What About a Call

Sermon

If you grew up in Sunday school (as I did), you might remember the story of the boy Samuel hearing the voice of God in the middle of the night. Maybe, like me, you got to act out the story of the shuttle between Samuel’s interrupted sleep and the snoring Eli. And then the final moment of enlightenment— “It is the Lord calling!” Our little hearts thrilled to hear Samuel respond, “Here I am!” How did you play it? Was it exuberant (“Here I am!”) or was it hushed and humble (“Here I am!”)? The story has such drama, can be played so many ways, and it always ended (in my Sunday school) with everyone wanting to be a prophet when they grew up.

Samuel was serving as an apprentice priest when he received his call to be a prophet. Unbeknownst to us kids, one of the hallmarks of a genuine call to prophetic ministry is a resistance to that call. Young as he was, Samuel’s resistance took the form of cluelessness. It took a nearly deaf and blind mentor to point out the obvious. The irony of this, of course, is that his mentor (Eli) is the very person against whom Samuel is called to prophesy. Eli’s disabilities are a convenient literary device to point out the nature of his problem, namely that he is blind and deaf to the egregious crimes of his sons. The writer makes it clear that Eli’s sons have been ignoring God intentionally. In the previous chapter we read that they routinely rape the women who come to worship at the Temple, they take the best part of the sacrifices (intended for the whole community) for themselves, and when Eli chides them, they engineer a cover up. But God is neither blind nor deaf and sees their crimes for what they are: blasphemy. To abuse and take advantage of God’s people in the name of religion is a crime more serious than felony. Imagine: mistreatment of the poor, ridicule of people with disabilities, demeaning women, starvation of children—in short, bullying people in the name of God offends God. In a final stroke of irony, the writer places Samuel and Eli in the sanctuary, where God is supposed to dwell, yet neither imagines the possibility that God could/would be present and speaking to them. The subtext to the midnight shuttling between cluelessness and enlightenment is the absence of God, but Samuel’s call highlights God’s persistence in seeking someone who can act as prophet to the people of God. Someone who will tell the truth about what’s going on. So maybe all that waiting paid off. In the words of twentieth-century mystic and prophet Howard Thurman, “Our personal spiritual practices are not for ourselves; they are for the world.” God seeking Samuel, seeking God.

It always feels a little creepy when Bible stories read like current news feeds. While the story’s front porch explicitly calls out God’s strange absence, the prequel provides us with a backstory of God’s faithfulness. Born to a pious and previously barren mother, Samuel is sent to be apprenticed in the Temple, thus conveniently placed in his actual bed in the very same room as the Ark of the Covenant and the Eternal Light. God may have seemed absent, but God has been at work. This is such a critical time in Israel’s history. Up ’til now, Israel had been more of an uneasy hodgepodge of local tribes, led by local judges and priests, with the periodic all-star judge uniting them against a common enemy. Once Samuel appears, he unites Israel around shared religious practices and meting out justice. The people begin to adopt a new rhythm of worship and work, codifying a justice for both the land and those who work it. Whatever else he was, Samuel was the leader of vision who braved the transition from the judges to the kings—a transitional leader for a transitional time.

You may have heard Church historians describe the rhythm of Church transition in terms of an every-500-years rummage sale. As if every five centuries or so, some major doctrinal upheaval takes place. The last big one was in the 16^th century with the Protestant Reformations. But ascribing that upheaval only to the Church is doing a disservice to the scope of things. We also got the Enlightenment, the printing press, and the emergence of a middle class in the 16^th century, among other things. Our latest rummage sale is about more than ordaining women and gays. We’ve got AI, revolutions in reproduction, more voices included in leading every kind of institution, instantaneous worldwide visual and audible communication, and pocket calculators with a square root function, among other things. Every element of culture is shifting, and I’m not just saying this because we’re in another election year. In my part of the world, the term we’re using is “global dark night of the soul.”

As far back as the mid-20^th century, Bede Griffiths could see this coming. Griffiths was an English Benedictine monk who went to India and founded a Christian-Hindu ashram. His vision of the future included a belief that there were three possible paths humanity might take. One path was that we would see the horror of what we had done and would change, thus saving creation. He didn’t think this was likely. The second path was that we would continue on our current trajectory and become extinct. Yuval Noah Harari (author of Sapiens) thinks this is the most likely outcome. Griffiths, however, saw a third path, in which the Divine would help us through a complete meltdown of society to a total transfiguration of community. A global dark night of the soul if you will. Many people are familiar with the term “dark night of the soul” as applied to individuals, usually classifying it as something like depression. But the spiritual community understands “dark night” as the necessary precursor for transformation, which might mean we are on that third path described by Bede Griffiths.

As we navigate this dark night, what story organizes how you understand what is happening? The book I read to the children, Cory and the Seventh Story, suggests that the old stories no longer work. Perhaps a global dark night is just what we need to move us away from the stories of dominance, of striking back, of shaming and blaming The Other, of isolating, of self-pity, of compulsive acquisition. When we look to a political strong man or a charismatic figure to save us, are we stuck in the story of dominance or self-pity? When we get nostalgic for some former so-called greatness, is this the story of hiding? When we detain people at the border, is this the story of shaming and disgracing? When we drink the Kool Aid of capitalism, is this the story of acquisition? In the words of Swifthorse, “The same six old stories steal freedom and laughter, so nobody lives happily ever after.” When Swifthorse offers a seventh story, it is one in which the hero is love. This is not a sentimental story. It is filled with grace. Eli has been living as if his life is already over when Samuel hears his call. Does Eli experience relief in judgment? Does hearing the truth enable the transformative work of his own dark night of the soul?

Samuel’s call story is not supposed to be an example of what we ought to do now. It is, however, “the way in which God works in the world.” God’s people are in uncharted territory, the future is not clear, and still God works. The question at the heart of this story is “Can God be counted on to raise up new leaders for the community of faith?” Is that not what we ask today? How is God at work even now? In whom is God at work? The emphasis is always on the new, life-giving work of God in the midst of negative times. Samuel’s call is to traverse and tolerate and brave the transitions. What is our call in these times? Can the community lead?

Brian McLaren doesn’t use the term global dark night of the soul, instead calling it a “dance with doom.” He writes, “When you dance with doom, doom changes you. But the dance can also change you for the better, leaving you more humble and honest, more thoughtful and creative, more compassionate and courageous… wiser, kinder, deeper, stronger… more connected, more resilient, more free, more human, more alive.” It’s the Swifthorse story of love. It’s up to us to make that story continue by the lives we choose to live. And that’s a prophetic call.