Where do we start the healing process?

 It has been a while, but I remember the days of hearing “Dad?” “Dad?” “Mom?” “Mommmm?” as my children wanted or needed attention. All day long. You love them, but you can’t complete a thought because they keep calling your name. Reading the Old Testament story of Samuel was a reminder of those days, just with the roles reversed. God keeps calling Samuel without saying what God wanted. Who said that there isn’t humor in scripture?

God calls Samuel by name, three times in the night, and Samuel gets up each time and goes to Eli, thinking it was he who called. Samuel would have naturally thought that Eli was calling, because Samuel had not yet learned to listen for God’s voice, even though he slept in the temple. Eli was the chief priest in that temple at Shiloh and a mentor to Samuel, but he was preoccupied with his sons, also priests in the temple. His sons abused the people who came to make sacrifices, and took the offerings of meat for themselves to eat, instead of treating them with respect as the sacraments that they were. It isn’t surprising then, that Samuel was not listening for God’s voice, because Eli wasn't listening either. It didn’t occur to him that God had been calling him to stop his sons. But, once Eli realized what might be happening, he suggested that it might be God calling and Samuel found the courage to say “I am listening.”

We talk about listening for God in the world to speak to us, but we aren't always successful in hearing God. We have to pay attention and discern what we hear, to hear God’s voice instead of someone else's. We are challenged by our faith to find God in the faces of the people around us, and in events in our lives. We are challenged to hear God calling us in the voices of others, especially those that we tend to ignore or tune out, even when they call our name repeatedly. And until we are prepared to respond, God’s call to us is just another voice, just something else competing for attention, like work, home, team sports, meetings, and social media. It isn’t until we experience something that shocks us to our core, such as people storming the Capitol building in Washington, that we start listening for God. It brings up the question of how can we hear God at a time like this. Sometimes God seems to be absent in difficult times because God is calling to us from where we aren't listening or looking. Sometimes we need someone like Eli to stop us and say “try this” or “respond like this,”  and it means finding the courage to answer “I hear you, tell me what you want me to know.”

We find that we don’t want to say “I’m listening, God” because we know we will be called to follow God’s will, not our own. For Samuel, his call was to prophesy against his guardian and mentor Eli for not holding his sons accountable for their desecration of the temple. This was one of the hardest things for Samuel to do, because it meant that he had to put his faith in God’s wisdom and will above his faith in Eli as a leader. Samuel had to hold Eli accountable to the same laws that Eli expected Samuel to follow, and hold Eli to the same expectations that God had for Samuel. God had elevated Samuel to be a prophet, equal to Eli in God’s eyes, because Eli could not see his sin. God was calling for justice for the people whose offerings had been defiled by Eli’s sons, even as they ignored God’s call to follow ritual laws, or felt that the laws didn’t apply to them. This call for justice was about restoring the sanctity of the temple and the dignity of worship there, and an emphatic reminder that no one could place themselves above the law. Israel was a nation of God’s chosen, a nation under God, a nation that worshipped God. Samuel was to be God’s voice in the nation, and starting with Eli calling it back to God, calling it back to humility before God, calling it back to God’s justice.

In the Gospel reading, Nathaniel has a similar experience of hearing God's call, but his reaction is different from Samuel's. He sits under a fig tree, listening to Phillip tell him about a prophet he met in Nazareth, and responds with a backhanded joke asking if anything good can come from Nazareth. He isn’t ready to hear God’s call through Jesus the way that Phillip had. Nathanael isn’t ready to see God revealed in the person of Jesus. He was more interested in how he saw Nazareth and the world than in what God would reveal to him. So, Phillip does what he can only do at that point, which is to invite Nathaniel to “come and see.” It’s an invitation to encounter God, and one that Nathanael may have resisted because he didn’t want to face responding to God. He didn’t want to be held accountable to the faith he professed, or the laws he claimed to follow. But, he took a chance and he followed Phillip. At their meeting, Jesus responded to Nathanael’s joke with a gentle prod and made Phillip’s invitation real. Come and see.

Nathanael sees for himself that he is in the presence of God, in someone he didn’t expect to see it and he declares it loudly. Like Samuel, Nathanael was not listening for or seeking to be in the presence of God. It was Phillip’s invitation that motivated him to look for something wonderful and be a part of something far bigger than his small view of himself and the world. It was an invitation to see the world as Jesus saw it, rather than how he preferred to see it. It was an invitation to go even further than declaring that Jesus was the Son of God. Nathanael, like us, is called by God to enter into the presence of God and live in love with each other as Jesus taught. It is a hard thing for us to do when we hear cries of treason, and insurrection, and stolen elections, and fascism in the news and from people around us. We wonder how God could be in the middle of this anger and hatred, of rejecting and being rejected, of excluding and being excluded.

But God is among us as Jesus, someone who loves us, and shows us that we can love each other and the world despite the hurt and anger around us. Through Jesus, there is hope for us knowing that we aren't abandoned to the worst parts of ourselves. There is still hope because this arc of preparation, welcome, and realization of God in the world before and after Christmas has nothing to do with the destruction and desecration we create on earth. It has everything to do with God’s invitation to us by name to “come and see” the grace and loving salvation offered to us. To make that grace and saving love real, though, we have to respond in a way that makes them a concrete part of our lives, in the things we say and do. We can’t turn away from the invitation to the hard work in ourselves and in our community that we are called to do because we have faith in Jesus. Today, that response starts with our baptismal covenants of resisting evil, seeking and serving Christ, and striving for justice and peace. It is how we find and bring God’s persistent grace and love for us into a time of strife, hold each other accountable, and begin to heal the wounds in our nation. It is how we respond to the desecration of our national governing principles and affirm that as a people following Jesus, we have faith in God’s will above our own.

Let us voice that response by reaffirming our baptismal vows, vows that we work to fulfill in our daily lives.
            
Question: Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
Answer: I renounce them.

Question: Do you renounce the evil powers of this world
which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Answer: I renounce them.
 
Question: Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you
from the love of God?
Answer: I renounce them.

Question: Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Answer: I do.

Question: Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Answer: I do.
                       
Question:  Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
Answer:  I do.
                                                   
Celebrant: Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
People: I will, with God's help.

Celebrant: Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People: I will, with God's help.
                                                          
Celebrant: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People: I will, with God's help.

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God's help.

Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God's help.