliance into an outlet gives it power.
That’s what Samuel experienced. Samuel was apparently dozing next to one of the most sacred artifacts brought out of the desert by Moses: the Ark of the Covenant. While in his sleep-like state, he heard his name called. Assuming that it was Eli, his mentor and teacher calling him, he got up. Eli, said “No, it wasn’t me.”
Back to sleep. And then another call. “Samuel!”
“Here I am!” And back to Eli he went. Samuel’s senses told him what was reasonable: it had to be Eli calling him. But the call he experienced was not from another human being, but from that other place. That deeper plane.
God often can come to us in dreams – and there is much to be gained by spiritually interpreting dreams for signs of the divine. God often calls to us in unexpected places or in unexpected ways. And thankfully, I sincerely believe God continues to call to us over and over and over again. Some of us hear. Some of us don’t. Some of us hear all the time. Some of us may only sense God once in our life time.
The story of Samuel seems to imply that God’s call came rather repeatedly to him over a relative short interval. Samuel didn’t get it at first. It took several “calls” from that divine source to finally register with Samuel.
This is in contrast to the experience of Nathanael, who, despite his initial skepticism about whether anything good could come out of Nazareth, saw something in Jesus that seemed to immediately grab his attention. Something about Jesus was very important, and Nathanael moved right away to come and see, as his fellow disciple Philip had suggested he do.
It would seem that Jesus enabled Nathanael to tap into that undercurrent of God’s energy and overcome his reservations, doubts, skepticism. And I believe that that is the very power of Jesus Christ to all Christians. It is in the very human nature of Jesus that we somehow sense that undercurrent of God. And our openness and understanding of Jesus allows us to see the effect of the Holy Spirit in the world around us today.
Christians are attracted to Jesus just like Nathanael was. And we try to join with Jesus in a kind of faith walk just like Nathanael did from the day of his calling. Nathanael, Samuel, and my friend Suzanne, all heard a call, but follow different paths – paths unique to the spiritual gifts of each.
As Christians, we strive to see the face of Christ in all persons, and that means that we try to help each other discern our own calls to ministry; to service of others. Christian communities – churches – put their energy into doing what Jesus did. We care for the weakest, the poorest of the poor. We do for the homeless as best we can; we feed the hungry through the FISH program; we pray for one another and for our friends and relatives; when we are sick our fellow Christians visit with us. We donate our time to our youth so that they too can come and see the goodness of God’s undercurrent in their lives. We open our doors and make ourselves accessible to people who are looking to tap into that undercurrent.
The important thing about following the ways and means of Jesus is that learning how to do that comes by way of the community. Samuel, Nathanael, and Suzanne are all products of their religious communities. They are not somehow genetically different or superior to the rest of us. You cannot, for example, make disciples the way Robert Graham tried to make geniuses.[1]
Robert Graham was an eccentric millionaire who created a sperm bank for the super intelligent. He dreamt of recruiting intelligent women – the kind of women who were in the 98 th percentile or above in I.Q. – to receive the sperm of Nobel prize winners and the like, and then produce “uber-babies” with the genes necessary to become great scientists, inventors, engineers, artisans, musicians.
The experiment did not work.[2] Only one Nobel laureate was publicly identified as a sperm donor. And, most of the 215 babies produced as a result of artificial insemination turned out to be as accomplished as their mothers. The father’s nature was far less important than the mother’s nurture. Now I am not going to stand here and defend the analysis of Graham’s project as valid, but I do think it is instructive to once again point out that in nearly every attempt at eugenics – making the population better by voluntary (or involuntary) sterilization of various “unwanteds,” or genetic manipulation or selective breeding – has failed.
Disagreeing a little with the author of Psalm 139, what seems to matter the most is the community that nurtures us. That’s what the twelve disciples did with Jesus and for each other. That’s what we can do for each other and for our surrounding community.
Not every Christian has every spiritual gift. Some people can pray. Some people can heal. Some can teach. Some can serve. In the organic community of the Church, empowered by the vision of Jesus and that original group of twelve disciples, we can plug into that divine undercurrent that surrounds us and penetrates us. We can do this as individuals and as a church always setting a positive example for others. Our goal is to include as many people as we can in this wonderful life giving community that we call Church. And the way we do that is to do what Philip did. Just ask people to “Come and see!”
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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. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 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. Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” 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. 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.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 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. 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. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the LORD said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.” Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.” As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them -- they are more than the sand;
I come to the end -- I am still with you.
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen
[1] Timothy F. Merrill. “Triple Nines.” Homiletics 18(1):28, 2006.
[2] Shannon Brownlee. “ Who's your daddy? Genes, aspiration, and the Nobel Prize sperm bank.” Washington Monthly, May 2005. Accessed 12 January 2006 at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_5_37/ai_n13785578.
The Mission of St. George’s Episcopal Church is to lead people to love Jesus, and, through worship and scripture, to become empowered as a servant body – to each other, to our community, and to the world. For information about St. George’s Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at 1024 Southeast Cass Avenue , Roseburg, OR 97470 or by phone at (541) 673-4048 or (541) 680-3465. Contact Bill by email at wgstroop@earthlink.net and visit our church at http://www.roseburgchurch.net |
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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
12 January 2006
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