The Second Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany January 17, 2021 I’ve been captivated by our Old Testament reading today in which we see the call of Samuel and the judgement of Yahweh against the prophet Eli and his sons. Eli has a history with Samuel’s family. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, has been unable to bear a child and is in such distress that she comes to the temple and pleads to God to give her a child. She is weeping and distraught and praying soundlessly but with her lips moving, pleading with God to give her a child. When the priest Eli sees her, he thinks that she is drunk, chides her, and starts to send her away. But Hannah tells him that she is not drunk but is praying earnestly for God to give her a child, and a somewhat chastened Eli then blesses her by saying, “May God give you what you have asked for.” God hears Hannah’s prayer and grants her a child; she dedicates him to the service of the Lord and names him Samuel, which means “God has heard.” So, at this point in our story, Samuel is still young, and we learn that the word of the Lord is precious in those days and visions from God are exceedingly rare. The young Samuel makes his bed in the holiest of holy places in the temple, and the one who is named “God has heard” is called by God three different times without knowing what is going on. Finally, Eli gets an inkling as to what might be happening after being awakened several times by the young, earnest Samuel, and he tells him next time to stay where he is and to respond to the Lord, “speak Lord, for your servant listens.” God calls Samuel for a fourth time, Samuel responds, “speak Lord, for your servant listens,” and God says, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” God proceeds to tell Samuel of God’s judgement against Eli and his house, which Eli receives the next day with equanimity. After first reading this lesson, I was struck by so many dichotomies in this reading: being asleep vs. being awake; listening vs hearing; the disappointment of Eli vs. the promise of Samuel; the wisdom and experience of Eli vs. the hopeful, fresh perspective of Samuel; the old order of the judges and the role of priests in that society, which Eli has presided over in its decay vs. the new order of the king who will be anointed by Samuel. Silence in which to listen vs. action. Longing for God vs. the fulfillment of God’s promise. The security of what is known and familiar vs. the excitement of God’s promise of doing something new. This week, I read a passage from the book My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman that I’ve shared with you here before. In this passage Wiman is writing about silence and action: “Silence is the language of faith. Action-be it church or charity, politics or poetry-is the translation. As with any translation, action is a mere echo of its original, inevitably faded and distorted, especially as it moves farther from its source. There the comparison ends, though, for while it is true that action degrades that original silence, and your moments of meditative communion with God can seem a world away from the chaotic human encounters to which those moments compel you, it is also true that without these constant translations into action, that original sustaining silence begins to be less powerful, and then less accessible, and then finally impossible.”i Silence and action, which at first glance, seem to be polarized opposites are actually both necessary for each other to thrive, and for us to thrive. The world in which we live makes it tempting to us to see polarizations and to choose one alternative over the other. It’s tempting to see Eli as bad and Samuel as good as God passes judgement on Eli and his wayward sons and promises to do something new that will, ostensibly, start with Samuel. But you know what happens? Samuel’s sons actually turn out just as bad as Eli’s in the end. Which, for me, helps me recognize that all parts are necessary for God’s word to be spoken in this story. God uses both the untested, fresh Samuel and the older, more experienced Eli, who has clearly made mistakes. God works in the silence and in the action. God uses the waking and the sleeping. God is with Israel in the period of the judges and in the period of the kings, and only in God, not in either of those sets of rulers, does Israel find her salvation. This story reminds me that our God in Christ holds all things together. Where the world encourages us to be at odds, to choose sides or positions or preferences, Christ holds it all together, and in that God continues to do new things that will make our ears tingle if we but have ears to hear. And in this week, where we have been pulled in different direction by the media and our two political parties, it is a refreshing reminder that we need all parts, even those that seem to be at odds with one another, and that Christ holds all of that together, even when we are tempted to choose one over the other. It is hopeful for me to hear that God will do something new that will make the ears of those willing to listen tingle, but it’s probably not going to look like anything we can expect or imagine. Our hope is not in elected leaders, not in political parties and their machinations. Our hope is in God, who will always be faithful and who will always hold the best interests of all together. This week, I invite you to join me in trying to lay down your dichotomies. Whatever parts of yourself, your family, your society, your church, your world feel fractured and fragmented, whenever you find yourself tempted to judge between what seem to be two extremes. I invite you to offer both to God, who holds all things together, and invite God to help you to look through God’s loving eyes and to hear the new thing that God is doing that will make your ears tingle. i. Wiman. Christian. My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux: New York, 2013, p 107.