Created Anew: Finding Your Samuel Voice

01/17/21 • -1 min

Sermons from Trinity Presbyterian Church of Charlotte

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Created-Anew-Finding-Your-Samuel-Voice.mp3

Steve Lindsley
(1 Samuel 3: 1-20)

I find myself drawn this morning to the very last verse of our passage today:

And all Israel knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.

I think there are a couple of reasons why I’m drawn to this. For one, this isn’t a passage I read all that much, at least the second half of it. I’m betting I’m not alone in this. When we think of the story of young Samuel in the temple, we think of the part Rebecca read, because that is the part that makes for great storytelling and preaching. This back-and-forth between God and young Samuel, who had lived in the temple since he was a baby, left there by a grateful mother who was just glad to give birth to him in the first place; left there to be trained by the head priest Eli to one day be a priest himself.

I’m drawn to the narrative that unfolds in the middle of the night; of a young boy hearing the voice of God and assuming it is Eli doing the speaking. And Eli thinking it’s just a boy’s sleepy imagination running wild, until three times in when it hits him where this voice is really coming from. And so he sends Samuel back to bed with a directive to respond next time by saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

As a preacher and teacher I’ve tended to focus on just that first part of the story because the sermon or lesson plan that comes from it practically writes itself: the need for us to recognize God’s voice when we hear it, and to respond ourselves with “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

I’ve just never paid much attention to what comes after it. And truth be told, the way the lectionary presents it on this Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, it gives the preacher a bit of a pass. That second half of the passage, verses 11-20, it’s listed in parenthesis, which is a lectionary way of saying, “you don’t need to bother with this if you don’t want to.” So, I haven’t. Until this Sunday.

It’s certainly not the fun part of the story. Samuel does as Eli commands and God speaks to Samuel about things to come for Eli and his family. And it is not good. Eli, as wonderful a man as he was, as highly thought of as he was, is not unlike most of us whose families are far from perfect. Over the years, Eli’s sons had routinely abused their priestly power and privilege for personal gain. They took for themselves what they could simply because they could. Eli had long struggled with how to deal with his scoundrel sons because he loved them. And as we know, when we don’t hold people accountable for their actions, things only tend to get worse.

So the message God commands Samuel to tell Eli the next morning is one of reckoning for his sons. Justice will be served. I can only imagine the embarrassment this must have been for the old priest. It wasn’t like his sons’ behavior was some big secret. But to have your family’s dirty laundry acknowledged by God and voiced to you by your young protege could not have felt very good. And the reckoning – the knowledge that his sons, and family by extension, were facing consequences for their actions. This was not the best news to wake up to after a night of interrupted sleep.

Which brings us back to that final verse again:

And all Israel knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.

I’ve been thinking about that verse in light of the complete story because what I’m curious about is what exactly it was that led “all of Israel” to know that Samuel was a prophet. Make no mistake, Samuel was indeed a great prophet; the first one, actually, and one of the best, as far as speaking God’s word to God’s people. The great prophetic tradition with giants like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, you can draw a line through them all the way back to Samuel.

But check out the language here: it’s not saying that they all knew he would be, one day a prophet. It says they knew he already was. In that moment. And that’s what has me wondering, because in that moment Samuel was a kid. Just a kid. How could all of Israel look at this kid and go, “now there’s a prophet right there, lemme tell ya!” I mean, he didn’t even have facial hair yet. Isn’t that like a prophet requirement or something? And he wasn’t yelling or screaming or railing like we think prophets do. What was it that made it so obvious to everyone in Israel that young Samuel was a prophet?

Could it be that he spoke the word of God? I mean, prophets certainly do that. He gave voice to what God has commanded him to speak. Is that what made everyone see him as a prophet? Or could it be that God came to him and spoke his name in the middle of the night and woke him up, three t...

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Created-Anew-Finding-Your-Samuel-Voice.mp3

Steve Lindsley
(1 Samuel 3: 1-20)

I find myself drawn this morning to the very last verse of our passage today:

And all Israel knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.

Which brings us back to that final verse again:

And all Israel knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.

Previous Episode

Created Anew: Reckoning With Un-Creation

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Steve Lindsley
(Genesis 1:1-2:4a – selected verses)

One of my minister colleagues this past week shared that the first line of his sermon today was going to be, “I suspect I might make some of you mad today.” And when someone replied how that was an ominous way to begin a sermon, he assured them there was a second sentence following it that said, “If I do, it’s not my intent, but rather to speak to important things for us as people of faith, because I love you enough to talk with you about them.”

Even after eight years of us being in ministry together, I still feel the need to offer a similar preface this morning. Even though you and I know each other and trust each other, even if we don’t always agree with each other. I’m grateful for that trust. So I can tell you that, while I had a perfectly good sermon in the works for today, sometimes the world does its thing and requires a different word. I wasn’t sure what that word needed to be; so on Thursday Rebecca and I met to talk about it – we actually brought our walking shoes and took a few laps around the campus. And the question that guided our conversation – that guides all of our conversations about what comes from this pulpit – was what do we think our people most need to hear in this moment?

And by the end of that walk, we felt compelled to lift up a different word. Because, as our General Presbyter Jan Edmiston captured in her Friday blog post, “Jesus never said: ‘Let’s pretend this didn’t happen.’” We simply could not pretend this week didn’t happen. We love you too much to do that.

When it comes to our prayers and our preaching, your pastors subscribe to the understanding that it is possible, and in fact necessary, to talk about political things without being political; to dig deep into the complicated nuances of society and culture from a theological, biblical, and spiritual perspective.

And so even though it’s weird doing this virtually, even though it’s strange to say what I’m going to say and have no idea what’s happening on the other side of the screen, I trust you will hear this with the love in which it’s given. And if it makes you uncomfortable or mad, let’s talk about that. Seriously, reach out to me and let’s chat about it on the phone this week. And if you like the sermon, if you’re moved by Rebecca’s prayer, instead of telling us that, tell us what you are going to do because of it. Tell us what actions you’re going to take, what steps you will make, to be a more faithful witness to the love of Jesus Christ in the world.

So, with that, would you pray with me?

Almighty God, uphold me that I may uplift you, AMEN.

*******************

This past December, my wife hit the jackpot with a Christmas gift for our niece. Riley is every bit of 2 years and 10 months old; boundless energy and an inquisitive mind. She is, in this uncle’s unbiased opinion, exceedingly awesome. We ordered online and shipped to her Raleigh address these magnet tiles – flat plastic squares and triangles of all colors and sizes with magnets around the edges so you can stick them together in three-dimensions. And so on our Christmas Day family Zoom, when multiple Lindsleys were checking in and celebrating, Riley could barely be bothered with the distraction of human interaction. Throughout the zoom, she sat at the table, immersed in her construction work, occasionally pausing to show us her masterpiece before going right back to it. Her mother later asked where we got them so they could order some more.

There is something in the human spirit that drives us to create – to take what the world gives us and make use of it in such a way as to bring into being something that was not there before. Magnet tile houses. Music, poetry, art. A four-course meal. Ministries and programs. Even life itself. There is something deep in us that longs to create.

Our scripture today is the very first scripture, the story of creation, of how everything that is came to be. It is beautifully presented; the language reaching for something beyond. It is, obviously, not an eye-witness account. It was written long after the fact looking back and, in one of those grand moments of inspiration, finding just the right words in the same way an artist matches the perfect colors with the best canvas.

It is not by accident that the story of creation appears first – and it has little to do with chronology and everything to do with theology. The first four words of the entire Bible: In. The. Beginning. God. The authors of scripture were making a theological proclamation here. Before water and sky, before sun and stars, before plants and creature...

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Reluctantly Created Anew

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/r-sermon.mp3

Rebecca Heilman
(Jonah 3: 1-10)

It was a summer day, I was probably around seven or eight years old, and I had had enough of my older siblings bickering and picking on me. They were driving me nuts and apparently my mom too. While they were sent to their rooms as punishment, I hid in my closet listening and infuriated by everyone! Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? So, I grabbed a duffel bag and packed up a few important items – my beanie babies and my blanket. I peeked around the corner of my room. The coast was clear, and I snuck out the back door. I remember opening my arms wide, feeling the warm, humid breeze on my face. I was running away, and no one was going to stop me! I made it as far as our giant magnolia tree around 200 yards from our house. I climbed to the branch shaped enough as a recliner, hung my duffel on the branch and thought, yes, I could make a life for myself here. No siblings, no bickering, no nuh-uh I won’t be bothered here. I closed my eyes, reclined back and the guilt started to sink in. I didn’t last 10 mins before I was dragging my duffel behind me back up our driveway and into my room. Until now, my parents never knew. I’m sure we all have our stories of running away from or towards something. Maybe your story also comes from your childhood, maybe it’s a story from your adulthood, maybe it’s a story you’d rather not talk about. Whatever it is about running away, we’ve all been there in some shape or fashion, notes written or leaving the door hanging wide open behind us. Jonah is a classic example of a beloved child of God, running as far away from God and God’s call as humanly possible.

Now, we might expect more from Jonah if we knew the meaning of his name and his father’s name. Jonah means dove and throughout the Hebrew Bible, a dove is a sign of God’s peace. Jonah’s father’s name is Ami-ttai, which means faithfulness.[1] So, the first line of Jonah reads, “Now the word of the Lord came to dove, son of faithfulness...”[2] With these names and their meanings, we might expect an eager and willing prophet ready to go and do God’s work... that’s exactly what we do not get. Jonah is called as a, one tiny prophet to go to Nineveh, the most powerful, militant, full of wickedness metropolis of the Ancient Near East. And Jonah is supposed to tell them to turn towards God for change or risk destruction. Jonah instead flees and boards a ship in the opposite direction of Nineveh. While he is fleeing, a severe and dangerous storm crashes into his means of transportation. As Jonah sleeps through the raging storm, the captain desperately shakes Jonah awake and says, “Perhaps, your god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”[3] At this moment, Jonah still does not speak, Jonah still does not act. So, the crew cast lots and it fell on Jonah. They interrogated him, asking him question after question about what he has done to cause this storm and although, Jonah has been called as a prophet to speak God’s words, it’s not until this point that Jonah, the dove, speaks. He says, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land...Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.”[4] So, they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, yet, another opportunity for Jonah to escape God. This is when our children’s Bible storybooks show us that God used a large fish to swallow Jonah from the depths of the sea. And Jonah sits in the belly of the fish for three days bellowing out his prayer to God, “I called out to the Lord in my distress, and YHWH answered me. From the belly of the underworld I cried out for help; you have heard my voice.”[5]

If we are not challenged by Jonah’s story yet, more is still to come. The Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out upon dry land. So God spoke to Jonah for the second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city....”[6]

Covered in sand, dirt, fish guts, and probably embarrassment and guilt, Jonah trucks the three days to Nineveh, preparing with shaking knees to face the wicked Assyrians. One theologian writes about the great city, “Nineveh would have evoked powerful impressions of the Assyrian empire that dominated the ancient Near East as the ruling superpower...Nineveh remained for centuries a powerful symbol of an evil empire.”[7]So, no wonder, no wonder, Jonah, a small prophet, call by God was reluctant to go t...