The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

Is God Among Us?

Readings: 1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

During the season of Epiphany the theme of call is a recurring motif. Today’s readings are no exception. There is the story of God’s call to the child Samuel in the Shiloh temple. Then the psalmist reflects on God’s infinite care of all of humanity. There is a sense in the psalm that there is no way to avoid God’s call, for our God is inescapable. Even when we are developing in the womb God knows us. God sustains us throughout our lives. At night when our problems loom in the darkness, God is with us. From birth to death, God is there, sustaining us. In the New Testament Paul reminds the Christian community in Corinth of their call to abide by God’s law. It is a call to holiness, to live our lives differently from the way the world lives, to be accountable to God. And the Gospel focuses on Nathanael, called by God even though he scorns the very idea that Christ or Christianity could have any bearing on his life. In all of them, there is that sense that our inescapable God continues at every stage of our lives to call us into relationship.

We are used to calls, at least the kind that come over the telephone. These days we do not leave home without our cell phones. We are constantly in communication with family and friends, not just with a call, but even more likely by text. But when it comes to talking to God, to being in communication with God, we don’t even understand what it means. To be called by God! What does it mean? How does it happen? The answer is of course, in as many ways and through as many people as it takes God to get through to us.

The call of Samuel is a wonderful example of how God uses others to help us respond. When Samuel was three years old his mother Hannah took him to live in the Shiloh temple fulfilling her promise to God. Eli had two sons who served in the temple. However, their greed had given the temple a bad name. Eli had not spoken out about their misbehaviour, and was in disfavour with God. He may have been in disfavour, but the lamp of God had not gone out in his life. When the child, Samuel heard God speak, Eli was able to help him understand that it was God speaking. As Samuel lay in the dark of the night he heard his name spoken. He went in to Eli to see what the old man needed. “I didn’t call you,” Eli told him. “Go back to bed.” It was not until the third time that Samuel came into him that Eli realized that it was the voice of God Samuel was hearing. Eli’s sight may have been dim, but he still had insight. “If God calls you again,” he said, “you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Samuel responded to God’s call and became a faithful servant.

Not that it was easy for Samuel, for God told Samuel about his displeasure at the behaviour of Eli and his sons. It is difficult to be a prophet, to speak the truth that God wants us to speak. It is even more difficult to speak it with grace and love. And so we are told that Samuel became a trustworthy prophet, one who “let none of his words fall to the ground.”

But of course, that is then and this is now. God speaking directly to a little boy! Could that possibly happen in our day and age? I do not know whether this story is true, but it rings true. A young woman was sitting in an airport terminal, waiting to board a plane. She saw a stewardess pushing a wheelchair. In it sat an old man. He was unkempt, his long white hair in a tangled mess. God spoke to her. “Go and brush that old man’s hair.”

She tried to ignore the voice, but it kept nagging at her. She went over to the man and asked if she could brush his hair. He was rather hard of hearing, so she had to ask several times. By this time, everyone waiting to board the plane was watching. She was embarrassed, but she knew it was what she had to do, and so she persisted.

He agreed that she could brush his hair. She realized that she had no brush. The old man said to her, "Look in the bag hanging on the back of my chair, there is a brush in there." She began to brush all the tangles out of his hair. As his hair was being brushed, the old man began to cry.

He said to her, "You know, I am on my way home to go and see my wife. I have been in the hospital recovering from surgery. My wife couldn't come with me, because she is so frail herself." He said, "I was so worried about how terrible my hair looked, and I didn't want her to see me looking so awful, but I couldn't brush my hair, all by myself."

As they were boarding the plane the stewardess said to the young woman, “What made you do that?” She explained that God had spoken to her. She had simply responded.

But you know! My experience is that God is not always that direct. God finds other ways to get us to respond. Take for example, the call of Nathanael! Nathanael’s first response to Jesus is scorn. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It could very well have ended there. However, Philip invited him to come and see, to find out more about this Jesus he serves, to change his mind about Nazareth. Philip did not argue with him. He did not preach at him. He knew the good that is in Jesus. He also knew that no amount of arguing could ever change Nathanael’s mind. Instead he issued an invitation. “Come and see!” See for yourself. Nathanael’s curiosity was piqued. He accepted the invitation.

It is an invitation to do more than just come for a visit. It is an opportunity to gain insight into the mind and purpose of God. For Nathanael it was truly a miracle, an epiphany. Nathanael opened up his heart to the grace of God. He came into relationship with God. It was an epiphany that apparently changed his life, for he was one of the disciples who was there as a witness to the resurrection.

That invitation is so vital. So often the message of Christianity is a negative one. It really is not difficult to get people to hear a message of repentance. If you shout loud enough and long enough people will hear. The question is will they really come and see? If we want our church to grow, people need to hear and respond to the call of God. The call to ‘come and see’ needs to be a personal invitation. If people are not interested in responding to God, are we as a church going about it in the right way? People will respond if they see something in our lives that speaks to them about the love of God. They want to see something of God’s love and power in our lives, in the things we say and do, in our love and concern. They want to see that we are living our lives in an authentic manner.

That means that the church, this church, St. George’s in Newcastle, must be a place that shows the love of God in action. Do they look at us and say “I know they are Christians by their love”? Or do they see us wrangling and fighting amongst ourselves and run in the other direction? They need to smell God on us. People are hungry for God, for that sense of peace that comes with a relationship with a God who is Emmanuel, God-with-us. It may take some soul searching on our part. It will certainly take the healing presence of God amongst us.

“There is a story told about a famous monastery which has fallen on hard times. Once a great order, it’s many buildings had been filled with young monks, but now it was nearly deserted. Visitors no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised God with heavy hearts. It was just a matter of time until their community would die out.

On the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. No one ever spoke with him, but the monks felt somehow assured by his prayerful presence.

As the leader, the Abbot of the monastery agonized over the future, it occurred to him to go visit the rabbi. Perhaps he could offer some word of advice. So one day after morning prayers, the Abbot set out to visit the rabbi.

As he approached the hut, the Abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. And the rabbi motioned the Abbot to enter.

They sat there for a moment in silence, until finally the rabbi said: “You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts. You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you this teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that no one must say it aloud again.”
The rabbi looked straight at the rabbi and said, “The Messiah is among you.” For a while all was silent. Then the rabbi said, “ Now you must go.” The abbot left without a word.
The next morning, the abbot called his monks together in the chapter room. He told them he had received a teaching from “ the rabbi who walks in the woods”, and that after he told it his teaching was never again to be spoken aloud. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, “ The rabbi said that the Messiah is among us!”

In the days, and weeks, and months that followed, the monks pondered this riddle, and wondered what it could mean. The messiah is among US? Could he have possibly have meant one of us here at the monastery? If that is the case then which one of us is it? Do you suppose that he meant the Abbot? If he meant anyone then he must have meant the Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation.
On the other hand he might have meant brother Thomas. Certainly brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows and respects brother Thomas’ keen spirituality and insight.
Certainly he could not have meant brother Elred. Elred gets very crotchety at times. But, when you look back on it, Elred is almost always right, often VERY right. Maybe the rabbi did mean brother Elred.

But surely not brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. Maybe Phillip is the messiah.
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one of them might actually be the messiah.
As time went by there was a gentle, whole-hearted, human quality about them which was hard to describe but easy to notice. They lived with each other as people who had finally found something. But they prayed and read the Scriptures together as people who were always looking for something.
Now, because the forest in which it is situated is very beautiful, it so happened that people did still occasionally come to visit the monastery. They came to picnic on the lawn, to wander among the paths, even now and again to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently – to picnic, to play, to pray. As they did so, even without being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary humility and respect that now began to surround the old monks, and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling about it. They began to bring friends to show them this special place. Before long, people were coming from far and wide to be nourished by the prayer life of the monks.

Some of the younger men who came to visit started talking to the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And then another. More and more young men were asking, once again, to become part of the community. Within a few years, the monastery had once again become a striving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in that area.”

God is among us. What difference does it make in our lives? Do we see Christ in those around us? Do they see Christ in us? May we hear and respond to God’s call! Amen.