In my last blog, I shared with you that recently I reread that well-crafted account regarding young Samuel (1Samuel 3:1-10). From that account I found myself asking: Is anyone listening – listening to the word of the LORD? But perhaps more damning, I wondered whether I or anyone else might truly recognize its absence. As you well know, we live in a world of many words – and some of them horrific, reprehensible tweets issuing from the White House; but my fear, amid the declamations of right and wrong, that we might be diverted from hearing what only a small boy, attending a degenerate priest, might hear.
According to 1Samuel 3:1 and 7, “[the] word of the LORD was rare in those days” and “Samuel did not yet know the LORD,” and yet that lack of “knowledge” neither prevented Samuel’s hearing, nor more importantly the LORD’s communication. The good news is that the LORD initiated, which is the Biblical story throughout; but nearly equally, the good news is that Samuel obediently listened. As the author of 1Samuel later noted, Samuel “let none of [the LORD’s] words fall to the ground … Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD” (1Samuel 1:19-20). That is, Samuel listened and shared what he had heard.
This sharing reveals a trait so characteristic of the older Samuel, and yet evident within the young Samuel: obedience. Perhaps he knew little of his mentor, Eli the priest, neither his flagrant disregard of the “ways of the LORD” nor his wanton greed, nevertheless Samuel learned to obey. Three times in our passage, Samuel responded to Eli: “Here I am, for you called me”, only to be redirected by Eli: “I did not call; lie down again.” However, in obedience to Eli, when the LORD called Samuel a fourth time, Samuel offered: “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
How necessary these words are in our present, American culture; for true silence, necessary for hearing the “word of the LORD,” is rare. In silence Samuel heard; from hearing he obeyed – and his obedience was the simple but profound willingness to serve. Thus it seems to me that silence precedes obedience: we cannot rightly obey, if we cannot rightly hear; we cannot rightly hear, unless we quell all those clamorous voices, including those internal voices, vying for attention; and we cannot rightly quell these, unless we desire to truly serve.
When last did you seek silence, in order to hear, in order to obey, in order to serve?
Stan