The
Lord called Samuel. We’re not told
exactly what that means. We’re not told
exactly what that experience was like for hm.
We do read that it wasn’t obvious: it wasn’t a burning bush or an
angel. In fact, it presented itself as
something very mundane, very worldly; the young temple servant thought he was
hearing Eli, the priest he worked for, calling him! But, eventually, with Eli’s help, he realizes
that something quite marvelous is happening.
God is calling him.
God
calls him. God reveals his presence to
Samuel and calls him by name. Now, we
know that God calls us too. We know that
God graciously called us into existence, and calls us further to live lives of
holiness, and that He calls us not just to holiness as something generic and
abstract or distant, but that He has a plan for each of our lives, a path given
us to walk, a mission to be sent on, and a place prepared in heaven. We know that.
But, it’s not always clear just what that is. And we long for that face-to-face surety that
seems to elude us.
Samuel
wasn’t searching for God’s call. It was
pretty unexpected and he needed help even to recognize it for what it was! Samuel was just looking to serve, and that’s
part of what opened him up to encounter with God. He was a temple servant, basically a care
taker, someone who took care of the seemingly mundane while priests like Eli
took care of the sacred. But, the
scandal of the Incarnation is that God presents himself to us in the
mundane! We’ve just finished celebrating
the feast of a babe in a manger in Jewish backwater.
Samuel
developed his attentiveness to the world around him by taking on the posture of
a servant, and that’s the posture that opened his ears to hear God’s word as
meant directly for him, a word that was rare, but that we’re privileged to hear
proclaimed in this sacred space, that we can pick up and read from our Bibles,
on our phones even, whenever we want.
Samuel served, and that’s how he came to hear it. That, and one other thing we read the he did:
he rested. He cared for those around
him, and he took time to care for himself through rest.
Serving
and resting allowed him to encounter God in his familiar surroundings. There are many human reasons why those two
activities can be good for us, can open us up, but I’m struck by their role in
the divine economy. We are made in the
image of a God who rested, who looked on the world He had made, saw that it was
good, and rested; who beckons us to follow him into our Sabbath rest. We are made in the image of a God who entered
into our world as a servant, who became a slave, who went around doing good and
suffered even death for our salvation.
Is it any wonder that those who seem closest to God, serve and rest?
In our
gospel, Jesus invites the disciples to come and rest with him for a while. But he also invites them to serve. At the start of the passage, they’re standing
and he’s in motion. His motion is
attractive, it induces motion in these soon-to-be disciples, they start to
follow, to walk in the footsteps of the one they’ll encounter as Lord. And he doesn’t even need to say what their
mission is, how they’re called to serve.
It’s natural, having received this invitation, they go out to make it
themselves. Andrew doesn’t have to be ordered,
he has come to love Jesus and already loves his brother enough that now he goes
and says, “come and see.” The invitation
he accepted, he now extends.
Jesus
invites us all to come and rest with him, he is still active, still in motion,
and that motion should induce motion in us, should induce following,
discipleship. Being called by God is
rarely supernatural, it’s normally very mundane. It’s taking the invitation we have accepted
and extending that.
We
have in our parish a family who have heard that call. They have come and seen. Warts and all, this church is who they want
to fall into step with, not because of how impressive we are, but because of
who we follow. The invitation now goes
beyond “come and see.” It becomes “come
and rest awhile,” make this your home.
But, more than that, recall that this is not a static home. This is a pilgrimage. Come and walk with us. Come and rest with us, come and serve with
us. Because then you’ll come and be with
Christ with us.
[4:30pm:
Tomorrow the Saunders family will be received as catechumens of the
Church. May their witness rejuvenate our
awareness of being called!]
[10:30am:
And now, I call forward the Saunders family, to be received as catechumens of
the Church.]
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