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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 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2004
When God Speaks, Who Listens?
When God Speaks, Who Listens?
I Samuel 3: 1-10 / Acts 9: 1-9
January 18th, 2004
This morning I speak to you about a question. When God speaks, who listens? Asking this is a bit like asking who listens when EF Hutton speaks, as an old ad on TV put it. I don’t know if there still is an EF Hutton—but there still is a God. Investors wanted EF Hutton to speak, but does everyone really want to hear God speak?
I remember that the Book of Exodus tells us that God’s own people, Israel, did not want to hear Him speak. They told Moses, “You speak to us and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.” They didn’t realize that when Moses spoke to them, it was God speaking to them. We read the words of Moses in the Book of Exodus and say it is the word of God. When God speaks, who listens?
I think of the popular hymn, “In the Garden,” that folks in retirement communities love to sing, and maybe some of you wish we would sing too, “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
But I wonder who really hears God speak this way. Is it anything more than a songwriter’s poetic exuberance? We have just sung, “Lord, speak to me.” I wonder what we mean when we sing that. Is it more to you than singing a song?
You have heard two stories from the Bible this morning that tell us about God speaking to someone. Both times we see there was a life-changing response. I wonder IF Samuel and Saul did not respond would we be reading of these events in their lives? So that what we are to see is not just that God spoke to these two people, but that they responded. How many other times in Biblical times did God speak but nobody responded, so we don’t read that God spoke?
When and how does God speak today? Sometimes I hear zealous folk say that God spoke to them. I wonder what it was like and what they had in mind. Did they hear a voice from God, or was it only an inner voice, the voice of their imagination? Sometimes imaginative voices are mistaken for the voice of God telling people to do terrible things. Lunatics commit vicious crimes sometimes in response to a voice they believed was the voice of God.
Two weeks ago in our Bible study at the Work Release Facility, we read in the Book of Acts about Paul’s conversation with the Roman governor, Felix. Now, remember, when we read Paul’s words in the Bible, we call it “God’s word.” So when Paul spoke to this fellow about justice, self-control, and the future judgment it was the voice of God that Felix heard, though he heard the words directly from the mouth of Paul.
Felix thought it was only Paul speaking, but when we open the Bible and read about it, we read it as the word of God. Luke tells us, “Felix was alarmed and said, ‘Go away for the present; when I have an opportunity I will summon you’.” He was alarmed because God stirred his conscience. He didn’t realize that in putting off the voice of conscience he was putting off God.
Would he have done this if he realized he was hearing God speak when Paul spoke? We don’t read of another opportunity that came to Felix.
Though what you hear from someone’s lips will never make it into the Bible, you may well be hearing God speak today when you hear someone speak to you. I believe that the conscience is a sifting device God has put into you and me that lets us know when a voice we hear is more than the voice of an ordinary person speaking. What do you do with the voice of your conscience?
Henry Bullinger, an early Reformed pastor in the Church at Zurich, wrote, “The preaching of the word of God is the word of God.” He didn’t say this arrogantly, but with a feeling of high responsibility both as a preacher, and as one who listened to preaching. How do you listen to preaching?
You feel the collision between what is convenient, what you want to hear, and what is inconvenient and costly and points you in a direction you know in your heart you should go. But you don’t want to obey that voice. It is all so personal that you can ignore that voice and nobody else will know. But in that voice you heard God speaking to you only you didn’t realize it was God. In the reading from I Samuel we learned “There was no frequent vision” in those days. That is, even prophets and priests rarely sensed God was speaking so were not accustomed to the idea of God speaking. You will reap benefits if you respond to the insistent voice of conscience and pay a price if you don’t.
You may be like Felix speaking to Paul, “I’ll summon you another time?” But that “another time” may not come. It matters how you and I respond to heavy moments when we may not recognize that the voice that calls to us is not the voice of sentiment but the voice of God.
But let’s go back to Samuel and Saul who heard God speak and then responded.
In the first instance God speaks to the little boy, Samuel. In the second God speaks to an adult, Saul of Tarsus. Both Samuel and Saul heard a distinct voice in dramatic situations.
For little Samuel it was a voice in the night that he might have mistaken for a dream. He thought it was Eli’s voice, the old priest, speaking from another room. He ran to Eli’s bed and said, “Eli, you called me?” It happened three times. Then Eli, older and wiser, finally realized that God was speaking to this little fellow who had come to him in unusual circumstances. “When you hear the Voice next, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’.” The Hebrew word for listen also means obey.
And Samuel did just that. And thus, this little boy found his high purpose in life as he began to follow the leading of this Voice that spoke to him that night. I take it seriously when I hear a child tell me of her experience with God.
For Saul it was no gentle call in the night but a knock on the head in broad daylight. Hell-bent on doing harm to the detested cult of Jesus-followers, as he walked the long road from Jerusalem to Damascus he saw a blinding light and heard a voice thundering from the skies. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
That’s how our translators put the question Saul heard. But the Greek word for “persecute” also means, “follow” or “pursue.” Saul thought he was following the will of God in hounding the Christians. I wonder if God said to him on the Damascus Road, “Why are you pursuing me?” What’s your motive? There is this risk for all religious people. We assume that because it is a religious venture we’re on that we’re doing the will of God. How easily our personal agenda may blur with an assumed Divine agenda. I remember the Proverb that says, “There is a way which seems right to a man but the end thereof is the way of death.” Paul’s way seemed not only right, but the way of God.
It was in Saul’s question, “Who are you, Lord,” that he identified this challenging voice on the Damascus Road as Jesus’ voice. His life began to turn around on a dime. Jesus answered Saul’s question, “I am Jesus whom you are pursuing.”
I think of the line from Francis Thompson’s poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” “I am He Whom thou seekest!” Saul thought he was doing the will of God, trying to stamp out the faith of Jesus. But then God turned him around. He began really to do the will of God in following Jesus, not persecuting His followers.
The one good thing about Saul was that he took seriously his commitments. At first it was a mistaken commitment, but no one can dispute Saul’s devotion to the cause he thought was right—though it was wrong.
In all cases that I know about where God speaks, it comes requiring some kind of action. To hear God speak is to receive a summons to act, not just to ecstasy, as the song put it. “When God is near, so near I hear him speak to me, my heart is filled with ecstasy.”
You and I are here this morning rather than at home or at Panera’s sipping coffee because we believe there is a benefit of some kind to being in this place on Sunday. What is this benefit? We hope to hear a voice. Maybe the voice you want to hear is, “Peace, be still,” quieting the storm of your life. Maybe the voice you want to hear is, “All is well,” when you feel the years slipping by, and you wonder about tomorrow. God may be saying to you, “Peace, be still,” and “All is well.”
But maybe God has more to say than that. There is another word God is saying to you to which you have not responded. You hear the insistent voice that says “Forgive the one who offended you.” But you have responded, “Lord, I can’t.”
Or maybe God has given you opportunity to do considerable good, and you hear that voice insistently, “Do it!” but you resist because you think the good you could do is too much. It is more than you want to commit to.
Maybe you have habits of life, or habits of thought to which you cling, even as you hear the voice of conscience saying, “Don’t!” “Stop.” But you keep on, proud to be more modern in your ethics than the out-of-date guidance of Holy Scripture. And as you resist the voice of conscience, you forfeit the peace your heart longs to have, and you feel a drift of your life in a direction you know is not right.
You try to soothe yourself by coming to church. That’s good. Many stop coming, hoping to drown out the voice of conscience/God. You are still coming.
The uneasiness you feel is for a good purpose. It is preparing you next time not just to hear a voice, but also to respond. It is said, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions.” Good intentions, never acted upon, clutter life with pointless sentimentality. You read of someone who did something very useful and pride yourself that you can feel good when reading about a good deed. God is calling you to do something not to feel good about what someone else did.
God rarely speaks with an audible voice. Instead, God speaks in the clear voice of your conscience, a capacity in you He created for a purpose. The purpose is not to afflict you with painful memories, or to soothe you with sentimental thoughts, but to stir you to action.
God speaks to you when you read the Bible. Something leaps out of the story at you and you realize it has spoken to your heart.
God speaks to you when an opportunity for doing unusual good leaps before you. The Bible says, “He that knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Interestingly, it was James, Jesus’ half-brother who wrote this, perhaps looking back at his own early life in which he rejected His half-brother, Jesus.
Sometimes God may speak audibly to people. Maybe even in church. But I doubt that God ever speaks only to produce warm feelings. In the Book of Genesis God uses such economy of words in creation. Just, “Let there be light.” “Let there be a division between water and dry land.” “Let us make man in our image.” God speaks to produce a response.
Don’t put off doing what you have reason to believe is the voice of God in the voice of your conscience. Instead, follow that Voice of God with all you have and are.
Let us pray: Lord we have sung, “Lord speak to me.” And we have pondered what it is to hear You speak. Speak to us, Lord. And by your grace, give us Your Holy Spirit to invigorate us to do what we have heard You say. To our joy and to the glory of Your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2004
Samuel, the Example of Youth to Adults
Samuel, the Example of Youth to Adults
Psalm 2 / I Samuel 2: 11-20
I Timothy 4: 7b-16
January 11th, 2004
This morning I want to speak to you about a theme with built-in paradox to it. On the one hand we are taught to respect the wisdom that comes with age. But on the other hand, we read Paul’s words to the young man, Timothy. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example.”
Often we adults will piously remind one another that it is important to set a good example for the younger generations, but really, isn’t it true that we watch you young folk more than you watch us? How many young people go to sports arenas to watch old men and women play basketball? How many young people go to the mall to buy clothes like grandma and grandpa wear? Experience has something to teach but in the more visible aspects of life, the looking is mostly one way, from the older to the younger.
Apparently it’s been this way a long time, so Paul tells Timothy that in the inward aspects of life, in the place where faith and character grow, “Be an example.”
One of the oddities of the prosperous Western world is the way we who are getting older try to do away with the outward evidence. Hair can be implanted into bald scalps and gray hair can be changed to black or brown, red or blond, and only your hairdresser will know, well maybe! Tummy tucks, face creams, and fitness factories are available to banish the effects of time. But none of this satisfies us. We were made for more than taut tummies.
Time can be an enemy, not just in the weakening effects of aging, but in the gathering ill effects of unexamined thoughts and habits. In all the looking of the old toward the young I think we see a parable unfolding. Something has been lost inwardly that we know we need to recover. We’d like to be able to start again, so we look to the young. Some parents try to live their youth again through their children. (They are the bane of little league umpires—I can tell you from experience.)
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy. “Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” Set a good example in inward things with outward effects—in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
We give a lot of attention to the eroding effects of time on our bodies, but time has a worse eroding effect on inward aspects of life. We are more apt to notice the outward changes than the inward changes. Good manners become hostage to casual ways that are more often self-serving than thoughtful of others. We develop abrupt ways of speaking to each other. A husband and wife who once spoke to each other affectionately, gradually changed their tone of voice. Familiarity bred contempt.
Love, an out-flowing power, changes to self-interest. Faith becomes commercialized and politicized. One of the most poignant words in the Book of Revelation is Jesus speaking to the Church at Ephesus. “I know your works, your toil and patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles . . . but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The effects of this loss are widespread. How intentional is your behavior to someone you love. How casual you are to those for whom love has been lost.
It is often the case that those who are casual in their ways with God are casual in their ways with other people—and vice versa. The reason why the two great Commandments are given with love for God and love of your neighbor together is because we cannot love God whom we have not seen if we don’t love our brother (or sister) whom we see. Our ways with each other and our ways with God are of one piece.
Last Sunday and this we have read the beginning of the story of Samuel who became a great prophet and kingmaker for Israel. What has crystallized in my mind in looking at the early story of Samuel is that when God needed to reshape His peoples’ character, after it had been in the Promised Land a while, He took a little boy and set him before Israel. All eyes were drawn to little Samuel. His life began in an unusual way in order for people to notice him. It’s as though God said to little Samuel, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example.”
Samuel comes onto the scene in a remarkable way. When he was still a young fellow, according to Jewish tradition he was only two years old, he was brought to live in the home of Israel’s high priest, Eli.
It was a terrible place for a little boy to grow up. Eli had two sons who developed into scoundrels. Little Samuel watched these two young men day after day. Because they were born into the high priestly family, their careers were set. They were priests by birth so they would do the work of priests. Their work was holy. But see how they did their sacred work. They insulted the people who came to offer sacrifices to God. They cut off the best steaks from sacrificial animals, treating them as nothing more than a free source of gourmet eating. They used their influence to seduce the women who came to Shiloh on pilgrimage. How could this ever have happened? A drift away from the hallowed ways of earlier times.
I wonder about this. A conspicuous subplot in the story of Eli’s home is the absence of any mention of the mother. Where was the mother in this home? How often homes where the mother takes a strong lead do the children turn out well. Samuel’s mother is remembered as one of the great mothers of history, along with Timothy’s mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois.
But we know nothing about the mother of Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s two sons. Perhaps the very absence of a noteworthy mother in this home sends an eloquent and plaintive message about the importance of mothers who love God and love their children. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of mothers to a good start in life for children—and so for the on-going life of a people.
Eli, the father, clearly did not connect with his sons. He may have taught them the mechanics of offering sacrifices, but he left their hearts unaffected. Or, perhaps was there an insidious side to Eli too that the sons saw? We don’t know, but we cannot help but wonder why scripture tells us nothing of their mother. Is this a significant part of the untold story? What a home for little Samuel to come to after being separated from his mother!
I remember how C.S. Lewis summarized his stay in boarding school after his mother died, “Life at a vile boarding school is . . . a good preparation for the Christian life, that it teaches one to live by hope.” Maybe Samuel learned hope from the bad environment in Eli’s home.
One of the curious aspects of the story is how these two miserable sons of Eli seem to have changed the very nature of worship. When we read of the layout of the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus, it bears little resemblance to what we see in Shiloh. In Exodus we see that the sacrifices were offered on an altar in the courtyard inside the fence of the Tabernacle. The altar was elevated and the priests needed steps to reach the top. It had horns on the corners, symbolic of laying hold on God in prayer.
But in I Samuel we read of no altar, only of various kinds of cooking vessels into which pieces of the sacrificial victims were put. We read of pans, kettles, caldrons, and pots. What happened to the altar? These young men changed the furniture of the Tabernacle to separate choice cuts of meat so they could choose what they desired for their menu.
They had a right to eat from the sacrificial meat, but they demeaned worship, stripping away its purpose. It is a warning to us all in my line of work to keep before us that it is not just a way to make a living.
The sons of Eli had a tragic end. Their bad example was snuffed out and their lives became only a distant memory, while little Samuel went on to a life of service to Israel. When the people could no longer look to Eli and the priesthood for guidance, their eyes were drawn to Samuel. Little Samuel was to play a big role in the life of God’s people. When Samuel had to look for a new king to replace an older king whose life had gone awry, he looked for a boy. He found David, a shepherd boy tending the sheep.
Timothy in the New Testament is like Samuel in the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul looks to him as a young man to provide an example. Perhaps already the elders, the older leaders in the church, were failing in their example. The point of all this is not that there is little value to our example who are older.
Indeed, as I wrote in our last Faith Family News, I have learned much from the example of a number of old people. Carl Henry was a wonderful example to me of life-long pursuit of faithfulness to God. Indeed, I hope that all of you who are older will accept the mantel of spiritual responsibility, making choices that provide a strong influence to us all.
But there is a freshness to youth, an attractiveness, a freedom from habits long-formed that take away idealism. I would like to say to you who are young, we are watching you for more than you realize. This is not a weakness in us. It is how God shaped the generations. Jesus set His example as the Author of our Faith by the time He was thirty years old.
The message we hear from society --youth is the time to kick up your heels, to sew your wild oats. Weekends are to be exploited for whatever your peers say is fun. I don’t begrudge the delights of youth. I wish you happiness. But there is a deeper aspect to your life than this. The habits you form now will stay with you. The tendency of your thoughts now will pursue you. And we older folk need your good example:
Let me remind you of the words of an old man, somewhat cynical from the barrage of time.
Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw nigh when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’ (Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut, when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.)
Youth is a great gift to us all. We get rhapsodic about the “golden days in the springtime of our happy youth.” Do not waste these years. They are for more than for fun and education. Set a good example for us who are older and need refreshment.
But let me remind you who are more in my bracket of time the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Even the young shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”
Let us pray: O Lord, as we face the mystery of life, the zest of youth, the wisdom but weariness of old age, we ask for your wisdom to be ours, to use each stage of life you offer us so as to live for your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2004
Samuel, An Answer to a Mother’s Prayer
Samuel, An Answer to a Mother’s Prayer
I Samuel 1: 1-11 / II Timothy 1: 1-7
January 4th, 2004
Quite a few of you whom I know well have something in common with me. You have matters heavy on your heart, weighing down your mind day in and day out. For some of us the matters weighing us down have been around a long time.
You and I have prayed often. So much time has passed with no apparent benefit that prayer seems futile. Maybe you have stopped praying as a conscious act. But prayer is a reflex action even after we’ve stopped thinking to pray. In the kindness of God, the sighing you feel inside, He hears as prayer. Paul tells us that all creation groans. God hears this groaning.
Maybe your concern is a family member, a needy child, a sick spouse, your brother or sister who has not found their footing in life, or maybe a friend who has become your enemy and you haven’t a clue how to mend your relationship. Time has made the wound deep.
Maybe your concern is your own need, a disease of long standing, a dreary job you are stuck with, or a spouse who is a cause of sorrow. What variety there is to life’s sorrows!
The problem is complicated for us because whereas friends may be interested in new problems, they get used to long-standing problems. Everyone who has a long-standing problem recognizes how their problem becomes part of the landscape for other people. Think of how your prayers taper off after a while for needs others have that have been around a while. People prayed once for you as you faced surgery, but the surgery only complicated your life, didn’t fix it. But people have forgotten; it was a while ago for them.
All of these factors come into the picture when we think of the matter described in the story Dan Trinkle just read for us. Here we learn of a man who had two wives. Aha! He should only have had one wife! But bigamy was not uncommon in old Biblical times. The commandment against adultery had to do with taking another person’s spouse, not with having only one of your own. So we shouldn’t think ill of this man for having two wives.
The story quickly focuses on one of these wives, Hannah, beloved to her husband, maybe even a bit more beloved than his other wife, Peninah. Peninah was blessed to have several children, while Hannah was unable to have a child.
Her problem was complicated with family dynamics. The Bible refers to Peninah as Hannah’s “adversary.” This suggests that often in the course of the day Peninah would not so subtly remind her who was mother to all the kids running around the house. But we don’t read that Hannah said anything back when she was taunted. The years went by and this became the great ache of her life.
She felt useless in the home. She was someone to pick up after another woman’s children. Maybe Peninah would make sure Hannah didn’t get to “mother” her children, just do the dirty work, change the diapers, pick up the dirty clothes, do the laundry, clean the house, cook the meals. Peninah read the bed-time stories and helped with the homework, all the motherly duties that bond children to their mother.
Fortunately she had a loving, if somewhat dense husband. Elkanah loved Hannah. Each year when they made the trip to Shiloh for their special family commitment-to-the Lord day, Elkanah would give special gifts to the family. Maybe he gave a swatch of material for Peninah to make a new dress, and to the children a new toy. The gift he gave to Hannah was always a bit better than the one he gave to Peninah. Peninah noticed, of course, and it didn’t help the family dynamics. Blundering ol’ husband meant well, but he was hurting more than he helped.
He tried to console Hannah. He asked her tactlessly, “Aren’t I better to you than ten sons?” Maybe Peninah heard him say this to Hannah and her scorn for Hannah was intensified by jealousy. Maybe Hannah said, “Yes, husband dear, of course you mean more to me than ten children.” I think she was that kind of wife, inclined to minimize the stupidity of her husband’s gaffs. All the while in her heart she was saying, “Give me a break!”
They went to Shiloh then the center of Israelite worship. They made this yearly trip for reasons I don’t fully understand. It wasn’t Passover, a national feast. Apparently they went as a family act of devotion. When they made this trip, Hannah’s problem got worse.
You go to church hoping to find some relief from life’s burdens. But Hannah discovered that church made her feel even worse. Because Pastor Eli—then known as the High Priest—didn’t have the gift of tact. He watched the people who came to Shiloh. Hannah caught his attention as she’d been coming year after year. He noticed that every year Hannah moved her lips a lot but said nothing. So he asked a kindly pastoral question. “Hannah, why are you drunk all the time?” Very tactful. Very uplifting. He offered good, pastoral counsel, “If you’d get off the bottle you’d feel better.”
We see what a gentle soul Hannah was in how she responded to Eli. She quietly told him she was not a drunk. What seemed like drunken mumbling was her silent prayer. That’s why her lips were moving. She told Eli of the vow she’d made to God, that if He would give her a son, she would protect him in a special sacred way for God’s use. She made a Nazirite vow, a vow that had an outward sign. While other little boys got their curly locks cut after a while, she would not cut her son’s hair. He would be like Samson was back in the days of the judges. Samson’s mother also was barren, and when the Lord answered her prayer for a son, she claimed him for God’s use with this vow too.
“Oh, that’s what it is!” Eli responded. “Well, may God grant you your request. No hard feelings, I hope.”
God answered Hannah’s prayer. She had a son. But I want to leave the rest of the story till later on. Now I want us to think about why this story of one woman’s despair, hope, and faith made it into the Bible, and what it means for you and me.
First, it is good to remember that our Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible are set up differently. Our Old Testament divides into four sections—five books of Moses, a section of historical books, a section of poetry and wisdom books, and finally the major and minor prophets. The second section in which I Samuel falls we think of as the books of history. History we think of as a tale of what happened long ago. History is informative, interesting, part of the lore we are glad to know.
But the Hebrew Bible is divided into three sections. The books of Moses, the prophets, and the rest. I Samuel is the first of the former prophets. Instead of being merely a history of what happened a long time ago, I Samuel is prophecy. Here we find a basic difference between the ancient Jewish idea of prophecy and ours.
We think of prophecy as prediction. Prophecy is God foretelling the future. But the future and the present were connected for the ancient Israelites. A thousand years was really like a day, as the Psalm puts it. To speak of what happened yesterday, today, and what would happen a thousand years was like your telling about what happened five minutes ago, now, and what will happen in five minutes as one continuous story. We can feel the connection between events in the short-run, but find it hard to feel the connection over long periods of time. Recognizing God’s providence at work over the long haul was what made the Jews think of their history as prophecy. There are no books of history, per se, in the Jewish Bible. Events flow under the providence of God. It’s all an unraveling of the will of God.
Whether it be the present or the future, it’s all about what God is doing. When the ancient Jews included this story of Hannah in the books of prophecy, they intended people to see two things.
First, that the God who worked in Hannah’s life was a God interested in little people. God isn’t only interested in powerful and famous people, or with nations. God is concerned with every person. Every barren woman could find comfort in Hannah’s story. Everyone of you here today is important to God. Your story is parallel to Hannah’s story. Furthermore, Hannah teaches you and me the benefits of persistent prayer. Hannah was not passive. She took an active role in her destiny. She prayed. She kept loving her husband and being patient with Peninah. Think of this with regard to your situation. Have you given up? Are you bitter? Pray! Keep on ! Do what you can.
Second, that Hannah’s story is a slice of history in which the greater purposes of God are illustrated in one small person. The God who cared for Hannah in her private distress was bringing about great things through her. There is a message here for you and me. Live and trust God as though you matter. You think that your sorrow, your suffering is without meaning. You are an inconsequential bundle of nerves that is destined to hurt, nothing more.
Your life is a pivot in fulfilling God’s purposes. You think you are less than a pawn on God’s chessboard. The story of Hannah lets us know that what you and I see as less than a pawn may well be a queen in God’s game plan.
The toughest part of life is simply keeping on. Some people fall away because they get tired. God shows us through Hannah’s story that it matters that we keep on. Keep praying. Keep trusting. Keep on keeping on. God tells you this in letting you know Hannah’s story. You are part of the story God is shaping. It is important that you play your part in God’s story faithfully. You matter in God’s story. That this is true is illustrated time and again. Play your part faithfully because you are part of the story God is telling.
This morning we take the Lord’s Supper together. It is our first Communion in 2004. On this table you see two momentos of how important you are to God. God gave His Son for your good. He gave His last full measure of devotion to you when he let his body be broken and his blood shed for you. Trust that Jesus did this for you. You find it hard to imagine that this is so. But this is the stuff of faith. Faith is about little you and Big God, about your thinking you are not important and the evidence that God thinks you are awesomely important. Eat this bread and be thankful. Drink this cup and be thankful. You are important to God. You are important to others, and I hope it is clear to you when you are here. Now act, live as though you are important to God and to other people as you are. Let us pray:
O God, speak to us clearly as you spoke to patient, faithful Hannah in days of old. Let us hear your voice. Hear our prayer. Grant us our requests. And give us the grace to keep on trusting you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)