God calls us in serving and resting – 1 Sam 3:1-10, John 1:3b-10, 19

OT 2, Yr B; Holy Cross - St. Stan's

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.]