Awakening to the Hard Tasks
Second Sunday after Epiphany
In June of 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a commencement address at Oberlin college titled, “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution.” In that address he told his listeners that time does not solve all evils, in fact time often works more powerfully in the hands of those who would perpetuate evils, particularly if those who would stop them “sleep” instead of work justice.
Let nobody give you the impression that the problem of racial injustice will work itself out. Let nobody give you the impression that only time will solve the problem. That is a myth, and it is a myth because time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I'm absolutely convinced that the people of ill will in our nation - the extreme rightists - the forces committed to negative ends - have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic works and violent actions of the bad people who bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, or shoot down a civil rights worker in Selma, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time." Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always right to do right.
“So, we must help time.” What a profound proclamation about a reality that we so often feel helpless in the face of!
While today’s texts are about calling, they are also about time. Following a calling is walking into time in a new way. In 1 Samuel chapter 3 we find the story of the child Samuel hearing the Lord calling in the night and then awakening the next morning with the difficult task of speaking divine truth to corrupt and negligent power. The story itself gives us the time of the Lord’s calling to Samuel; it was during a time of God’s near silence and just before the dawn when the temple candles were still burning. Samuel’s later ministry would help transition Israel from the time of the Judges to the time of the united monarchy with his anointing of Saul as Israel’s first king (1 Sam. 10:1), and then the transition from Saul’s corruption to Israel’s second King, the boy David (1 Sam. 16:13).
But, before all of these acts of king-making and breaking, first Samuel must walk through this transition from night to day, and from a season of not knowing the Lord to one of knowing the Lord. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, was sure that the Lord was listening to her, despite God’s silence. And after her incessant prayers for his birth she named him “Samuel” (“the name of God,” or “God has heard”) as a reminder that God was still listening. The boy child, dedicated to the Lord’s work, would then gather his own evidence that not only was God listening, but that God was also still speaking.
God’s words here, though, are not the one’s heard in the womb of his mother, but rather words spoken audibly against the manifold abuses of Eli’s sons. I appreciate the author’s judgment on them as “scoundrels” (from ,בְּלִיַּעַל , meaning worthless, good-for-nothing, base fellows). A harsh judgment, perhaps, but these guys stole from the tabernacle offerings and bullied worshipers (1 Sam. 1:10-14). They sexually abused women who served at the tabernacle (1 Sam. 2:12-14). Beyond that, their father the priest did not stand up to them. And it was the father, and Samuel’s mentor, to whom Samuel was called to speak the truth: God was hearing the abuses happening in God’s house against God’s people and God had awakened from silence. Now, Samuel had to awaken from silence to speech as well - literally.
Psalm 139:1-6 and 13-18 show us a similar shift from listening to truth-telling based on knowing and being known by God. Much like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, “the speaker of the psalm has come to the sanctuary to present his prayer, hoping for a divine oracle to vindicate him.” What he gets is an x-ray of his life, laying bare before him how he has walked in the faith. And like Samuel, who must speak truth to Eli concerning the many abuses of his sons against the people, the pray-er responds to God’s intimate knowledge by speaking truth, perhaps the greatest truth of all: when all is seen and known, when I have sought to know the Lord and my own self in that light, I come to an end of my ability to know. And yet, “I am still with you” (Psalm 139:18).
The Gospel reading, like the Samuel reading, is a story of calling. In this story Jesus not only calls Philip, Andrew, Peter, and Nathaniel, but in this story we see a shift in Nathanael as he moves from a time of not knowing Christ to one of being known by and knowing Christ. It was being known by Christ - “where did you get to know me?”(John 1:48) - that moved Nathanael to a place of truth telling - “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” (John 1:49).
Time moves on in all of these texts, and in that movement of time when folx are known by and know the Lord, some of them raise their voices in powerful moments of truth-telling. Clearly Eli didn’t, although it is to his benefit that he heard the truth spoken against him. The child Samuel told a hard truth to his mentor about the demise of his priestly line because of abuses on the people that he had failed to address. The Psalmist speaks a truth about God’s x-ray vision and the awe they stood in at being known. And Nathanael speaks the truth of Christ’s divinity because he too is known.
In our work as the body of Christ we also move through time. Perhaps at times as if we are somnambulating, not able to hear or discern God’s voice. And yet around us those whom God loves (hint: it’s everyone!) are being abused by power seekers. We are loved and known by God, down to our very cells and DNA. Down to our nighttime terrors. Down to our quirks. And being loved and known by God is how God calls out to us to wake up, to live into the time that is passing, and to add our voices to God’s own in speaking the truth of God’s love and call for justice in a world where lives seem expendable.
Let us wake up to each new dawn with the courage to speak the Gospel truth. For time is always marching forward, let us use that time well.