In her book, “Eat, Pray, Love”, Elizabeth Gilbert tells the story of her dark night of the soul. She had reached a painful crossroads in her life; she was looking for guidance. She had virtually no religious tradition or experience; she lay in bed one night and decided she should pray for some kind of advice about how to move forward from her place of agony. She got out of bed, knelt on the floor of her living room, and, in her clumsy, inexperienced way, asked God what she should do.  There was a long silence; then she heard, clear as a bell, a voice saying to her, “Elizabeth, go back to bed.”[1]

 

If God ever speaks to me in a voice like that, I’d prefer something more revealing or helpful.  But Elizabeth heard it as reassurance that she could sleep, that God would be with her as she resolved this crisis.  She said that if the voice had told her exactly what to do about the crisis, she wouldn’t have trusted it.

Samuel did not recognize God's voice when he heard it in the middle of the night.  He thought it was the voice of Eli, his mentor, the priest he served.  Three times he went to Eli and asked what he wanted. It finally took Eli telling him that it was the Lord before he began to understand.

 

How do we hear God's voice? I asked this question of some pastors this week.  Their answers were diverse.  Some said they hear God when they unexpectedly find themselves in tears or laughing; or within an extraordinary coincidence.  Some noted that it takes being silent and really listening to hear God, while others get messages through the words of particular songs.  One said that God calls people through the gifts that we have been given.  The fact that we possess a certain skill or ability is God's message to use it in service to others.

 

Eric had spent his adult life as a journalist. He was beginning to feel that there was more to life than he had known. He took a course at his church where they studied spiritual gifts. Near the end of the course, his pastor asked this question, “If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?” Eric’s answer was, “Well, I think I would preach.”

 

After the final session, his pastor pulled Eric aside and told him that a small country church was looking for a supply minister. Just that day, the area minister had asked that pastor if he knew anyone who was interested in preaching at Elkland Christian Church.

 

Eric said, “No, you don't understand. I think I’m supposed to preach 'someday.'"

 

He went home that night very confused and more than a little afraid. His oldest daughter Emily was about 10 years old. She picked up on his mood and asked what was wrong. He told her what had happened and they got out a state map to find Elkland.

 

Emily said, “Dad, have you tried reading Psalm 91?” They got out her Bible and read it together. 

In case you’re curious, Psalm 91 begins, "You who live in the shelter of the Most High . . . will say to the Lord, 'My refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.'" Towards the end it says, "When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation."

 

Those verses spoke to Eric. He asked Emily why she suggested that psalm and she said, “Oh, it was just on my mind.”

 

“Emily, you’re 10 years old. Psalm 91 wasn’t ‘just on your mind.’”

“Yes it was.”

“No it wasn’t”

 

Finally, she said, "Well dad when we were at summer church camp a couple of weeks ago, the boys came over and tried to scare all of us girls in the middle of the night. Our cabin counselor read us Psalm 91. I got a card from her today and she wrote, "Remember Psalm 91. Her name is Judy, oh, and Dad, she's from Elkland."  Eric had been pastor of Elkland Christian Church for 5 years when he shared that story.

 

God speaks to different people in different ways.   Other people’s experiences may be informative, but sometimes you want to know what God would say to you.  You want to know how to be sure it is God who is communicating and not wishful thinking or psychosis or something else. So how do we know?

 

I think the truth is that we don’t.  Or at least I am never 100% sure that I’ve understood God.  That’s why it’s faith and not certainty.  But there are some ways we can discern the voice of God with some degree of confidence.

 

If we do hear a word from God, it is likely to have something to do with our current situation.  We may listen better in some contexts that in others.

 

Here’s the context of our Biblical story:    Eli’s family business is the priesthood.  He has two sons.  They will do what the men of his family have always done – serve out their days as priests. Except that they have abused their authority.  They have taken the best portions of the sacrifices for themselves and slept with women who were there to serve as well.  In the previous chapter, an unknown man of God has brought some unwelcome news to Eli. He says that Eli’s sons have dishonored their office as priests and disgraced themselves and their family.  Because of this, the man says that soon they will both die on the same day and the family priesthood business will come to an end.  In their place, God will raise up a new faithful priest and a new family line will serve. When our part of the story opens, Eli has received this word of judgment and he is waiting to see how the prophecy will be fulfilled. 

 

And while he is waiting . . . one night, the boy Samuel keeps waking him up.  After the third time that Samuel comes to him saying, “Here I am,”  Eli realizes that something is going on.  He sends Samuel back to his own room and tells him that it is the Lord who is calling him.

 

Thinking about this from Eli's point of view, I wonder what he felt, lying there in the middle of the night.  Now that Samuel has woken him three times, he probably can't get back to sleep.  And he suspects that God is talking to Samuel.  Does he feel left out?  Or washed up?  The word of the Lord is rare in that time, but Eli is the priest. He has been the priest for all these years and now God speaks, but not to him.

The next morning, Eli wants to know what happened after Samuel went back to his own bed.  He says, "What was it that he told you?"  Eli doesn't say, "What did God tell you?"  Maybe he waits to hear the message before deciding who it was from.  Samuel doesn't want to tell him.  He doesn't want to tell him that his family is going to be cut out of the priesthood business forever.

 

But Eli makes Samuel tell him.  And after he does, even though the words are damaging to him, even though they are very bad news, Eli says “It is the Lord.”  How does he know?  Well, for one thing, it’s the second time he’s heard this message.  One of them confirms the other one. 

 

Samuel and Eli combine their separate knowledge and experiences to help each other.  Just as Eric and his daughter combined theirs.  And like them,  when we are wondering whether the voice we hear is God’s, we can look to other people who are also in the habit of listening to God, to help us decide. 

 

So we have a personal context and a community from which we hear God’s voice.  But there’s also a wider context, a bigger picture to consider.   Samuel is being called by God in a pivotal point in Israel’s history, a time of spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political danger and social upheaval.[2]  As Samuel grows up, he will become a judge, but he will be the last of Israel’s judges, because judges will give way to kings.  Samuel will anoint the first two kings – King Saul and also King David.  But most importantly, Samuel becomes the first prophet in Israel.  Somewhere we have gotten the idea that a prophet was someone who foretold the future.  A prophet was really someone who spoke the truth, someone who spoke God’s word.  Prophets got a reputation for telling the future because they warned people to change or suffer the consequences of their actions.  Most of the time people didn’t change and the predictable consequences of those behaviors came to pass.  But Samuel is the first in a long line of prophets who had the courage to speak God’s truth honestly, even to the kings. He does that perhaps for the first time in this story, telling the truth to Eli, but it becomes a lifelong pattern. 

 

Sometimes the call of God is like that – there is consistency, a discernible pattern across a lifetime.  But sometimes the call of God breaks the pattern, to move from being a judge to a prophet, to participate in the new thing that God is doing.  And again, that’s why we call it faith, not certainty.  When we discern a call from God, we look at our personal situation, at our faith community and at the world around us to see what God might be doing and how we are to respond. 

 

Another prophet, closer to our time was Martin Luther King Jr.  Martin didn't want to be a national civil rights leader. He had gone into the ministry mostly because his father was a pastor and he always did what Daddy King wanted him to do. Martin wanted a quiet life as a professor, possibly President of Morehouse College someday. Through an odd turn of events, as a young pastor he was thrust into the forefront of the Montgomery bus boycott. He came home late one night, tired, frightened. The phone rang. An angry voice on the other end said, "We're gonna get you _______!"

 

Martin Luther King stood in his kitchen, frozen in fear. He wanted to call Daddy King for reassurance and advice. But Daddy King wasn't there. Then he said it was like a voice. "Martin, you do what's right. You stand up for justice. You be my drum major for righteousness. I'll be with you."

He had heard his name called. He knew what God wanted for him. His life was forever changed and through his life, used so well by God, the world was changed.[3]

 

God calls us in different ways to different tasks, tasks suited to our contexts.  Eli was called to step back and enable Samuel’s ministry.  Samuel was to lead religious and political change.  And Martin was called to abandon his desire for a quiet life in order to lead many other people in a movement for justice.   The Body of Christ needs Elis and Samuels and Martins.  The Body needs folks who can hear the voice of God.  We need folks who can help others hear it too.  We need folks prepared to face the challenges of our times -- spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political danger and social upheaval   We also need those who know the old stories, the stories of trusting God in times of change, the stories of speaking and acting with courage, even to kings and powerful people.

 

Brothers and sisters, look around.  Those people – those Elis and Samuels and Martins --  are in this room.  We are those people.  We are in the habit of listening for God.   We are in the habit of sharing our experiences to help each other.   We are preparing to face the challenges of our time. When we hear God again, let us say “Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”  Amen.