Twenty years ago I participated in Mission Presbytery’s Lay Leadership Institute. Along with 11 other non-clergy members of Presbyterian churches in central Texas, I studied, discussed, and reflected on reformed theology, Presbyterian polity, and the church’s mission. (I’ll bet that sounds familiar to you deacons and elders who attended our leadership retreat in November, for that is what we studied, discussed, and reflected on.) Meeting Friday afternoons through Sunday mornings on 5 weekends at 5 different venues in our presbytery, we participants questioned, absorbed, pondered, and planned in community. About 2 months lapsed between each of our meetings, and during that time we planned and developed and began to implement individual projects that would benefit our particular churches.
Most of the other participants were retired, with adult children and grandchildren. I was the youngest. While I brought energy, enthusiasm and bit of restlessness to the group, others brought wisdom, patience, and a long-term perspective for their churches and the church universal.
Our October meeting was held at the presbytery’s beach retreat. I remember sitting on the balcony of my room that Friday evening, wrapped in a blanket because the breeze off the gulf was cold. I rested—listening to the waves rolling in, gazing at the star-lit water, basking in the opportunity to just sit and be. As mother of 2 pre-schoolers, wife, public school teacher, Sunday School teacher, elder, and children’s ministry chair; I was always busy. I never took the time to sit and just be. Perhaps it was this time spent in stillness and quiet which prepared me to listen that weekend.
The next evening, after a full day of study, discussion, and planning, several of us took a long walk on the beach. After awhile Andy and Paul and I found ourselves walking together—separate from the rest of the group. We talked about our lives outside of these Lay Leadership weekends—our families, our jobs, our hobbies. As I shared my experiences teaching math, Paul said to me, “Mari Lyn, you do know that teaching is not just your job. It’s your vocation. It’s what God has called you to do right now.”
It’s a good thing it was dark because I know the expression on my face clearly disagreed with him. God had nothing to do with my being a teacher. I went into teaching because in my senior year in college, I realized I could not stay in school forever. I needed to quit living off the largesse of my parents and start being a responsible member of society. I enjoyed school—being a student; perhaps I would enjoy school—being a teacher. There was a demand for math teachers, and I enjoyed math—well, until Differential Equations ate my lunch. By my senior year, I had a lot of college math hours. I had a job as soon as I earned my teaching certificate. That’s how I ended up teaching. Besides, how does teaching teenagers college preparatory math fit in with God’s grand plan? Teaching was not my vocation! God had not called me to be a teacher—or so I thought.
Andy agreed with Paul—saying, “Yeah, Mari Lyn, listening to you talk about your students—how you are available to help them outside of the classroom and how you provide multiple opportunities for them to succeed—that shows how important your students’ learning is to you. It shows how important your students are to you. I wish my son had teachers who cared that much about his learning. I wish my son had teachers who cared that much for him. I wish you were my son’s teacher.”
My teaching—in a public school—a God-directed path? a God-called vocation? I had never considered that—not until that conversation on the beach with Paul and Andy. Over the next days, weeks, and months, I kept hearing Paul’s words “Mari Lyn, you do know that teaching is not just your job? It’s your vocation. It’s what God has called you to do right now.” Sometimes it takes someone else—someone other than ourselves—to help us recognize God’s direction in our lives. Sometimes we need someone else to hear God for us. Sometimes when God calls, we need others to help us discern what God is leading us to do.
That’s what happens in our text today. The youth, Samuel, hears a voice, and is able to recognize it as God’s voice only through the help of Eli. Of course at first Samuel did not realize it was God speaking to him. After all, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” In those days—in ancient Israel, only priests mediated the presence of God with the people, and all priests were Levites, descendents of Moses’ brother, Aaron. In those days, at Shiloh, the Levite, Eli was the priest who proclaimed God’s word to the people. Eli’s sons—not Samuel—were heirs to this priestly role. Samuel was just a boy whose mother Hannah—out of gratitude for his long-hoped for birth, had dedicated him to God and had brought him to Shiloh to serve Eli. Samuel was a servant of Eli, not a servant of God. He lived in the tabernacle because his mother took him there, not because God brought him there—or so Samuel thought. It took someone with whom he had a close relationship—it took Eli—to help him realize God was speaking to him. Samuel heard a voice. Eli discerned it was the voice of God.
And what about Eli? Here is a man who was already a priest of God, a man who expected his sons and grandsons and great-grandsons to continue mediating God’s presence among the people, but God is calling someone else. Eli could have been angry that God had chosen another. He could have refused to identify the voice Samuel was hearing as God’s. Here is a man whose senses of sight and hearing are losing their edge. He could have closed his eyes and his ears to God’s presence there —to God’s presence with Samuel. Here is a man coming to the end of his years. He could have decided he was too tired to mentor Samuel—for surely he knew that in revealing God’s call upon Samuel’s life, he would be taking on the task of preparing him—preparing Samuel to hear and proclaim God’s word to the people, preparing Samuel to mediate God’s presence among them.
In order for God’s plan to unfold in this call story, both Eli and Samuel must respond faithfully. To hear and obey God’s word, both Eli and Samuel need to trust—to trust each other and to trust God. To experience God’s presence, both Eli and Samuel need to listen—to listen to one another and to listen for God. To respond to God’s word, both Eli and Samuel need to act. God’s plan unfolds within community, and in today’s text, community is the relationship between Eli and Samuel.
God’s voice can be and is heard by individuals, but it is confirmed within community. Within community—among one another, connected by the Holy Spirit. It is within community that God’s voice is heard, God’s plan is understood, God’s call is followed, and God’s will is obeyed.
Sometimes it takes someone else—someone other than ourselves to help us recognize God’s direction in our lives. Sometimes we need someone else to hear God for us. After my conversation on the beach with Paul and Andy, I viewed my teaching from a different perspective. No longer was it the job I had chosen. Instead it was a God-inspired opportunity to be a blessing in the lives of my students and my colleagues. I began to realize I had a gift for teaching. My conversation with Paul and Andy on the beach helped me turn the knob to open the door—just a little bit—to the possibility that God had a call, a purpose, a plan—for my life.
The insight, encouragement, and affirmation of others help us recognize God’s hand in our lives. This week I invite you to take some time from doing—and spend some time being—being in God’s presence—in prayer, in reading or meditating on scripture, in quiet reflection—spend some time just being. In this time, I invite you to—metaphorically or literally—say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” I invite you then to listen for God’s word to you. Reflect on how and to whom you might be an Eli—revealing God’s presence or God’s plan in someone else’s life or in the life and ministry of this congregation. I invite you also to envision how you might be a Samuel—one who listens to the insight of another, one to whom God speaks, one who responds to God’s direction for your life. This week, I invite you to listen—so that God may reveal God’s self to you and through you—through each one of you—God may reveal God’s plan for this congregation.
Let us pray. Loving and guiding God, may we not only hear your word, but also discern your will, and respond with faith and courage. Amen.
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