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. 2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3 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. 4 Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” 5 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. 6 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.” 7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 8 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. 9 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.
10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 11 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. 12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. 13 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. 14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”
15 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. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” 17 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.” 18 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.”
19 As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.
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Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 To the leader. Of David. A Psalm
O LORD, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them– they are more than the sand; I come to the end– I am still with you.
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Mark 2:23 – 3:6 One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26 He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” 27 Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 2 They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” 4 Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
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If today’s group of scripture readings were a bouquet of flowers, we would have a very odd mix of shapes and colors in this bouquet! We have an Old Testament lesson that’s often associated with the Advent season; we have a Gospel lesson on the subject of Sabbath-keeping (which I’ve already preached on a bit); and we have a Psalm written by King David that focuses on God as our Creator and Designer.
Seems like there’s nothing in common between these three; but after some time looking them over, I began to detect a common theme, and that is: how to be – how to go about being – God’s person in a world that encourages us to be anything but.
We see, for example, Jesus being confronted by the Pharisees, and yet remaining faithful; we see Samuel living in a place where he is surrounded by corruption, and he remains faithful; and we see King David wrestling with uncertainties that come from within, but still he praises God. So how did these people remain God’s people in difficult circumstances? And how can we do the same?
I’ll start off with the psalm. As he writes this psalm, King David is, mentally and emotionally, in a place where he has become very aware of just how totally and thoroughly God knows him. For every one of us imperfect human beings, to stop and think about how well God knows us can be a bit… awkward? Unnerving? To think about the fact that God knows every thought, every daydream, every little thing we do… as David says, ‘God, you know when I sit down, you know when I get up, you can see my very thoughts, you know every word before I speak it’. David says, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” And the word wonderful here does not mean “how exciting!” but rather “how incomprehensible!” It goes beyond understanding, how well God knows us.
David says, “How weighty to me are your thoughts – how vast the sum of them!” But in the end, after David has tried to take in all the fullness of God’s knowledge, he says – with the confidence of a child who knows his Father loves him – “I come to the end – and I am still with you.”
David is so very much God’s person!
Was David perfect? No; far from it. He messed up bigtime sometimes, including committing adultery with Bathsheba and then arranging for the death of her husband Uriah. But David knows God. He is confident in God’s love, because he knows that the content of God’s character doesn’t depend on what David does. David knows – maybe because he’s been forgiven so much – just how much love God is capable of. There is no fear in God’s love. Human love is never perfect. We try; but things can go wrong sometimes. Wires can get crossed. But not with God. I think we can relate to David when he says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it’s too much to grasp.”
We can feel David’s love for God in this psalm – it’s very personal and very deep. David wrote this psalm not just as an ‘I love you’ to God but also for use in worship. He wrote these words so that we can use them to express our love for God. This is a good psalm to make into a prayer – on Sunday or any day.
David’s final words are “I come to the end – and I am still with you.” It’s the contentment of a child in his Father’s arms.
How can we be God’s person? Like David, we can be confident in God’s love. We can receive God’s love. Sometimes it’s easier to give love than it is to receive it, because giving is a position of strength, and receiving is a position of vulnerability and trust. If we have confidence in God, and confidence in God’s love for us, it leads to confidence in living – in spite of the fact we’re not perfect. We have a God who forgives. We have a Lord Jesus who died so that we could be forgiven. We are God’s people when we trust that God loves us.
With this as a solid foundation, we can now turn to our Old Testament reading from Samuel; and we need the foundation of love as we enter into this tragic story. In this reading from I Samuel, we see the prophet Samuel as a boy – probably ten to twelve years of age – living in the temple and serving as the assistant to the high priest, Eli.
Samuel is the son of Hannah, a woman who had been unable to conceive for many years, and she prayed and promised God that if God would just give her a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord’s service. She kept that promise, and that’s how Samuel ended up serving in the temple at such a young age.
One night, while everyone was sleeping, God called to Samuel. Samuel mistook God’s voice for Eli’s voice, and he went running to Eli – but it wasn’t Eli who’d called him. This happened two more times. Eli finally figures out that God is calling the boy, and he tells Samuel to say, “speak Lord for your servant is listening” (which by the way is pretty good prayer to pray just about anytime).
Samuel obeys Eli, and God shares with Samuel some tragic news: the house of Eli is about to fall, because Eli’s sons have been blaspheming God over and over. Specifically, they have been verbally abusing the worshippers that came to the temple; they have been stealing the offerings people were giving to God and claiming them for themselves; and they were forcing the female servants in the temple to have sex with them. Eli, their father, didn’t take part in any of this, but he didn’t stop them either.
Can you imagine what it was like being in Samuel’s shoes the next morning? Samuel loved Eli – Eli was like a father to him. The Bible says “Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.” (v 15)
Samuel lay awake the rest of the night.
In the morning, Eli called for Samuel and commanded him to speak. He said:
“May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.”
So Samuel told Eli everything.
Eli was honest enough to acknowledge the message was true and had indeed come from the Lord. He said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.” It sounds like Eli has completely given up… which was probably the root of the problem.
As a result of this – and scripture doesn’t tell us exactly how this came about – but the people of Israel began to see Samuel as a faithful servant of God; they learned they could take both their concerns and their offerings to Samuel, and Samuel wouldn’t mistreat them. Scripture says, “all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba [that is, from the north to the south] knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.” (v. 20)
Samuel’s story shows us a young man who is honest and faithful; a man whose life encourages us to stay faithful to God, even in a world – especially in a world – where people frequently blaspheme God. Blasphemy is an old-fashioned word basically meaning insulting or showing contempt… for God. Or in the case of Eli’s sons, misrepresenting God – putting lies in God’s mouth – saying that God said things that God never said.
How can we be God’s people in a world where these things happen every day? Where people misrepresent God, and teach things as Gospel truth that cannot be found in the gospel? Where people twist or misuse the scriptures or the sacraments?
Samuel gives us an example: listen to God, be faithful to God, share God’s word with honesty and compassion. God’s word, spoken honestly, contains the power of heaven – and people who hear it, will trust it.
Finally, saving the best for last, we have our Gospel reading about Jesus. The passage we heard this morning deals with Sabbath-keeping: what is or is not permissible on the Sabbath? As I’ve mentioned before, the Sabbath is meant to be a gift from God for God’s people. But during Jesus’ time there were so many rules and regulations about how to observe or not observe the Sabbath that it had become – in many ways – a burden rather than a joy.
In Mark’s gospel we are given two examples of times when the Pharisees questioned the way Jesus was keeping the Sabbath. The first example, about picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath, is a bit outside our 21st century experience both from a cultural and a religious standpoint. But the second example makes a lot of sense to us. I’ll pick up in Mark chapter three, verse one.
Jesus is in the synagogue, and a man is there who has a withered hand. This would have been not only painful but it would have limited his ability to make a living and care for his family. The reading says “they [that is, the religious authorities] were watching [Jesus] to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they could accuse him.”
Jesus does indeed heal on the Sabbath. He calls the man forward in front of the whole congregation. He asks:
“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?”
No one dares to answer Jesus. Mark says, “he looked around at them in anger… [and] he was grieved at their hardness of heart.” Why would it NOT be God’s will for someone to be healed on the Sabbath? The Sabbath is supposed to be a blessing for God’s people! It was never meant to be an excuse for not helping someone in need. So Jesus says to the man, “stretch out your hand” – and the hand was restored. Imagine the joy this man and his family shared when he got home!
But the Pharisees went out with the Herodians – their political enemies, opposing parties! – and conspired about how to destroy Jesus. And correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe conspiracy was lawful on the Sabbath – or any other time!
Looking at Jesus’ example – how does this show us how to be God’s person when the world around us doesn’t approve? Like Jesus, we can do good for people in need, even if it’s not popular; even if we’re criticized for doing it. We can provide – as we often do – food, clothing, Bibles – things that God has given us to share.
We’ve seen today three things we can do to live as people of God, in a world that may not approve:
- Like David, we can be confident in God’s love – knowing that God’s love doesn’t depend on us.
- Like Samuel, we can listen to God, be faithful to God, and share God’s word with honesty and compassion.
- Like Jesus, we can do good for people in need – even if it’s not popular.
Finally, God has placed within each of us specific gifts to share. How and where do the gifts God has given us connect with the needs of today’s world? This is something to pray about… so let’s do that. Let’s pray.
Lord, we have seen this morning how Your people responded to Your call to be the people of God. We ask you now: call us to be Your people. Show us how we can be faithful to You in our own time. Help us to see what you’ve given us that we can share with our world in Your name and for Your honor and glory. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
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