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Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-10 2 Epiphany Are
You Listening? In the name
of him whose voice we hear calling us to follow him, dear friends in
Christ: Today’s Old Testament lesson
takes us back to the dark days of the period of the Judges; a time when most
people casually disregarded God’s standards of right and wrong, and “Everyone
did what was right in his own eyes.”
“In those days”, we are told in this morning’s lesson, “the Word of the Lord was rare.” I can’t imagine a worse thing to say about the
state of affairs in the nation of It sounds
pretty bad. But recognizing that the Old
Testament nation of Most people
today really don’t care about what God has to say. And responding to what people think
they want, in most mainline Christian churches, God’s Word has been all but snuffed
out. It’s denied, discredited,
“demythologized”, and even damned as being sexist, primitive, and
barbaric. And I’m talking about churches
that profess to bear the name of Christ.
I know many of you don’t like me saying things about other churches –
“it sounds so judgmental”. But friends,
you have to call a spade a spade. Just
this last week I spoke to a pastor in our district. He said he grew up in a different
denomination: one of the big ones. He planned to enter the ministry, and so he
spent three years at one of their seminaries.
He said that while at seminary, the only time they talked about the
Bible was to prove how wrong it was.
Most of the time they spoke about social issues, and things they could
do to attract people through entertainment and psychology, and how to raise
money. Just as he was about to enter the
ministry, he realized that he couldn’t go through with it. He’d be living a lie – worse, he’d be trying
to spread it. So he quit and started
looking for a church where people actually believed the Bible. He landed in an LCMS congregation, and said
he learned more about real Christianity in twelve weeks of basic membership
classes than in three years of seminary.
His experience is not unique. And it makes me wonder if most of
you really understand just how rare a church like the one you are in is;
and if you know what a great heritage you have been given to be where you can
actually hear God’s Word. I wonder too,
if you realize how easy it is to let the lamp of God’s truth grow dim, or to go
out altogether. It doesn’t happen
overnight. As a general rule, people in
churches don’t just wake up one morning and say, “I don’t think I want to hear
what God has to say anymore.” But many
churches have lost the Word of God. They
lost it because they didn’t notice that it was slipping away from them. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, by
small degrees – like the dimming of that lamp in the Tabernacle. And this morning’s Old Testament lesson goes
a long way to show how it happens – and seeing how it happens should
help us also to see what we can do to prevent it from happening to us. Eli, the High Priest of Israel, was a direct
descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, who was the first High Priest of
Israel. It was a hereditary position,
passed down from father to son for (at this point) more than three hundred
years. Now, Eli had two sons: Phinehas and Hophni. When Eli died, one of them would become the
High Priest of Israel. Consequently,
they had been prepared and groomed for this office from their youth. They were probably the best-trained
theologians of their day. They knew
God’s Word forward and backward. And
because their father was quite old, and now growing blind, they had already
picked up most of his daily duties. They
were like his right and left hands. Trouble
was, they were not listening to the Word of God. Oh, they knew what it said all right, and for
the most part they agreed with it. And
they liked the idea of being God’s priests; they liked the special honors and
being associated with the worship of God:
it made them look respectable and righteous. But they cut corners, and they bent the rules
now and then, using the prestige and power of their offices in corrupt
ways. For example, here they were in
charge of all these sacrifices people brought.
As priests, they were allowed to have some of the meat after it
had been sacrificed and presented to the Lord – but they started taking their
cut up front. They wanted it fresh. So they were robbing from the sacrifices
people brought. And I’m sure they
justified it by thinking, “Hey, the Lord’s got all these sacrificial animals
coming in; surely he’s not going to miss this little bit.” They also were engaged in illicit sexual
relations with the women who served in the temple in various capacities. And they probably justified that with the
old, “Boys will be boys, don’t you know?
Besides, God is gracious and forgiving, surely he can wink at a little
dalliance now and then.” Now, all of this was no
secret. Their flagrant disregard for
portions of God’s Word was well known.
It was a national scandal. Worse,
because everyone knew that they were robbing from the sacrifices, it called
into question the whole process by which sins were forgiven. No matter how faithful a person you
might be, you had to entrust the sacrifice you brought to God to these two
scoundrels. You walked away wondering
whether your sacrifice would be offered up to God for your sin, or be the
barbeque for the priest’s garden party.
And if it’s blood were not shed for you, where did that leave you with
respect to your sin? The corruption of
these two wicked priests cast a shadow of doubt on the faith of everyone. Beyond that, was the example they set for the
nation. If the priests of God had thrown
away the laws concerning sexual morality, it was a sure thing they couldn’t
tell the rest of people how to live. You can
well imagine the impact of all this on the nation of Israel. Why, it probably didn’t take long for things
to deteriorate to the kind of conditions we see, say, ... today. It comes of rejecting
portions of God’s Word. And you may
think, “Yes, but that couldn’t happen in the church today.” No?
I’ve told you before about a brand new pastor who had just arrived at
his new parish up in North Dakota. He
said that after the installation service, the elders pulled him aside and said,
“Look here: in this congregation we’ve
got four couples who are living together and not married. One way or another they’re the relations of
just about everyone here in the church, so we don’t want any trouble. Here’s the deal: the first time you speak against that sort of
thing in a sermon, or in a Bible study, you’re finished here.” Now, here are people who claim to be Christians,
who know what God says, and who say they don’t want to hear it. And if a pastor cannot confront his people
with God’s Word about their sin, how can they come to repentance and be
forgiven? Let me give you another
example: a seminary classmate of mine
received a call to a church in southern Indiana. He went to visit the congregation and meet
with the people. Everything was going
great. It seemed to be a perfect match,
and the congregation was really excited to be getting a pastor they really
liked after a long vacancy. Then, after
the meeting with the whole church, the elders pulled him aside and said, “Oh,
there’s just one more thing. In this
church we practice open communion, and we will not change.” It turned out that three of the five elders had
wives who were not members.
Specifically, they belonged to churches that deny the real presence of
the Lord in the Sacrament. My friend had
to decline the call. And here’s
why: a Lutheran pastor who knowingly
communes someone who denies the Lord’s presence in Communion is telling his
congregation one of two things: that
either he doesn’t believe the Lord is present in the Sacrament delivering the
forgiveness of sins, or that he doesn’t care if he causes great spiritual harm
to people. Either way, he undermines the
very Gospel he’s entrusted to proclaim.
In both these churches we have people who are not listening to the Word
of the Lord by rejecting the parts of it they don’t like. The question before us is, are you
listening? Are there parts of God’s Word
you have rejected? Which
brings me to Eli, the High Priest, and the father of Phinehas and Hophni. He
was a man who respected God’s Word. Even
in his old age, he studied it daily. But
Eli was not listening to the Word of the Lord.
How? Through his inaction. It broke old Eli’s heart to see what his sons
were doing. Every day more complaints
came pouring in. He well understood how
much damage was being done to the spiritual life of the nation. But he never did anything about it. Acting either as a father, or certainly in
his official capacity as High Priest, it was his duty and well within his
authority to correct what was going on.
But he did nothing. God finally
sent a prophet to warn Eli of the dire consequences his whole family would
suffer if he did not set things straight.
But the best Eli could manage was, once in a while at the dinner table,
to weakly wag his finger at his sons and say, “Now boys, you really shouldn’t
be doing those things.” Eli was not
listening to God by failing to discharge the sacred responsibilities entrusted
to him. Blinded by what he incorrectly
believed to be love for his sons, he allowed the nation to be corrupted and
eventually his whole family to be destroyed.
If he had really loved his sons, if he had really cared for God’s
people, he would have done the hard, unpleasant job of doing what it took to
correct them. But it was so much easier
not to make waves and let things slide ... all the way down to Hell. In our day
and age we bemoan the fact that even in the church moral values have slid as
far as they have. I can’t tell you how
many times I’ve heard, “When I was growing up things weren’t this way – but
these kids today ...” I guess that means
that somehow between the generation before me and the generation after me
someone dropped the ball. I wonder who
that could be? When we as the church
fail to speak God’s Word against sin and fail to rebuke those who are involved
in it, we actually silence the Lord, we make God’s Word rare, and we
condone the sin and become participants in it.
Eli was not listening to the Word of the Lord by failing to act on
it. The question is: are you
listening? The boy
Samuel was probably twelve or thirteen when God called him. You may remember the story of his birth: how Hannah, his mother, was barren for many
years and broken hearted because of it.
And then, in her desperation, she prayed and promised to give her child
to the service of the Lord if only she could have a baby. God granted her request; and true to her
promise, when the time came she dropped him off at the Tabernacle. Samuel entered the Lord’s service at the
tender age of three or four. He became
the personal attendant of old Eli; probably fetching things for him, guiding
him around, and helping him in those sorts of ways. But Samuel
was not listening to the Lord. Why
not? Because Samuel didn’t know who the
Lord was. Strange as it may seem, even
in the Tabernacle of God where he was being raised, he never really heard the
Word of the Lord. Sure, he knew about
God in a vague sort of way. He was
surrounded by the priests and all their rituals. The worship of God was going on before his
eyes. But no one ever took the time to
explain to young Samuel what it was all about.
He was just a servant boy.
Besides, who was he going to learn from?
Eli, who couldn’t even take the time to correct his own sons? Surely not from Phinehas and Hophni. Samuel couldn’t listen to the Lord because to
him God was a stranger. When he did
finally hear the voice of God, he thought it was just a man speaking. And it’s easy to see the progression
here. One generation fails to act on the
Word of the Lord, the next generation rejects it, and the third generation
grows up not knowing what it is because they don’t know the One who’s speaking. And what
about us? Do we know who’s
speaking? We all have one or more of the
many Bibles that are being printed every day.
We come here to the church and read along as the Scriptures are
spoken. Do we really know who it is
that’s speaking to us? Or is it just
another dusty passage from an old book.
Do we understand that it is the voice of the living God who stands here
among us that we hear calling? We know the answer – even though there are
times when, like St. Peter, we try to deny that we know him. And the good news for us is that when we do
estrange ourselves from God, he still knows who we are. And he wants us to know him. So he keeps coming back to stand near us like
he did for Samuel, and also for Philip, Andrew, Peter, and Nathaniel in today’s
Gospel lesson, and he calls us by name to listen to him and follow him. And here’s
the best part: his call, his voice,
provides what we need to answer it. On
our own, we are not capable of doing anything but rejecting his Word and
failing to act on it. God would always
remain a stranger to us if it were not for his
action. He comes to us to reveal himself
so that we can know him. And contained
in his Word is the power of his Holy Spirit to break down our sinful resistance
and give us the will to respond in faith and in action. He does this by confronting us with our sin
and unbelief, which leads us to repentance.
“I’m sorry, Lord, that I have made you a stranger; that I’ve rejected
parts of your Word and that I’ve failed to act on it.” And then he gives us the comforting words of
grace, “Your sins are forgiven. For the
sake of Jesus who perfectly listened to his Father, who willfully gave his life
for you, and whose blood has cleansed you; you are free of your guilt. And I have given you the strength and faith
to follow.” He says that to you
now. Are you listening? Today, in
this dark world where the Lamp of his truth is flickering dim, the Lord stands
among us calling with a message from his Word.
May his Spirit fill us with the faith to answer, “Yes, Lord, speak, for
your servant is listening.” Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
