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January 25, 2004
A Nightmare in the House of God
A Nightmare in the House of God
Psalm 3 / I Samuel 3: 11-18
Acts 16: 5-15
January 25th, 2004
Every family has its story. Indeed, when I hear folk tell of their families’ stories, once they get past the pleasant aspects, with sheepish looks they may tell about Uncle Earnest, or Cousin Amy, or Grandpa Snodgrass, or a son or daughter for whom life did not or is not turning out happily.
The movie “Hoosiers,” dear to all of our Indiana hearts, has a sub-plot of the drunken father who embarrasses his son. How kind and good was the addled coach who trusted him with coaching responsibility, trying to draw him to a better life. How much trust does to bring a person along!
It is comforting when we hear someone else’s story that lets us know the sadder and hidden details of our families are not unique.
Very seldom does the story of a family have the disastrous consequences of the family about which Tyler read for us this morning. Eli’s two sons were a total disgrace. Undoubtedly there were those who said of them as the psalmist wrote in the third Psalm, “Many there are who say of my soul, there is no help for him in God.”
They were reared in the home of a man to whom all Israel came when they wanted to draw near to God. Their God, you remember, brought their not-too-distant forebears out of Egypt with spectacular signs—ten plagues to loosen up the strings a bit, and then the parting of the Red Sea to let them through, before closing in on their enemies. Eli served in the name of this God.
But when people came to Shiloh to worship this delivering God, they had to contend with Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s two sons who were like Elmer Gantry of more recent ill fame. They used their priestly garments as cloaks for their misdeeds and as lures to seduce women.
Their miserable character was ingenious to devise evil. They seem to have changed the furniture of the sacred place to further their ends. We read about the “lamp of God,” which was still burning when little Samuel heard the Voice in wee hours of the night. This refers to the lamp-stand. We learn there was an Ark of the Covenant. In fact, it seems little Samuel may have been sleeping near it—can it be he was using the Holy of Holies as a bedroom, so casual was the treatment of the Place?
But we read nothing about the altar, essential to sacrifices. There must have been an altar there somewhere, maybe pushed into a corner? Instead of an altar people saw pots, caldrons, kettles and pans. We read nothing about these utensils in Exodus where the Tabernacle is described. Pots and pans were more convenient than a tall altar that these young priests had to climb steps to reach with their long-handled forks so as to get at their favorite cuts of meat.
The two young men would watch as people brought sacrificial animals. But rather than seeing folk coming to find relief of conscience they saw a gourmet meal. We read that “men abhorred the offering of the Lord,” which may mean that people who came to Shiloh dreaded what had become of the sacrificial system there.
Worse than this, these two young men, out of control, watched the girls and women who came to Shiloh and their lecherous imaginations went into gear. They seduced whom they could, without even disguising their intentions.
The tragic sexual scandals we’ve heard coming from the Church in recent years had ample precedent in ancient Israel. Only then there were no lawsuits filed, no compensation for victims.
The Lord chided Eli, “Why do you trample on my sacrifice and on my offering . . . honoring your sons above me?” So Eli scolded his sons gently. I hear his pathetic whine, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil deeds from everyone.” They did not listen to dear, spineless ol’ dad.
So we read this morning the Lord’s response. “I will do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone that hears it shall tingle.” God had had enough of Eli’s pathetic chiding of his sons. “I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.”
Now if you were preaching on this text this morning, having listened as well to the story in Acts where Lydia and her whole household were baptized upon hearing the Gospel, what conclusions would you draw?
We Presbyterians believe that when Lydia and the Philippian jailor are mentioned in the same chapter of the Book of Acts, it is to let us know they were baptized along with their households. It suggests that the covenant relationship that God began with Abraham continued after Jesus rose again, and the Church was born at Pentecost.
Abraham and all his descendants after him were to put on their sons the sign of the Covenant, and then to train them in the way that they should go. Joshua told Israel after they got into the Promised Land, “Make sure to keep all the law which Moses commanded you . . . this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth.” Moses had written to parents, “These words . . . shall be in your heart. Teach them diligently to your children.” We can only wonder if Eli did this.
Perhaps we should not judge him too harshly. There was no Sunday School then to help out, no youth fellowships, not even Boy Scouts to guide his sons into a decent way of life. For that matter, we read nothing of a mother in the home.
We are taught nowadays to blame a less than perfect home environment as the cause of people’s misadventures. In court trials, mitigating circumstances are part of the defense, and rightly so.
But what input did these two young men provide for the development of their disastrous ways? Did they catch on to dad’s excessive lenience when they were little boys, and discover that they could have their own way in larger and larger matters. At first, they wheedled dad into letting them stay up past a reasonable bed time, and it evolved into dad letting them do other things, even harmful things, provided they didn’t hurt anyone else—at least intentionally. Overly permissive parents may reap a tornado.
We look to find the blame when children turn out badly, and seldom come up with the right reasons. Why are so many stories of broken families reported in scripture? Why was Adam and Eve’s failure as parents preserved, that led to Cain killing Able? Why was Isaac’s conniving wife’s manipulation of Jacob’s character reported? Jacob learned to be a deceiver from his mother. Or why was the story of Jacob’s family preserved, that puts in full view his older son’s conspiracy to do away with their detested youngest brother, Joseph—selling him as a slave into Egypt? We take in stride these tragic stories
This last tragedy has a happy end. Joseph tells his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” And I’m tempted to take a cue from this remark Joseph made that applies very broadly.
God can take the tragedy of human failures and do remarkable things in the end. Maybe your life is a witness to this truth.
C.S. Lewis drifted into atheism for many reasons, among which may have been the misery of his dad’s bad parenting after his mother died, but he became so clear-headed in his faith in God that he was able to help many people come to trust in God.
Charles Colson’s blind ambition, for which he would have stampeded over his mother’s body to achieve his end, and that landed him in prison, was turned into a remarkable ministry to people in prison—and to many others through his passionate writing. God is in the business of turning to good the nightmares that we create.
Why does the Bible include the nightmare stories of failed people? Perhaps we parents are to find guidance, that it is important to accept the responsibility for training our children. Eli is a conspicuous bad example of an overly lenient father.
Perhaps children are to see here an example of what happens when they try to be cool. How did Eli’s two sons learn from their friends to treat sacred things frivolously? Sex was the plaything for them that it has become today. The parts of the story we are not told would fill many books.
But perhaps we are also to see a longer range view. Because of the failure of Eli’s sons, who traditionally had the calling to carry on the sacred work, God chose a little boy to guide His people. It is a story of God’s care, but also a story of how God will eventually give up on those who are determined to have their own way. How slowly the pages of history seem to turn.
It must have seemed like the end of the world to devout people who came to Shiloh. How awful to see the sacrifices desecrated. How unbearable to see the High Priest’s sons seducing vulnerable young women.
Nowadays there are people in the Episcopal Church who are wringing their hands. What has become of their beloved, ancient Church? Devout Presbyterians too have been wringing their hands for years. I suspect there has never been a time when there was not reason for devout folk to wring their hands. Though I’m tempted to say here that it is good for devout people not to over-evaluate their own sanctity. Spiritual pride grows in troubled times.
The Psalmist tells us, “a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it is past, or a watch in the night.” God is not thwarted in His good purposes by our failures as parents or children, as pastors, or bishops.
Eli died of a broken heart after hearing not only that his sons had been killed, but that the precious Ark of the Covenant was captured and desecrated by the Philistines. This need not be the end of every family tragedy.
God is in the business of restoring what is lost. God does not simply grind-out history according to decrees He has made. You and I are not teeth on the gears of history. Individually we are replicas of our Creator, precious in His sight. God can take what is broken and fix it.
Jeremiah the prophet wrote to God’s ancient people who were headed for destruction: “With supplications I will lead them; I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, in which they shall not stumble.” And God reaches out still in supplication to you and me when we recognize the direction we’re headed and desire to change. If you’ll let Him, God will take your broken or breaking life and fix it. You may feel yourself slipping into a pit. Bad choices are coming to you so naturally that you feel you have little control. It need not be so.
How does God fix us? Well, he works inside our heads so that we are unhappy. God has given us a will to choose well when we are unhappy. Start to make some good choices. Then use the means of God’s grace that He offers you here. Be in this place with an open heart every time you find the doors open. “You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your hearts. I will be found by you,” God said through Jeremiah. Do whatever seeking God with all your heart tells you to do. Listen to your longing heart.
Eli’s sons had no chance to change. Perhaps they had gone too far. But none of us who hears their story are beyond God’s ability to repair. That you are here today, in this place, shows that you still have room in your heart for God. What you do with this is another matter. We do wrong if we so emphasize that we are saved by God’s grace that we neglect Jesus’ call, “Follow me.”
We love to sing, “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me,” that suggests that God does everything, and we do nothing. In the end we will find that God’s grace indeed did it all, but that His grace was pulling at us, and it was as we allowed Him to pull us into the orbit of His goodness that we found the salvation, the healing for which we longed. Let God pull you into the orbit of His grace. Then walk in it. The walking is yours to do and mine as well.
Let us pray: O Lord, we trust in You, Trust in your grace, trust in Your ability to heal what is broken. Grant to each of us to know the impulse of Your grace, that we may find Your way and walk in it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at January 25, 2004 09:30 AM