“Call and Response”

Do you remember that old commercial (I think it was for a sleep aid) that showed the husband flicking on the light and saying, "Honey? Are you awake?" And his wife replies, "I am now!"   In today’s reading, young Samuel keeps tossing and turning all night, then gets up and runs to old Eli saying, "Are you awake?" And all Eli can say is, "I am now! Go back to sleep, kid, you're hearing things!"  It takes a while—three times--before even the experienced old holy man Eli realizes that God is the one speaking to Samuel.

As a child, I can remember waking in the night-with vivid imagination and often with fears.  When I grew up, those wee hours of the morning became the time I wake and wrestle with thoughts, ideas and concerns.  In my first pastorate, I had a long period with bouts of insomnia, so that I sought out a number of tools to help me sleep.  One of the most helpful suggestions was the idea that maybe God was speaking to me in the night, and maybe the best thing to do would be to listen.

A couple of years ago, the United Church of Christ denomination did a series of advertisements for their church.  Their simple and memorable slogan was “God is still speaking!”   The thing is:  Are we listening?

And if we are listening, in those dark, vulnerable hours before morning, perhaps it’s difficult for us to say: "Here I am."  Difficult, because we’re not really ready for God to come into our rooms and our dreams and our lives.

Okay, God, we’ll get up and show up to church on Sunday morning, we’ll pledge our money and even serve on a committee, but please, please!  Don’t call on us in the middle of the night, or in our businesses or our marriages or our friendships.   We’re just not ready for that!

Unless you were a religion major or seminary student, you may never have given much thought to God’s “call” in your life.  But in the Reformed tradition (which Presbyterians are—“a priesthood of all believers”) we are all invited to listen to how God may be speaking to us.  It may be vocation in what we do for a living.   But it’s more than that.  Vocation may be about the direction of our life choices.  Or vocation as a parent, or as a partner.  Perhaps vocation for us as a congregation.

The word “vocation” comes from Latin, vocare, and means to call.  Vocation is the belief that God has created each of us with gifts and talents (and a passion) toward specific purposes and way of life.

Last weekend, Westminster’s women’s book group discussed author Abraham Verghese’s novel:  Cutting for Stone .   In it, Marion, the main character says:  “We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky, we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and found my purpose and it was to be a surgeon.   My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself.  .  .   I chose the specialty of surgery because the Matron once asked me, “What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?”
“Why must I do what is hardest?”
 “Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God.  Don’t leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son.  Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for Three Blind Mice” when you can play the Gloria?
“But Matron, I can’t dream of playing J.S. Bach’s Gloria.
 “Not Bach’s Gloria.  Your Gloria lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”

Are we listening?  What has God made possible in us?

Often, what God makes possible in us is in response to the world’s needs.   It happened for Samuel, in a time when “visions were rare”.  It was a time of corruption and injustice.   Fortunately, with some help from Eli, Samuel not only listened to God, but responded.   Even when he had a very difficult message to deliver to his mentor, Samuel responded.  It happened with Dr. Martin Luther King.  Our nation was in sore need of prophetic leadership.  And Dr. King led the way, listening to God and responding.

Someone said to me recently, you know that you’re responding to God’s call when you’re feeling nearly equal measures of joy and terror!

After years of choral singing, a couple of years ago I began to sing in solos and duets with my choir.  During one of our performances, in a duet,  I blundered and came in at the wrong time.  (The other soprano was very reassuring: “Well, we didn’t crash and burn!”)  But that mixture of joy and terror is very real in me at every audition and performance.  And yes, I do feel called to continue to do it!
What has God made possible in us?  And what blocks us from saying “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening?”

A wise person said “Fear is no way to decide your life.”

One of my favorite books of all time is The Lord of the Rings.  Frodo, a peace-loving Hobbit lives a very comfortable, predictable life.  But he leaves that comfort behind when he responds to a call to destroy a powerful ring.  This call involves a long and extremely dangerous journey, and the likelihood that Frodo will not return alive. At one point, Frodo expresses his fear and his wish that the ring had never come to him. Gandalf, the wizard, tells Frodo, "We cannot choose the time we live in. We can only choose what we do with the time we are given."

What has God given us to do in this time?  Are we listening?

Vocation is not just about what we do for a living.  It’s where our joy meets need in the world.  Maybe the joy of weekly volunteering in a kindergarten class or preschool.  Or using a camera to catch and share moments of wonder and beauty.  Or creating beautiful meals to nurture and  share with others.  One thing is sure:  if we are to respond to God’s call, first we must listen.

Yesterday, a group of over fifty leaders from Westminster, elders, deacons and pastors, gathered for our annual retreat.  The Neels are showing us a three-part vision that invites us to provide hospitality so that all generations feel welcome in worship;  to deepen our faith; and to connect individuals and families to mission and service.  Some of our conversation was about the fear that blocks action and creativity.
Dr. Martin Luther King, said: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

In speaking of their call, most people do not describe a major disruption in their lives. Call may be a quiet, slow awakening−perhaps to a life of service or an injustice that needs to be addressed.  Like Samuel, we may experience a period of uncertainty regarding what we are being called to do or be. Also, Samuel needed Eli to explain what these stirrings mean.   It often takes others in our lives to aid us in understanding the call God places before us.   It’s one of the important gifts of our faith community:  we can listen to each other, and together, discern what God may be saying to us.

God is always the God of surprises.  Samuel wasn’t expecting to hear God’s voice.  God's call comes when we least expect it.  We, as the church, need to be like Eli, encouraging everyone to hear the voice that calls them forth into all they are created to be. At the same time, we help each other to tell the truth, even when the truth is hard to hear.

Prayerful listening often leads to prophetic proclaiming.  In a Bible commentary on this passage, Luke Powery noted that for Dr. Martin Luther King, “Hearing God’s voice was critical for his prophetic witness. In January 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott, he received a threatening phone call late at night. He couldn’t sleep. He went to his kitchen and took his “problem to God.” He was at a breaking point of exhaustion and about to give up. He spoke to God and later he wrote that he experienced the Divine and “could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.”

God still speaks.

How would our lives change if, like Samuel, we listened for God?  What if we allowed ourselves to be silently drawn by the strong pull of what we love?  What, for this congregation, is the “Gloria” that lives in us, waiting to be played?  How would that touch and shape us  and the world?