Call Waiting

1 Samuel 3:1-20         Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.” Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.
John 1:43-51  The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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The other day when Kim was reading the paper he mentioned to me that there are two new micro-breweries in Dayton.  Craft beers, is how the paper referred to them; places where the beer is brewed in small batches and sold on site.  This is something that has been very popular for a number of years in Bloomsburg, the small town in Pennsylvania we came from.  I would never say Bloomsburg is the kind of place that’s on the cutting edge of culture, but in this case … maybe.

I said to Kim that this idea seems to be something that is taking off in Dayton these last couple of years.  He looked up from his paper and said you mean it’s finally coming to the Midwest. 

Well, I speak as a Midwestern native when I say this: yes, of course, we take our time with new things – isn’t that what sensible people do?  You don’t just want to jump on every bandwagon that passes by, do you?  You wait to make sure it’s going to work – that’s the prudent thing to do.  You take your time, think about it for a while, then – maybe – venture into the waters.

In technology they use the term “early adopters” for those people who will be the first ones to buy the newest technological gadget.  I guess we need those people, but I can’t for the life of me understand what motivates them.  Why be the first one to have the new thing?  You pay more for it, you have to figure out how it works, and you end up being stuck with working out all the kinks because the first generation of any new tech gadget is always full of kinks.  Maybe they get a kick out of people constantly stopping them to ask them, “what is that thing you have around your head, in your ears, on your wrist – what is that space-age thing?” and then having to explain this new, new thing to the rest of us luddites.   

There might be a certain attractiveness about this for some people, but I think most of us are more cautious.  We want to have a reasonable amount of certainty that it’s going to be the right thing before we step out into it.  We have more of the nature of Doubting Thomas, asking for proof, than that of Peter who is ready to leap out of the boat to walk on water.

In this story from John about the call of the first disciples, we might find that we can identify with Nathanael – the one who is skeptical.  He seems a world apart from his buddy Phillip.  The story says Phillip meets Jesus and Jesus looks at him and says, “Follow me.”  So Phillip then turns around and says to Nathanael, “Hey, we found him – the Messiah, the one we’ve been waiting for.”

Early adopter – that’s what Phillip seems to be.  Nathanael, on the other hand, is more the cautious Midwesterner, guided by common sense.  Using what knowledge he has of Jesus, which is nothing, except that he comes from Nazareth. 

Now what do we know about Nazareth?  Nazareth may have been some backwater hick town.  That’s been the conventional wisdom for quite some time.  But if you attend our adult Sunday school class, where we’ve been watching the PBS program From Jesus to Christ, you know that the more recent thinking, based on newer archeological findings, is something different.  Nazareth was near a rather sophisticated city called Sepphoris, which dominated the region.  And Sepphoris was, apparently, a hotbed of radicalism – full of hippies and protestors and troublemakers of every sort. 

So maybe you would agree with Nathanael when he says, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? 

We know that a new thing is not always a welcome thing – even if it is coming from God.

It was certainly not a good and welcome thing for the boy Samuel and the priest Eli and his family.  When the call came in the night, Samuel had no idea what this was, because the word of the Lord was so rare, so unknown, in those days.  It was as though the Lord had stopped speaking to them, the Lord had stopped appearing to the people of Israel.  It must have been a barren time, a dark time.

It was a dark time in the life of Israel when Samuel was a boy serving in the temple with Eli because the future was so uncertain.  The word of the Lord was rarely heard, and the sons of Eli were probably not in any position to hear it if it should occur.  The traditional custom in Israel would have been for Eli’s sons to learn the ministry of the priesthood from their father and take over when he became too old to carry out his duties.  But Eli had somehow failed to train his sons in the ways of righteousness.  Maybe it wasn’t his fault; maybe they were just bad kids.  Maybe they were just ordinary kids who had been thrust into a position they were not well suited for. But it didn’t really matter why.  It didn’t matter whose fault it was – the priesthood of Israel, their direct link to the Lord, was in danger of becoming extinct.  Eli knew this somewhere in his heart.  The people of Israel surely knew it.  It was a dark time in Israel.

And when the word of the Lord came to the boy Samuel, and he didn’t even know what he was hearing (he thought it was the voice of Eli calling to him), it was because the Lord found a ready and willing ear.  Each time Samuel heard his name he replied, “Here I am.” And when he finally realized who was addressing him, he obediently replied, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

You know, when we read this story in church we usually stop at that point.  We stop after Samuel says, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” because that’s such a nice place to end.  We are left with an inspiring and uplifting message.  Yes, Lord, here I am, Lord.  I would do the same thing, we think.

But let’s go on, read the rest, and stick a pin in the balloon.  It’s not what we were expecting.  It surely wasn’t what Samuel was expecting.  He didn’t know what he was about to hear when he gave the Lord his full attention.  If he had known, he might have ignored the call, because it wasn’t welcome news. 

The news was that things were going to have to change.  The news was that the people who were sitting in the seat of power were going to lose it, that it would no longer be acceptable for the priestly family to exploit their position and the people who depended on them.  Because with great power comes great responsibility, and if you disdain the responsibility you bring harm to the people and shame to yourself.  The news was that it was time for justice in Israel and that would not necessarily be a good thing for those at the top.  It’s no wonder that the word of the Lord was rare in those days – who among those in authority would have wanted to hear it?

When it comes to justice, one thing of which we can be sure is that there will be upsets.  Justice doesn’t come from tweaking the edges, making minor adjustments.  Justice won’t arrive merely because we increase our good works a little bit or increase the budget a little bit.  Do these things, by all means, but also know that if God’s justice is going to come it will mean some seismic shifts in the landscape. 

I was very young when the Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated, but I remember the day.  I remember I was with my grandmother watching TV and the news report interrupted the show we were watching.  I asked my grandmother who this man was, and she said, “Oh, he was someone who did some good things for his people.”  The message was clear that his people weren’t my people and his life and death had nothing to do with me – but she was wrong. 

Reverend King was one of the greatest advocates for justice our nation has known.  We celebrate him because he made his life’s work the pursuit of justice for all– justice for all, not just for some.  He recognized, while many others didn’t, that when some people are denied freedom and justice, all people are deprived of freedom and justice along with them because our destinies are inextricably tied to one another.  We celebrate his birthday every year because of this.  And we celebrate him in church because his driving force was the Word of the Lord. 

He was only a man – not a Messiah; but he was a disciple of the Messiah, and there are times when the disciples are called upon to step forward and lead the way for others.  For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see there is a message, a call to stand up for what is true and right.  What is true and right is not always what is popular, any prophet could tell you that.  Sometimes it can even get you killed.  But there are worse things to die for.

In the terms of technology, you might say that Reverend King was an early adopter.  He got out there and led the way.  Sometimes I think those early adopters are crazy.  But sometimes I sure do admire them.

That man from Galilee … that land of radicals and activists … you might call him an early adopter too, leading the way to a radical new relationship between God and the world.

You and I might not be early adopters, and that’s okay.  But the call is out there, for you and me to answer.  The call is waiting. 

Over Our Heads

Genesis 1:1-5  When God began to create the heavens and the earth— the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared.  God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness.  God named the light Day and the darkness Night.  There was evening and there was morning: the first day.

Mark 1:4-11   John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins. John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”

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I want to tell you a true story about a girl named Lucy. She was born in England, early in the 20^th century. Soon afterward, her maternal grandmother, who was a Methodist, took her to the Methodist Church to have her baptized. Lucy’s father was a member of the Church of England, which did not then recognize the Methodist Church as being “legitimate,” so he took Lucy to the Anglican Church to be baptized again. But Lucy’s mother had no love for either the Methodist or the Anglican Church. She was a convert to the Salvation Army church, so she took Lucy off to be presented to the Salvation Army version of baptism.

Some years later, the family moved to the United States and joined a Methodist Church in their community. As a teenager, Lucy joined a class to prepare her to become a member of the church. The pastor of this congregation was sort of a renegade and disapproved of the practice of infant baptism, so once again Lucy was asked to present herself for baptism. As the entire class of young men and women were being baptized together, Lucy went along obligingly, now having been baptized four times into the church of Jesus Christ.

Some years later, Lucy married a Southern Baptist. On all the previous occasions Lucy had been baptized, it turns out that none of them had involved full immersion of her body in the water. Lucy submitted to baptism one more time. Thankfully, this was the last. I wonder if there has ever been a person so thoroughly baptized as Lucy.[1]

Every time Lucy was baptized again it was because some earnest person wanted to get it right. The problem is that we all have different ideas about what it means to get it right.  It is not at all surprising that Christians are confused about baptism.

The truth of the matter is when it comes to baptism we are in over our heads – pun intended.

I know, it’s not much of a joke. But I couldn’t resist the line after I came across it in a devotional reading this week.  When we speak of baptism we can’t nail it down, we can’t get it right (whatever that means), we can’t even really explain it.  Because when we speak of baptism we are in over our heads.

At the sermon roundtable this week we found that the texts for today raised more questions than answers – both the Genesis creation story and the story of Jesus’ baptism.  This probably doesn’t surprise you.  You probably have your own questions about these stories.  In Genesis: where did the light come from?  Where did the water come from?  And if we’re asking questions like this then let’s go ahead and ask – where did God come from? 

Was this the first thing that ever happened?  Or was there something, anything, that came before the creation of our world?  Yes, these were the questions we raised at the roundtable this week.  We did not have answers.

And about the gospel story – why was John so special that people paid attention to him?  Why baptism?  Was there a tradition of baptism in Israel that John was participating in? 

And did anyone else see the Holy Spirit swoop down? Did anyone else hear the voice from heaven speak up?  We don’t have answers to most of these questions, although we can say that there was – and still is – a tradition of the ritual bath in some Jewish communities.  Which is what baptism is, essentially – a ritual bath.

There are many questions and few answers, I have to admit.  It is at moments like this I turn to St. Augustine, favorite saint of good Presbyterians, who is famously known to have said, “We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.”  Just another way of saying, “Settle down, son – you are in way over your head.”

It is fair enough, then, to wonder why we bother with any of it – if we can’t fully comprehend it.  How responsible is it to dabble in things we don’t understand?  I don’t try to rewire my house.  I don’t improvise explosive devices.  I don’t do exploratory surgery on my friends and family.  I’m sure you don’t do these things either, because it is clear that if we did we would be in way over our heads and a danger to ourselves and others, and yet –

We walk into this sanctuary every week and invoke the power of God with our prayers.  We step up to the communion table and eagerly take the bread and cup, saying to one another, this is the body of Christ, the blood of Christ given for you.  We stand at the baptismal font to splash water and boldly ask the Spirit of God to descend on us and fill us.  Are we crazy?  Do we even have any idea how daring we are?

We might prefer not to think about it, ambivalent as we often are about the faith we have chosen – or, maybe, the faith that has chosen us. 

If we let it, this faith threatens to carry us far into our discomfort zone on a daily basis.  This is the tradition we have taken on when we became a member of the body of Christ, and from some angles it looks just plain messed up.  We are called to act in ways that betray our self-interest – to give sacrificially, to love not just our friends but also our enemies.  We are called to practice disciplines of the faith that rein in our freedom, which we cherish so much.  And we are called to believe in things that we cannot see, cannot prove, cannot even get our heads around. 

So we do things that we hope will make it all less uncomfortable: we create rules and set boundaries, and we occupy ourselves with the minutiae…you know, the things we can control.  All this for the sake of feeling a little more comfortable in the presence of this untamed Spirit – but not only that.  We do it because we want to get it right.  We want to do well.  This is why Lucy had to get baptized so many times, just to make all the people in her life feel satisfied that they had done well.

When the subject of baptism comes up it usually brings up questions – sometimes arguments – about the right way to do it.  Some would say that the only authentic baptism is one that a person chooses for him or herself because faith in Christ is an individual choice.  But others would say that puts way too much emphasis on the individual and not enough on the community of faith and their role in each and every baptism.  The truth is that both dimensions – the individual and the communal – are essential to faith.

So when parents bring a baby to the church to be baptized we are all leaning heavily on the communal aspect.  We are affirming our belief that a child, no matter how young, is a beloved member of the community, a recipient of the promise. 

And when an adult makes a decision to be baptized we are celebrating that personal commitment.  We are still affirming the essential role of community – because we do it here in the church as the body of Christ together – but we are also affirming the necessity for each individual to take steps, to make personal decisions along the way that commit his life to Christ.

If you are wondering which one is right – is infant baptism the right way? Is believer’s baptism the right way?  The answer I offer is yes.  Yes!  Both are right.

I stand in the tradition of Lutheranism (my Lutheran baptism and confirmation) and Presbyterianism (my Presbyterian ordination) when I say that all baptism is good.  Each baptism in the church is valid and sacred and a wonder to behold.  It doesn’t really matter very much how or when we do it because baptism is always a gift to us from God.  It may be a gift you received fresh out of the womb, it may be a gift you received on your first birthday, it may be a gift you didn’t receive until your 60^th year.  But no matter when you stepped up, or when you were carried up, to the font (or the pool, or the river) you were simply coming forward to receive a gift that God has been holding out for you from before the time you were born.  Because there was never a time when you were not loved, there was never a time when God did not want you. 

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[1]  This story is told in Laurence Stookey’s book, “Baptism: Christ’s Act in the Church.”