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Back in the mid-90’s during my last two years of seminary some upperclassmen friends of mine passed to me the distinct privilege of conducting the Sunday evening chapel service at the Masonic Home of Virginia. It didn’t take long for it to become more than just a preaching gig. As the community did not have a chaplain, I soon found myself de facto in that role, but not so much to the entire home but to those who attended the chapel service. They had found a sucker in me in that I was willing to come over and visit and what not.
The organist/choir director and my contact there was Frances Pugh, and Frances wasn’t just an organist and choir director. She was a church planter if I’ve ever seen one. She was always inviting people to come to the chapel service. She visited and prayed with people, and would send me to those who needed to see a minister due to something really major happening. Frances realized that most of the folks weren’t able to attend a church on Sunday morning because distance from their home communities, transportation problems, and health issues kept them from being. So, she set about trying to get residents to consider this chapel service and the folks in it as their church. She wanted to plant a church there (though she wouldn’t have said it like that.) and have it not just be a part of adjunct activities.
Well, something clicked during my two years there. Attendance at the chapel service went from being in the upper 20’s into the 70’s. There were even people coming who hadn’t really wanted anything to do with “church” before, but suddenly they did. The little choir of six or seven members became a big choir pushing 20 members. The Administration noticed and decided to do some accessibility renovating to the chapel to make more room for wheelchairs and finally installed a decent sound system. God was moving. Frances’ vision was taking hold.
For me, that was my first experience of having to preach every week in the same place. I was at a bit of a loss as to what to say week after week after week. I stuck to the lectionary much as I do today. Oddly, I found that the Holy Spirit had impressed upon me essentially four “words”, four messages, that no matter what the Bible passage was the sermon wound up being one of those “words”. They were resurrection, have hope, love one another, and keep praying. The people were hearing God speak to them and so they came back.
So, there I was having my first taste of ministry in the midst of the elder church at the Masonic Home under the tutelage of Frances Pugh. I was learning from them to listen for the voice of the LORD and speak it. Surprisingly, in this community of people who had lived too long (and if you’ve lived too long you know what I mean), who were losing sight and hearing and had myriads of other health challenges, who had left their homes and lost independence, lost dignity, who hardly had energy to get dressed everyday but still did, whose hearts were broken in grief; there, among them, God was still present and speaking and renewing and giving strength. A church, a part of the body of Christ, a community of faith was alive and vibrant in that retirement home…and growing. I got a real sense of how the elder church can teach the younger church to listen to God and to minister. They just welcomed this young guy into their midst and listened to the words the LORD had given me for them. I was 50 years younger than the average age of the people who attended there and I felt it was relevant to me because I knew God was working through me for them.
Anyway, that brings us to Eli and Samuel. Eli was the high priest back in the day. He was quite old. Traditional protocol had it that he would pass his priestly ministry off to his sons. He had trained them for it, but they were corrupted by the power of the position and used it to their own advantage. Eli knew what they were doing and it seems that for reasons of familial loyalty and fear of public disgrace, he did nothing to rein them in. Instead, he focused on Samuel. Samuel had been entrusted to Eli’s care and tutelage by his mother Hannah out of gratitude to God for giving her a child. She had been childless and was mocked for it by other women in her community and so she made a bargain with God that if he gave her a child, she would dedicate the child to his service. God gave her a child. They named him, Samuel in Hebrew means, “God has heard” and she kept her word. And so, we have Eli a very old priest teaching a young boy Samuel how to minister before the LORD in the Tabernacle.
Well, Eli and Samuel didn’t have the same experience that Frances and I had. The historian who wrote this book tells us, “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” Something was up, God just was not speaking to his people. Moreover, the historian says Eli’s vision was fading from what seems to be cataracts, but it would not be a stretch to say that the historian was really implying that Eli was going spiritually blind and we can add spiritually deaf to the list as well for as long as it took Eli to clue in that the LORD was speaking to Samuel.
This was not a time of spiritual vitality in the life of ancient Israel. Everybody appeared to be a bit spiritually lazy. Eli was lying down in his room. Samuel was also lying down, apparently in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was, resting. They are doing little more than tending to the ritual of it all. They weren’t up and about speaking vibrantly, proclaiming and teaching the word of the Lord. Actually, the one’s who were up and about looking dynamic were Eli’s corrupted sons who were abusing the ministry and the people and getting wealthy. For some reason, God wasn’t speaking the Word and so Eli and Samuel were just tending to temple rituals.
Yet, there’s a glimmer of hope here in our story. The historian says that the Lamp of God had not yet gone out. There was a candelabra in the Holy of Holies and it symbolized both the Light of the Presence of the LORD by which we perceive God’s presence and understand his ways and also the prayers of the people. The Lamp was to stay lit at all times and so it seems Samuel was there just making sure it didn’t go out.
It happened one night that Eli was lying down in his room adjacent to the Temple and the boy Samuel was lying on the floor in the Holy of Holies making sure the Lamp didn’t go out. Suddenly, the LORD called to Samuel, called him by name, “Samuel! Samuel!” Well, the historian says that Samuel did not yet know the LORD and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. We might say he hadn’t yet had his Pentecost, his brush with the Holy Spirit, an encounter with the Living Presence of the Living God (you know, what the Lamp he was tending was supposed to be all about.) He did not yet know the LORD so as to know his voice. So, Samuel jumped up and went to Eli thinking Eli had called him. “Here I am, for you called me.” Eli, and I can imagine him being a bit annoyed for having his sleep disturbed, says, “I didn’t call you. Go back and lie down.”
It’s interesting how Samuel mistakes the call of the LORD as being Eli, the old priest, wanting him to come and do something. I think that’s an endemic problem for young people getting involved in the life of the church. The LORD calls them to come and follow and serve and they think it’s to come and assume the “church” duties that the elder church can’t do anymore. Unfortunately, that can too often be what the elder church expects the younger church to do. You know, Eli had Samuel watch the Lamp because he was, in fact, too blind to see it should the flame die out. That is a very powerful image.
Putting it contemporaneously, Eli’s is too old to do “church” the way he’s always done “church” so he gets a young person to do “church” for him so that “church” can go on doing the same things it always has. The end result is that the young don’t come to know the LORD, to recognize his voice, and understand his call to them. They’re just feeling the elder generation’s obligation to carry on the duties involved in doing church the way the elder church assumes it has always been done. The next thing you know ritual replaces vital, living faith and ministry, and as Eli and Samuel both demonstrate, church becomes a good place to come and sleep. Sorry, I started to preach there.
Three times the Lord called Samuel and Samuel mistook it for Eli calling him. It’s a good thing God’s not a “three times and you’re out” kind of God. God stays persistent with us. Finally, after the third time, Eli clued in that Samuel just might be hearing the voice of the LORD and so he gave young Samuel a little “spiritual direction” on how to listen for the voice of the LORD. “Go. Lie down; and if it happens again (and that’s a very pregnant if. Eli is hoping Samuel hasn’t missed his chance); if it happens again, say ‘Speak LORD; for your servant is listening.”
There’s a significant change in wording there. This time Eli doesn’t say “Go back and lie down.” He says, “Go. Lie down.” This time it wasn’t “go back” to the routine of your temple duties. It’s “Go,” like God told Abraham to “Go”. This time going to lie down would be the means for Samuel to go forward into God’s calling. (I bet you never thought a good nap in church could be so life changing.) And so it happened. The LORD called Samuel to be the first of the “king-maker/breaker” prophets. It was time for a monarchy in ancient Israel. Samuel would be the first prophet to be God’s voice to establish the kings of Ancient Israel and keep them in line. He will his start as young boy delivering the word of God against Eli’s sons, definitely not an easy task.
So, what’s this got to do with us today. Well, for me my experience at the Masonic home under the tutelage of Frances Pugh was a good 25 years ago. I took seriously the lessons I learned there of listening for the word of the LORD and proclaiming it everywhere I’ve ministered. The vibrant ministry that happened at the Masonic Home also happened at my first church. You folks can say the same about the ministry of these four churches in the Coop. Back in the ‘90’s things were still fairly vibrant. But since, and I can speak for most Presbyterian Church in Canada ministers and congregations, it just seems like we are just struggling to keep the Lamp of God lit in our communities. Vibrant churches with a vision are not widespread and you have to be a little suspicious of those that are. It’s easier to create a cult of personality fed on populist drivel, nostalgia, judgementalism, and spiritual pablum than it is to foster committed disciples of Jesus Christ.
I still preach the words of resurrection, hope, love of neighbour, and prayer and I’ve added the call to be disciples of Jesus. Is it that like Eli went blind, I’ve gone spiritually deaf and I just don’t hear the “Word” of the Lord? Is it that we the faithful remnants of the North American Mainline Church just aren’t hearing what the LORD is saying and we’re holding back the younger church in our midst or just plain running them off by tying them down to doing church the way we’ve always done it?
I don’t know. But this I will say, notice that both Eli and Samuel were lying down, resting amidst carrying out that one task of making sure the Lamp of God stays lit and that’s when the LORD called Samuel. I think we are in a day when the “word” of the LORD is rare. God has been holding his tongue. He will speak again. In the mean time we have to keep coming back and keeping the lamp lit. In AA at every meeting they give the encouragement “Keep coming back” for they know that participation in that unconditionally loving, non-judgemental community is the path to sobriety for an alcoholic. So it is with us, the church. The community of faith is the pathway to the New Life in Christ. Christian fellowship is where the Presence of God is, where the Lamp of God burns. Be assured; there is a sense of “Go” here to what we’re doing, to our just lying around making sure the Light doesn’t go out. God will start to speak again. So, let’s just lie here and wait and when we hear the voice we know to say, “Here we are LORD. Speak, for your servants are listening.” Amen.
