Who is the hero?
The Second Sunday
after Epiphany
Year B
1 Samuel 3:1-20
I’ll start off like many other clergy around the world are doing
this morning by shaking off the last remnants of our post-Christmas indolence,
port wine and chocolate and remind you what the appointed readings tend to
focus on in these Sundays after Epiphany:
The presence of God – word or light – extends out into the cosmos.
The foreign Magi visit the Christ child – through them God’s gift
is extended to the nations.
God “speaks” the day and the night into existence – and all the
fish, and the “creeping things”, and the animals – wild and domestic - and,
ultimately, even our human forerunners. What was once formless-and-void
takes on direction and diversity at God’s behest.
And today: God speaks to the boy Samuel and reinstates the
voice of prophecy in the land. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus calls
Philip – Philip goes and tells Nathanael – the knowledge of Jesus’ mission is
furthered and extended through human activity and interaction.
Ripples, then - ripples of both voice and light extend out
from the speaking source, from the shining source, into the surrounding silence
and darkness – sometimes directly from God and sometimes with human agency of
one sort or another: servants, prophets and disciples. You and me.
And that, Charlie Brown, is what Epiphany is about. That’s
what the word Epiphany means – to shine forth.
Now - speaking of human agents – maybe you have a hankering to be
one of the heroes of the Epiphany season. You might fancy yourself a
Samuel or a Philip in your generation – and why not?
Why shouldn’t the young people in our little choir this morning imagine
that what they sing and play and even compose could have an earth-shaking
effect on how men and women understand the mystery and beauty of God’s love for
the world? Bach did it. Hildegaard of Bingen did it. Are you
chopped liver? Why not you?
Or why shouldn’t the clergy in our little churches believe that
God could use the words they speak, the liturgy they celebrate and the pastoral
care they exercise to nurture and mediate-into-life communities of faith which
would stand out in their generation and serve as a launch pad for revivals of
the sort that we have seen at pivotal moments in the Church’s history?
Other priests and ministers in other generations have been a part of such
movements. John Wesley was just a bloke. John Henry Newman was pink
inside. Why not us? Why not now?
Why not you in
your place of work, doing what you do, making what you make, writing what you
write, leading in the way you lead? Why couldn't you make the sudden left turn
necessary to change the vector of your organization in such a way that people
are nourished, enlightened or changed?
You who are raising children – or grandchildren – you’d like to
raise them to be truth tellers, light shiners, doers of justice, openers of
doors, inventers of new ways for people to live. And why not?
St Augustine had a mother. Why shouldn’t you have grand hopes for the
young souls over whom you still have some sway?
What makes any of this impossible?
All well and good. We could be God’s Samuels and Philips in
our own generation – or assist in the formation of such people. Everyone
loves heroes. The world needs heroes. Bring on the heroes or those
who forge them.
But – as you might already suspect – I am about to throw a spanner
in the works. It’s what we do sometimes – cheeky clergy - and today I
find it necessary to nuance my enthusiasm a little bit with recourse to our Old
Testament lesson from 1st Samuel.
Who is the hero? Well – the first candidate who sidles up
for the honour – the one who first catches our eye - is that very fellow
who will give his name to the book of the Bible - the wee boy Samuel, himself,
lying on his bed and hearing a voice calling out his name. Back home in
Clermont-Ferrand our Senior Warden this morning is arranging colouring sheets
for our very active children which will, doubtless, show Samuel sitting on the
edge of the bed with a quizzical look upon his face because he’s just heard his
name called. Samuel gets up and wanders next door to where old Eli is
sleeping.
Eli is a tragic figure, really – educated and formed to know which
way is up and which way is down he has, nonetheless, let things slip rather
badly. The sanctuary he presides over is corrupt – his sons are in
cahoots with the parish treasurer to not only rob Peter to pay Paul but it
appears they are paying themselves rather handsomely as well. Samuel asks
why Eli called him and Eli says that he never called him and that he must be
dreaming. He tells Samuel to go back to bed.
God calls a second time and Samuel gets up again. Eli
– what do you want?, he asks. Stupid boy, says Eli, let
me sleep. Go back to bed.
God calls a third time, and Samuel approaches Eli again but this
time it’s Eli who has an epiphany.
If you’re a cartoonist and one of your characters has an epiphany
you usually draw this as a lightbulb appearing above that character’s
head.
Eli’s formation as a priest kicks in.
Eli suddenly thinks a thought.
Eli is struck by a possibility.
Go back to bed,
he tells Samuel, and the next time you hear the voice, I want you to
say “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening”.
Now, I want you to understand clearly that there is nobody in this
story with as much to lose as old Eli would lose if God were to start speaking
to his people again after a long silence, or who would find himself as quickly
displaced as he would if God were to begin to inhabit his sanctuary after a
long absence.
Let that sink in. Eli is bad and Eli is vulnerable.
Were he to act in his own self-interest he would provide the young
Samuel with earplugs. He would put a pillow over the boy's face and lean
on it. He wouldn't do the very thing he ends up doing which is to act as
a midwife for the truth to come out.
God’s truth about the love of God for the world, God’s truth about
the future of Israel’s gift to the world is, first of all, a word of challenge
to Eli’s job, fortunes, family and his performance as priest, caretaker and
human being.
And here I believe I may have answered my earlier “why
not” questions about me and about you with some accuracy.
Why will our music not change the world? Why will our
priestly ministry not cause others to turn a corner? Why will your work
not have the footprint it could have and why will our children and
grandchildren not thrive as heroes in their generation? Part of the
answer is that we have one eye on the task and another on other commitments –
our comfort, our safety, our habits, our pension and our position. We
have an interest, at some level, in things staying the same. We are not
willing to pay the price.
Our own self-interest may even interfere with our selfless love of
our children. That is a bitter pill, isn’t it? Against our better
judgement we raise them the way we were raised. You see it all the time.
Truth-speaking and light-bearing and life-giving will cost us –
first of all – they cost us a great deal and we are all a bit like Eli.
We get up in the morning and see the compromised person standing before us in
the full-length mirror and we say “We can get by”. For
another day, or until the end of the week or until our retirement. We can
avoid the wrath of others, we can avoid risk and we can avoid facing up to the
full measure of who we have become.
As my grandfather used to say: “It may be an ugly dog but
it’s my dog”.
But hold on a minute.
Let me remove the spanner from the works and show you what a real
hero looks like: Samuel enters the chamber of Eli a final
time. Eli asks him: “So? What did he say?”
The young Samuel prevaricates a little. He tries to sugar
coat things. Eli presses him: “Spare me nothing. Tell me
exactly what he said!”
And Samuel tells him. He tells him the whole story. He
leaves no words out. Eli sighs and leans back against the pillow.
This is what the old man says:
“It is the Lord; let him do what seems
good to him”
Anyone who reads the story will understand completely that Eli is
a bad man but, I’m sorry, it seems to this reader that Eli’s words are more
akin to Our Lady’s response to the angel Gabriel,
“Be it unto me, according to your word” (Luke 1:38)
than they are to Ahab’s dreadful cry,
"Have you found
me, O my enemy?" (1 Kings 21:20)
In spite of himself, his sons and his personal history, Eli has
proven himself a hero – perhaps “the” hero of this morning’s Bible readings.
In spite of what our children were colouring on Sunday, the witness of Eli's
words will be more helpful to us, here and now, than will sketching out the
progress of the young boy Samuel.
Samuel is precisely that - a boy.
He is a blank slate and none of us here this morning is that
person. To “locate ourselves in the story”, as we should always try to do,
would be to ask ourselves the degree to which we are able, in courage and acquiescence,
to cease being a block to truth and light by allowing that truth and light to land
squarely on us first.
Our contribution to the life of the Kingdom, to the health of the
Church, to the future of our art, to civic society, to the lives of our
children and grandchildren depends on just that. It what folks do.
It’s a thing which can be done. Much
depends on it.
God bless you.
You have everything to lose.
You have everything to gain.
The saints have shown us how to do it. Even sinful old Eli mustered up the courage. People do it all the time.
