Samuel.
Here I am.
Samuel.
Imagine.
A boy. Alone.
In a cold room.
Not alone. Not dark. Not really.
There is a dim lamp, still just burning. It hasn’t gone out yet.
So you can see, a glimpse, of what else is in the room. What else is in that room, but not in any other.
The Ark of the Covenant.
Alone. But not alone.
There is a voice.
It is not the voice of the old man. After all.
He heard the voice three times. Three times the old man said, I did not call you, go back to sleep. He tried. But the voice persisted.
Samuel.
And the old man finally understood.
This old strange room where nothing unexpected happened, not for a long time. Where the routine had gone on for a long time, as if it would matter. Routine duties performed routinely.
The boy had learned the routine. He had routine duties, chores. Later that day, when it was day, he would open the door. Perhaps he swept the place out. Found oil for the lamp. Cleaned up after the sacrifices. But nothing happened. Nothing unexpected. Nothing unwanted. It was not as if the LORD were really there. Was it?
Samuel.
And the old man understood.
It was the LORD. The LORD was calling the boy.
It was not calling the old man, the high priest, or his wayward sons, his heirs to the post. No, his family was done.
This was something new, and very old.
Take off your shoes for this is holy ground.
Here in this dark room in the middle of the night, where you might most expect it, and expected it the least.
It had been a long time since anyone had heard from God, and God had heard from anyone.
But now,
Samuel.
And so the old man said, say something back. Say, here I am, LORD, your servant is listening. And the boy did.
And so it began. The LORD had something to tell him that day. A message for him to pass on. Something not so pleasant, but something true. And the boy said it.
And it came to pass. And the boy grew up, and continued to say, and do, the things the LORD commanded, pleasant or no.
Among other things he anointed a king. He found a young man, the youngest of eight brothers, and brought him out from among the flock he had been tending, and – from now on you will be shepherding people.
Centuries later it was just a story. A good story, but nevertheless. Shepherding people. Where was that shepherd king now? Now that we needed him. But what we had was an occupier. A terrifying overwhelming military force. There was no king, but Caesar.
Was there?
“We have found him.”
We have found the anointed one, the one to take the place of that ancient story. We have, and you should come see.
There were people by the side of a lake, mending nets. And to them came the man. From now on you will be fishing for people.
That ancient story was not so ancient anymore. The boy who had been tending sheep was pulled away to be king. The people who had been mending nets were pulled away to serve a king.
Not a king like any other, of course. Not one you could quickly see, as king. He was an ordinary man, maybe good looking (as that young shepherd had been), probably sweaty from hard days working as a carpenter’s son. Calloused hands. Dirty feet.
Compelling voice.
Not “Samuel” this time. But names came nevertheless.
“Philip.” “Nathanael.” And “James” and “John” and “Andrew” and “Peter” and all the rest that followed.
Follow me, he said. Follow me, and the world will change.
Follow me, and your life will change.
And from that, all else will follow.
Come and see.
And from that all else would follow.
Those simple fishermen, as the song says, were the first.
The first of many, from that small group of people, men and women and children in small villages by a small sea, and in the hills around, the message would spread.
And become dangerous. And change things.
We should not be afraid, should we, if one small boy who slept in the dark cold strange sanctuary of the forgotten God, was not afraid, not afraid enough not to answer.
We should not be afraid, should we, if a couple of guys hanging out by the beach a man approaches and says, I know what you were doing, I saw you, and now I call you.
We should not be afraid, should we, if the sanctuary lamp is nearly out, but not yet, if the occupation troops are nearby, if the Messiah has been expected for two thousand years, to come back, to us, in the silence of the midnight temple, in the glare of the lakeside beaches, in the simple moments of ordinary lives, made extraordinary, by that calm voice calling once more, should we?
Should we then be afraid if like old Eli we do not hear the voice, if like others we do not see the man, or hear his call, or have him come to us along the lakeshore as of old?
We should not be afraid, should we, if we simply have the message, the news, the need, to be the ones to follow?
Our task, our calling, our charge, is not so simple, or so scary, as the calling of Samuel in the Temple, David in the fields, or the disciples at the lakeshore. Perhaps. We are not often called to leave everything, at once or over time, that we have known, to strike out in a new direction, with new responsibilities and burdens.
Sometimes a new calling would be a relief. Leave those nets un-mended, leave those sheep untended. Let that lamp go out. Drop everything and just – go. Light out for the territories. Pump the gas, fill the tires, wipe the windshield, and throw away the map.
But it does not always work that way, does it? Perhaps not even for those disciples, those followers, that prophet, that king.
Samuel still had to sweep the temple, open the door, tend the lamp. But now he also had to tell the truth, the uncommon truth, uncomfortable truth, that he had to tell.
David could leave the sheep on the hill, but now he had to put up with Saul, with the onerous scut work duties of an apprentice king who could not call himself king or reveal himself king – if he knew himself that was his calling.
Philip, Nathanael, Andrew, Peter, James, John – they had a task to learn, a duty to fulfill, one no one had done before. Nobody had been in this situation before. The Messiah had not come before. (Keep it quiet!)
Nobody has been in our situation before either.
The lamp kept trimmed and burning, or sputtering out. The people demanding a king who get a shepherd boy.
The fishermen who expect nothing good out of Nazareth.
Would not we like they like things to be the way they were before? Before the pandemic, before the lost job, before the fall, before the call? But we too are called, perhaps not so simply or dramatically, perhaps not all at once, perhaps not so painfully, but we are called, too, to follow, as the first disciples were, to tell the truth, as the prophet was, to look after people, as the shepherd was.
All of those, all of their duties and callings, are in us too, as the people of God. Together we have all those duties, those callings, and more: we have the tasks before us for our day.
How will we tend his sheep, fish for people, tell the truth?
That is our challenge, to find out, and follow, today.
