I got permission from my daughter, Paige, to tell you the story I am about to tell.
It is a confusing call. Paige, my daughter, is to go to a movie with her friend, Maggee Dorsey, but can’t find her cell phone. So, Millie, her mom, gave her cell phone to Paige as a safety precaution. Paige is late in leaving to pick up Maggee because she can’t find the car keys. Paige wants to ask her mom where the keys are, but by now Millie is off doing errands. So, Paige calls her mom’s… cell phone.
So, naturally, the phone in her pocket rings and Paige assumes it is Maggee calling to ask where she is. Paige answers the cell phone and says, “Hold on a minute, I need to ask Mom where the car keys are.”
Before I go on, I promised Paige I would let her explain something here. Let me read to you from an e-mail she sent me so you’ll see how what happens next could have happened to anybody:
A. Paige Anderson_________________________________________________
From: “A. Paige Anderson” [email protected]
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:22 AM
Dad, At this point, be sure to explain about the delay in our cell service; how after someone says something it takes a moment for it to be heard.
OK, with that helpful clarification in mind, here is what happens. Paige puts the home phone receiver back to her ear to see if her mom has answered and she hears Millie talking. So Paige says, “What?”
Then, she hears Maggee on the cell phone say, “What?”
And Paige tells Maggee, “I said hold on, I’m talking to Mom.”
But then her mom is talking in Paige’s ear again, so Paige says in the other phone, “What?”
But Maggee interrupts and says, “What?”
And then a light comes on. Maybe at this point in the story, you were wondering if there was a light in that attic to come on, but let’s remember her e-mail explanation, OK? Paige looks at the two phones in her hands and realizes…that she has been a onesome in a threesome conversation.
Samuel is confused by a call. He is a young boy left in the care of Eli, both a High Priest and a Judge; something akin to being a bishop and also the nation’s president. If God is going to speak to, and through, anybody, one expects it would be through Eli. So when the boy hears, “Samuel, Samuel,” he thinks it is Eli calling him, and he answers, “Here I am.” That’s the RSV translation. The Anderson-speak translation is “What?”
Eli hears Samuel and responds according to the RSV, “I did not call you. Lie down again.”
But the boy hears the voice again, “Samuel, Samuel.”
And Samuel yells, “What?”
And Eli answers, “Nothing, go back to sleep!”
And then the boy hears the voice again and says, “What?”
At this point Eli looks at the phones in his hands and realizes that their twosome conversation is actually a threesome conversation. And so he tells the boy that if he hears the voice again to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
It had not occurred to Samuel, you see, that it might be God speaking to him.
At this point, let me read an e-mail I received from Samuel who wants you to understand how this could have happened to anyone:
Samuel, Prophet___________________________________________________
From: “Samuel, Prophet” [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 2:23 PM
Dr. Anderson, please explain that there had been a long delay in Israel. In those days, the Word of the Lord was rare. We were not used to hearing God’s voice. We depended on judges and priests to explain to us what the voice of God wanted us to hear.
OK, with that helpful clarification in mind, here is what happens next. Samuel hears God call him again, and he answers, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” God then explains that the judges and the priests have not been listening so well. Eli’s sons, who already are priests, are taking advantage of their positions to pad their own pockets and seduce women. It is time for tradition to change. Samuel is to be a new kind of leader.
Only, here’s the thing. You heard me tell you about the flaws of Eli’s children. You need to know that Samuel’s children were not much better. “They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.” (I Sam. 8:3) And how about King David’s son, Absalom, who rebelled against him and Solomon, who was called wise but grew rich at the expense of his people.
You see, among the many, many things that I do not have time to say about this story, there is this. The family of faith, with a flawed past has a flawed future because of flawed leaders. It was true with Israel and it has been true with the church. How could such a people survive?
Well, I have an explanation in an e-mail from a church historian who explains how a witness can be made by any faith community in any age despite its flaws:
Historian, Church_________________________________________________
From: “Historian, Church” [email protected]
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 5:09 PM
Rev. Anderson, please explain to your congregation that Samuel’s conversation with Eli happened over three millennia ago. Only the continuing and renewing grace of God could keep a movement going through the rise and fall of empires, and despite the many failings of its leadership. God will continue to speak, to call, and to redeem God’s people so that God’s Word will always, even with delays, be heard in God’s world.
-George Anderson is the Senior Pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke. Visit them on the web at www.spres.org.
