Here I Am, Lord; January 14, 2018
Pastor Rebecca Ellenson, ICCM
There are times when it can seem that we have lost our vision. We can feel lost, without a sense of direction or far-seeing vision. Maintaining a sense of direction or seeing into the distance can be hard. We face times when we feel like we’ve done everything we can and we still don’t know how to proceed.
Samuel and the old priest Eli are said to have lived in a time when the word of the Lord was precious but rare. “Visions were not widespread,” we read in our OT lesson. Samuel lived in the time before King David or any king in Israel, when the 12 tribes were bound together loosely in a confederation. Inspired leaders, called Judges, people lik Gideon, Deborah, and Samson, rallied the people together in times of crisis. Samuel became the last of those judges. He unified the people and anointed the first King of Israel.
From the time of his birth Samuel had been dedicated to God. As a child he served the old priest Eli in the sanctuary at Shiloh, the place that the Ark of the Covenant was kept and where people of all the 12 tribes could come to worship on festival days. On the night told of in our OT lesson Samuel heard a voice. Eli finally figured out what was happening, and he told Samuel to respond with the words, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Samuel did that and God broke the silence.
The story of Samuel’s calling is both unmistakably clear and remarkably consistent. With patient urgency God’s voice repeats until Samuel at last understands and responds. When Samuel repeats the message God has given him, all those around him seem to accept unquestioningly the truth of his words and his role as a new prophet.
Samuel hears the voice of God break through the silence through the foggy uncertain times. Let’s not simplify the experience of Samuel, though. Just because he heard the call of God when he was 12 years old, doesn’t mean that he had all the answers for life handed to him straightforwardly from then on. He followed God’s leading. In later chapters we can read of the many times when he clearly understood what he was to do, but like all people he had to make hard choices and rely on his own judgement even while following God’s leading.
How reassuring it would have been for him or or us today to know just where and how God’s call is to be followed. Wouldn’t it be nice if, like Samuel, we heard a voice from heaven telling us what to say and do?
Once there was a man who was afraid he was losing his hearing. He went to the doctor and the doctor pulled out an old-fashioned pocket watch. He held it up, close to the man’s ear and asked if he could hear the ticking. Yes, he could. The doctor moved across the room and asked again. Yes, he could still here. So the doctor went into the hall and asked one more time. The man concentrated and then said, Yes, he could indeed hear it. The doctor said there’s nothing wrong with your hearing, you’ve simply stopped listening.
When I started my training for Pastoral Ministry back in 1985 I discovered there were lots of other students who, like me, wondered if they were indeed called to serve in this way. After all, none of us heard voices, like Samuel did, calling us to go and serve; we didn’t see blinding lights as Paul did on the road to Damascus. We discerned our call through the affirmation of others in the our home congregations, coupled with our own sense of purpose and ability to share the gospel.
And I remember ten years into my work as a pastor feeling released from my calling to congregational ministry in 2001. I had suddenly found myself to be a single mother of two, working 60+ hours a week at an enormous church. I knew, deeply and compellingly, that my calling as a mother came first. Someone else could be the congregation’s pastor, but no one else was going to be my children’s mother. So, I found other work, serving the poor, instead of preaching about serving the poor—work that allowed me to be available and more present in the lives of my children. It felt like a new calling in many ways. And I didn’t think I’d be a parish pastor again.
It was, actually, here in Mazatlán that my call to congregational ministry returned. In 2011 Steve and I were here on a 2 week vacation, and after Palm Sunday worship, Jack Sieber invited us to join them at La Tramoya for brunch. As we were walking to the Machado, he was commenting on the challenge it had been to find and secure a new pastor to replace Bill Nichols as he moved on to another place. I chuckled and he said to me, Oh have you been on a search committee for a pastor. I responded, without really thinking about it, “Oh, I’m a pastor.” Over breakfast he told me how this position works. I couldn’t sleep that night. I tossed and turned, thinking a small, ½ year position, leading worship and preaching, no church council, no budgeting, no building concerns, what a dream! The next morning Steve asked me over an early morning coffee on the rooftop terrace at Old Mazatlán Inn, “Are you thinking of going back into ministry?” We talked about it, and dismissed it as a remote and unlikely possibility.
The next week we went back to the dreariness of April in Minnesota, mud and melting snow, cold temperatures and life as usual. I tried to ignore my sense of call. But, it kept resurfacing and before I knew it, I was serving two small congregations 60 miles south of Duluth. I was thrilled. Gone was any uncertainty about a calling. I was doing what I loved. But then one day, Steve said to me, “My brother is fighting cancer, my best friend from High School is too, You, talking to me, had a brush with it and wound up having surgery, my father died at 67, I know you love your work, but I want to fulfill our dream of moving to Mazatlán. Will you retire and come with me?
I decided I could always go back into the parish again, after we satisfied that longing to spend our winters here. We decided I would finish my position in June of 2016 and we would spend at least part of the cold Northern winters in Mazatlán. Now, here’s the good part of the story: The churches I served had a funny tradition of observing what they called Holy Humor Sunday on the Sunday after Easter. Based on the idea that life in Christ is a joyful celebration of victory over death and sin. It was a kind of spoof day, with members dressing in costumes and playing tricks on each other. Well, it was Saturday night and Steve and I, in typical last minute fashion, were figuring out what costumes we could pull together. I had tried on my colorful embroidered Mexican housedress, put my flip flops on, found a sombrero in the closet and had maracas in my hand. Dressed like that I checked my email, as I usually do before going to bed. There was an email from Jack, telling me that Tracy was retiring at the end of April 2016, and asking me if I would like to be considered for the position. It’s funny, that email was such a clear and unmistakable answer to my hopes and dreams that I didn’t even need the nudge to answer Here I am, Send Me!
We face a complex world. Most of our lives we can long for God’s voice to call us persistently and obviously. We can long for and wait for that voice. I’m not saying it will come just as it did for Samuel, or for me. But the Scriptures tell us that it is God’s way to break into confusing times, times when as it says in our OT lesson, the word of the Lord is rare. God broke into the silence and confusion with Noah, with Abraham and Sarah, with Moses, with young Samuel, with the prophets–all during times when vision was lacking. How do we know? Like Samuel we may need the help of those close to us to affirm our understanding. Like the man in the doctor’s office, we need to be practice listening for God’s leading. Prayer, study, sharing our thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears with others of faith can all help us hear or see.
When we make the time for daily quiet reflection, not just a minute here and there, but actual intentional devotion, stillness—When we stop and listen, when we say, Speak Lord for your servant is listening, it’s much easier to hear.
God spoke definitively through a young woman who gave birth to a child in a place called Bethlehem. The child was born to seek and save all of us who are lost, and to bring us God’s word. When we know and follow Jesus we find the way. The word of the lord is no longer rare, as it was in Samuel’s time. The word came alive in Jesus and lives on in the gospel, in the sacraments, in the church, and whenever the love of God is shared.
Oh, it can still be difficult to see with clarity the directions we should take. Maybe especially so when we are comfortable and happy. When we have things pulled together we can forget to listen. But we are invited to hear God’s call, to set aside our skepticism, to wait openly to hear God’s word for us as Samuel did when he said “Speak, for your servant is listening,” not just when we’re young and wondering what our life’s work is meant to be. God is still speaking, each day of our lives.
Years ago I learned a prayer that I pray most every morning. It’s in old-fashioned language, but that’s how I learned it and how I still pray it.
“God, I offer myself to Thee – To build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!”
The pastor who taught me that prayer encouraged me to memorize it and to open myself to God’s leading by asking God to show me the opportunities to serve that day, each day. God’s call comes not just in big moments, but every day, as we learn to listen and to act.
LET US PRAY–
God we long for clarity of vision in our daily choices. We long to know and do what you want us to. Open us to your call to each of us. Guide us so that we may walk in your presence and power. AMEN