SermonStudio

Theme For The Day
God's call requires a receptive listener.

Old Testament Lesson
1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
The Call Of Samuel

It's a classic biblical call story: the young Samuel's growing awareness that the call he has heard in the stillness of the night is real. While the call in the story is auditory, its very quietness and subtlety would have spoken to its ancient readers of a private, inner experience. Also worth noting is the fact that God is calling Samuel to a difficult, perhaps even dangerous mission: to bring a word of judgment to Eli, exposing him for the unfaithful priest he is. Samuel will of course grow to become one of the greatest transitional figures in Israelite history, leading the people across the divide between the era of the judges and the era of the kings. Possible preaching points are that God's call is often subtle, is typically sustained over time, and sometimes leads us to go to places we would not otherwise be inclined to travel.

New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Yes, But Is It Beneficial?

"All things are lawful for me," a popular saying of the day Paul is holding up for derision, sounds on the surface like it can be easily dismissed as a bit of narcissistic anarchism -- but in fact it is a commonly repeated statement, in this or as any other age. (It may, in fact, be a corruption of something Paul once said himself, perhaps amidst the controversy over Jewish dietary laws, which his opponents are now hurling back at him.) The ideals of freedom at the basis of our present-day society are among our greatest strengths. Yet they can also be a terrible weakness, especially when they degenerate into bumper-sticker slogans that include the words "The right to ______" (fill in the blank). Certain members of the Corinthian church, intoxicated by a sense of individual entitlement, have been brashly proclaiming that they can flout longstanding and time-honored ethical principles, particularly regarding sexual behavior. To them Paul issues a wake-up call, introducing a higher standard: "Yes, but is it beneficial?" What, in other words, does it do to advance God's purposes? Paul also refutes the notion of a "victimless crime," when it comes to what is today euphemistically referred to as "the sex trade." Yes, there are victims of this trade -- and the victims are not only those "sex workers" who are forced into selling, but also those customers who are buying.

The Gospel
John 1:43-51
Come And See

Unlike stories in the synoptic gospels of Jesus calling his disciples, in this case it is not so much Jesus discovering them, as them discovering him. Jesus has a distinctly laid-back approach to the task corporate America calls "head-hunting." Some of the evangelistic work is done by others, as Philip brings Nathanael to him (and Andrew brings his brother Simon in v. 41). Jesus' question "What do you seek?" (v. 48), displays his genius. Far from telling these men what they must do, Jesus opens a dialogue with them. When he finally pops the question, his offer, "Come and see," is more invitation than command. This is evangelism at its best. (Nathanael, by the way -- who is never mentioned in the other gospels -- may or may not be one of the twelve, in John's eyes. Some have suggested that he is the same as Bartholomew, but it's possible that John sees him simply as one of the outer circle of disciples.)

Preaching Possibilities

Today's Old Testament and Gospel Lesson deal with aspects of calling. In 1 Samuel we hear of the boy, Samuel's, personal encounter with God, that leads to his accepting his prophetic vocation. In John, we hear of Jesus' gentle, winsome call to several of his disciples (his call to Andrew, Simon, and another unnamed disciple was related in the previous pericope).

A sermon based primarily on the Old Testament Lesson will likely emphasize the personal experience of receiving -- and discerning -- God's call. The key here is to emphasize the ordinary nature of Samuel's experience. While hearing a disembodied voice in the middle of the night may meet most modern listeners' definition of an extraordinary spiritual experience, from the standpoint of Hebrew thought (which does not sharply differentiate between mind and body) it is a way of saying Samuel's experience was quiet and inner. Also, the experience was not so definite that Samuel could be certain about it at first; hence, his three visits to Eli to ask, "Did you call me?"

The very notion of "hearing God's Word" is one that has lost its edge for many of us. We have become comfortable with the Word of God. We have printed it on elegant, India-paper pages with gilded edges, bound those pages between covers of the finest, hand-tooled leather, and given the end product an honored place in home and church.

The name of God rises to our lips many times each day: in table grace and bedtime prayer; in thoughtless expressions of "God bless you," or "God willing" -- even in those meaningless (and slightly blasphemous) punctuations of speech, like "Oh, God," when the traffic light turns yellow, or "God, but it's cold today" (as though the Lord really needs to be so informed).

What a contrast this is to the Orthodox Jews, who write the name of God, "Yahweh," without vowels, so they cannot pronounce it, even accidentally -- thereby bringing down calamity upon their heads!

"The word of God may not be chained," writes the preacher Barbara Brown Taylor, "but you would be hard pressed to believe it on most Sunday mornings. We read scripture out loud as though we were reading income tax instructions to each other. Children draw on offering envelopes during the sermon; adults balance their checkbooks. If someone breaks the rules and gets excited by the word, there are plenty of other people -- including the preacher -- who can be counted on to calm that person down. We are old friends with the word by now. There is nothing to get excited about. You can buy dish towels with the Beatitudes printed on them. You can give Bibles to your children without worrying that what they read will upset their lives. What has happened? Have we hobbled the word because we fear the harm it can do?"

A thoughtful sermon on 1 Samuel 3 can encourage the people to take God's Word more seriously, as well as giving some who have already heard God speaking the permission to name that experience for what it is: a divine call.

A sermon based on the Gospel Lesson could accomplish some teaching about true evangelism: what it is, and what it is not. In the late 1990s, the Lutheran church conducted a poll, in which researchers asked lots of Lutherans how it was that they had happened to come to their particular church in the first place. Here are the replies:


2-3% joined because of denominational identity (longtime Lutherans, obviously);

5-6% joined because of a particular program or church event;

3-4% joined because of the preaching / worship life;

A whopping 80% said they joined the church because a friend or family member invited them, and the new attender could see the importance of faith in the friend or family member's life.


Jesus' gracious, gentle invitation is "Come and see." It's extended to every one of us, all the time. Always we are invited into closer relationship with him -- but the invitation is often extended through another person, taking the form not only of words but also example.

Prayer For The Day

Above the doorway of a church in London, a prayer has been carved into the stone:

O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship; narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride, and strife. Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children, nor to straying feet, but rugged and strong enough to turn back the tempter's power. God make the door of this house the gateway to thine eternal kingdom.

To Illustrate

"Not a very promising crowd," the preacher thought to himself, looking out over the pulpit. Only a handful had turned out to hear him speak -- even though he had traveled all the way to Scotland from South Africa.

The preacher's name was Robert Moffat. He was a missionary. That night, Moffat's "mission" was very particular: to find men, and bring them back to Africa, to the mission field.

Women, he wasn't especially interested in (this was the early 1800s, after all). The preacher would thank the women for their prayers and good wishes, but most everyone agreed that the hardships of Africa were not for members of "the fairer sex."

Yet, the fairer sex was all Robert Moffat had that night: and only a handful of them at that. To make matters worse, his pre-arranged text was Proverbs 8:4, "Unto you, O men, I call."

Moffat raced through his sermon, finishing early: trusting God to make something of it, somehow. When it was over, he departed: to the usual round of polite handshakes and smiling thank yous -- but not a single recruit to show for his efforts.

Or so he thought. Moffat had no way of knowing it, but his words that night would make an enormous difference in the history of Christian mission.

Unbeknownst to him, there was a man in the sanctuary that night -- well not a man, exactly, but a boy. High up in the choir loft he sat, waiting for the sermon to end, so he could do his job: pumping the bellows of the pipe organ with his feet.

As he waited, young David Livingstone could not help but listen to the preacher's words. It seemed as though they were directed to him alone.

Years later, by then a young man, David Livingstone would train as a doctor, and pack himself off to the most uncharted regions of Africa as a medical missionary and explorer. It was he whom Charles Stanley of the New York Herald would seek for months, and finally discover on the shores of Lake Tanganyika -- greeting him with the immortal words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

All this took place because, one blustery Scottish night years before, a boy had listened -- had really listened -- in church.

***


A man was watching his two small children, ages six and four, on Wednesday, September 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 atttacks. The television announcer said that the president was going to address the nation. The father said, "Now you have got to be quiet because the most important man in the world is getting ready to speak!"

The six-year-old then turned to the four-year-old and said, "You've got to be quiet now. God is about to speak to us."

***


In my class, as in any class, at any school, there were students who had a real flair, a real talent, for something. Maybe it was for writing or acting or sports. Maybe it was an interest and a joy in working with people toward some common goal, a sense of responsibility for people who in some way had less than they had or were less. Sometimes, it was just their capacity for being so alive that made you more alive to be with them. Yet now, a good many years later, I have the feeling that more than just a few of them are spending their lives at work in which none of these gifts is being used. This is the sadness of the game, and the danger of it is that maybe we find that in some measure we are among them or that we are too blind to see that we are.

When you are young, I think your hearing is in some ways better than it is ever going to be again. You hear better than most people the voices that call to you out of your own life to give yourself to this work or that work.
-- Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark (New York: Seabury, 1968), p. 28

***


Frank McCourt, author of the best-selling autobiography, Angela's Ashes, also wrote a sequel to that book, the story of his young manhood as a newly arrived immigrant in New York City, just after the Second World War. That book is called, 'Tis.

It is Christmas day. The young Frank McCourt is living alone in a rented room. It so happens that he's suffering from a chronic eye infection he's brought with him from Ireland, that makes his eye red and swollen all the time, and leads strangers to avoid looking at him. Because of the eye infection, he has trouble keeping a steady job, and so he's barely able buy enough food to eat. On Christmas day, McCourt -- overcome by nostalgia and longing for something better in his life -- decides to go someplace he hasn't been in years. He's going to go to church. The church he chooses is a fancy one on Park Avenue. Here is his account of the experience, in his own irrepressible style:

The People who go to St. Vincent's are like the ones who go to the Sixty-eighth Street Playhouse for Hamlet and they know the Latin responses the way they know the play. They share prayer books and sing hymns together and smile at each other because they know Brigid the maid is back there in the Park Avenue kitchen keeping an eye on the turkey. Their sons and daughters have the look of coming home from school and college and they smile at other people in the pews also home from school and college. They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in snow they'd be lost forever. The church is so crowded there are people standing in the back, but I'm so weak with the hunger and the long Christmas Eve of whiskey, glug and throwing up I want to find a seat. There's an empty spot at the end of a pew far up the center aisle but as soon as I slip into it a man comes running at me. He's all dressed up in striped trousers, a coat with tails, and a frown over his face and he whispers to me, You must leave this pew at once. This is for regular pew holders, come on, come on. I feel my face turning red and that means my eyes are worse and when I go down the aisle I know the whole world is looking at me, the one who sneaked into the pew of a happy family with children home from school and college. There's no use even standing at the back of the church. They all know and they'll be giving me looks, so I might as well leave and add another sin to the hundreds already on my soul, the mortal sin of not going to Mass on Christmas Day. At least God will know I tried and it's not my fault if I wandered into a happy family from Park Avenue pew.

***


Long ago, there used to be a popular show on television: a police show called Dragnet. It still shows up on reruns from time to time. The original Dragnet -- not to be confused with Dan Ackroyd's two recent movie versions -- starred a rather odd actor named Jack Webb, who played detective sergeant Joe Friday.

Dragnet was originally a radio show, and it had two different television incarnations: in the 1950s and then again in the late '60s. It gave our culture a wealth of catch phrases -- the most famous being "The story you have just seen is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent." Jack Webb, in his role as Joe Friday, is single-handedly responsible for the other Dragnet catch phrase everybody knows. When faced, as he often was, with a somewhat hysterical woman who'd witnessed some dreadful crime, Sergeant Friday would pull out his notepad, stare coolly back at her, and say in his trademark monotone, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Joe Friday's just the sort of person you'd want to have as a witness in court: on your side. He's cold, analytical, and utterly unfazed by extremes of emotion. He's dead-on task-oriented: a law enforcement bulldog who stays on the job till it's done. Sergeant Joe Friday would make the ideal witness -- or would he?

Joe Friday would be the ideal witness if the goal were simply to unearth the facts. But he'd be less than ideal for another sort of witnessing: the witnessing that leads others to faith.