Second Sunday After the Epiphany
Year B, RCL
January 17, 2021
North Fork Ministries
Hebrew Scripture:
1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
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.]
You are probably familiar with the story of the youthful Samuel’s call from the Lord that we read this morning. Three times in the night Samuel thought he heard his mentor Eli call for him. Following the instructions of Eli, Samuel finally responded to the Lord’s call by answering, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Typically, our memories of this sweetly told “call story” end here, but the tale continues with the Lord saying, “I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” The Lord goes on to tell Samuel that things are badly amiss in Israel and that Eli’s sons were using their positions of power to abuse their office and the people.
In a time in history and in a nation where the high regard we have placed on individualism has become an existential threat to the foundation of our democracy, and in a world where the cultural and economic value we place on the entrepreneur and individual initiative has spilled over into religion, the conception of Jesus Christ as a “personal savior” has received widespread acceptance. We tend to forget that God doesn’t just call individuals, but that God calls people as well. Just as God called the people of Israel to occupy a unique place in the history of humankind, God calls other groups of people to respond to the unique circumstances in which they find themselves and listen intently, as young Samuel did in the middle of the night, for the voice of the Lord.
I think that the people of the North Fork of Long Island occupy one of those exceptional positions and are called to accept Eli’s advice to Samuel and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” We occupy a place of great privilege. We have been granted much. We are enveloped by the natural beauty of Peconic Bay and the Long Island Sound. We are fortunate to live in one of those thin places in the world, where the margin that separates the physical world from the spiritual world is almost non-existent. In the farms and vineyards throughout the North Fork, we bear witness to cycles of nature, watching brown fields and barren vines burst forth with life every spring, bear fruit, and then wither and seemingly perish. But then, up close, before our very eyes, every spring we witness the miracle of resurrection. Life is good here, for us.
Yet just as Samuel’s call from the Lord brought with it a caveat, a warning that all was not right in the land, so we must look beyond our gifts and our successes and not forget that everyone hasn’t benefited from our good fortune and much remains to be done.
Judging from the number of people that come to our little food pantry almost every hour of every day, poverty exists cheek by jowl alongside plenty. We fail to adequately protect our precious bays and estuaries threatened with runoff and pollution. We continue to waste the lives of far too many of our young men and women by sentencing them to jail terms that far exceed the incarceration rates of any other country or any time in our history. Finding affordable housing is a terrible problem for many. Yet only our imagination prevents us from making the North Fork a good place to live for all its citizens.
We have the wealth to accomplish much. As a nation we could raise the minimum wage to a level that would help lift many people out of poverty. Locally, we could provide efficient public transportation, so that an environmentally harmful and income-depleting automobile would no longer be a necessity. These are structural changes to society that lift up the marginalized and don’t require that the well being of those with less money be dependent on how generous a potential benefactor feels when he wakes up in the morning. We need justice, not just charity.
I believe that our churches on the North Fork have been called to play a special role – to serve as a beacon of light to show the way for others – to demonstrate the expansive nature of God’s love.
All of you have, no doubt, seen in the news this past week that the number of people eligible to receive vaccinations for COVID-19 has been greatly expanded. And as you have no doubt also realized, there are not yet nearly enough doses of the vaccine available for all those now eligible to receive the vaccination. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, with responsible leadership, the dual problems of production and distribution of vaccines will be soon alleviated.
But I have been wondering about a different kind of vaccination. What if we could receive a vaccine that would protect us as a nation from hatred, bigotry, racism, selfishness, and small mindedness of all kinds. What if we could receive a vaccine that would expand our consciousness, open our eyes to the reality that we are all One with creation. A vaccine that would create within our hearts the sure and certain knowledge that we are all children of God, and that we contain within us the spark of the Divine.
You know, I think that those of you who are listening to me today have already received that vaccination. Accompanying the waters of baptism, we received a vaccine that protects us from hate. We received a vaccine that inoculates us against the evil that has invaded our body politic. But it’s a vaccination that requires multiple doses – regular communion, prayer, meditation, attention to the breath, mindfulness, generosity – a practice of the presence of God. As Christians, the love of Christ has vaccinated us against the forces of evil that would take us away from an awareness that love, not selfishness, is the answer.
And there is a lovely thing about this particular vaccination. Not everyone has to be vaccinated. It is possible for our nation, even in this divided time, to achieve herd immunity. If those of us who call ourselves Jesus followers, would begin to practice the presence of God and truly live into our baptismal covenant, our love for one another could not possibly be contained, and that same love and compassion for others would spread throughout our nation. And the disease of hatred that has gripped the fringes of our beloved country would be wiped out.
The preface to the story of Samuel and Eli reads, “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” I think that we still need a vision – a vision for the future that includes care for God’s created world and justice for all of God’s children. We don’t have to look hard to see that we occupy a special place and that with that specia gift comes responsibility. Our economic wealth and the mystical quality of physical setting provide us with unique opportunity to come to the realization who we really are and what we are called to do. We are searching for our collective soul. To paraphrase the Lord’s words to Samuel, “It may be that God is about to do something on the North Fork that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” Like Samuel, may we too answer God’s call, “Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”