Tony Campolo makes this comparison to the prayer lives of many Christians: Imagine a phone, a red phone if you like; a hotline to heaven. Pick up this phone and you are immediately connected to God, no waiting, no voicemail, no call routing: pick it up and God is on the other end of the phone.
Too many of us run in at the end of the day, pick up the phone and immediately start into our list of requests, telling God all of the things that we need, all of the things that we are asking of Him, talking as hurriedly as an auctioneer we scramble to get everything in as fast as we possibly can, and as soon as we are done talking, we hang up the phone and turn to the person next to us and say God never talks to me... all this time I spent in prayer and I never get any answers.
We read Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening
but often we live and act as if to say Listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking.
I think of that story often when life is getting overwhelming, and the urge is to pray a litany of needs. One of the leaders at last week's Youth Ministry conference in Orlando challenged us all by saying If God seems distant, who moved?
And we come to our reading for today:
The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
Which made me wonder: what made the word of the Lord rare? What made visions not widespread? Perhaps it was that people were simply not spending any time seeking either the word or the visions?
3:2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;
We are told that Eli's eyesight was dim, but his vision was clearly sharp. He understood that God was in action, reaching out to Samuel.
Eli sent Samuel back to listen. To listen. It is perhaps the most important part of our life of faith.... to listen. Important because without it we are limited to our own thoughts, our own motivations, controlled by that around us to which we act or react. But what happens when we listen?
We have a chance to connect with a God who is much greater than ourselves, able to speak to us and transform us in ways we might not even be able to imagine. But it starts with our willingness to listen.
Silence is a dwindling part of our lives. It is easy to go through the day without ever having any significant amount of quiet, from the time we awake to the clock radio until we turn off the nighttime news and go to sleep, noise is ever present.
Silence must be sought out, must be planned, must be taken, sometimes forcefully pulled into our daily living where we unplug and listen.
Now a word of caution: the first thing you will realize when you try this is how many distractions will crop up. Other items on your to-do list will pop into your mind, crowding into the quiet that you are trying to create. It's a bit like driving in heavy traffic on the highway.... as soon as you leave a bit of space between your car and the next car, someone wants to cut in and fill it up.
It's not easy to accomplish. It takes practice and patience and practice. To listen. To be still. To do your best not to let your mind wander from here to there, but to be open to the presence of God.
There will be times when we do better at it and times when we don't. That's another lesson from today's Scripture reading. Samuel needed Eli to guide him. Eli's vision saw that something was going on, something that Samuel could not see. That's why we have this community where we gather together, because each time we come together some are stronger and some are weaker. We come together and share our strengths and our weaknesses.
On the day when I may not realize God's call, perhaps my neighbor will. On the day when my neighbor cannot lift voice in praise, perhaps my voice will lift her up. On the day when I am weak, the strength of others will carry me. On the day when I am strong, I help carry those whose burdens threaten to overwhelm them. We are stronger together, as a community, than we are individually.
That is not to say that being part of a community is an easy matter. Disagreements in the church go back to the earliest days of the Apostles, even as they still walked the earth with Jesus at their side. If it happened to them we ought to assume that it will happen to us as well. Ask most people what they hope to find in a church home and they will say they want it to be like a family – until it starts acting like a family.
Families don't always agree. They don't always have the same opinions, they don't always have the same priorities, they don't always see eye-to-eye. The church will be the same way at times, but hopefully what brings us together is stronger than those other things that divide us. What we have in common is a desire to worship and serve the God who has called us together. We did not simply decide to get together and call ourselves a church – God called us together.
We may question that from time to time. Wouldn't it be easier to stay home, worship God in our own ways without bothering with the difficulties of living in a community with others? But then we look at the actions of Jesus. From the earliest days of his ministry, Jesus called people together, called them to community. In this morning's gospel reading we heard how Jesus invited Philip, and in turn Philip invited Nathanael. Everywhere Jesus went, crowds gathered. People were drawn to him. Paul's letters were written to communities of faith which had already sprung up after Jesus' resurrection.
Of course Paul had disagreements with Peter. Paul had disagreements with lots of people. The Apostles started arguing about which was the greatest even while Jesus was preparing himself for the cross. There has never been a community without any conflict.
What keeps us together? What unites us? There are probably far more ways we are alike than we realize, and our similarities are often far more important than our differences. That is another reason why we must gather together for worship rather than striking out on our own: to realize that we are not alone, that there are others around us who walk with us. We come together and confess our sin to keep us from thinking we are perfect. We hear a word proclaimed that we might not hear if we stuck with our own private devotional reading of Scripture. With one voice we state what we believe through the Apostles Creed – the most important of all that binds us together: our faith in God made known to us in Jesus Christ.
Before we leave again we pray together the words Jesus taught his disciples when they said Teach us to pray.
He taught them the prayer that begins Our Father
.... Our
Father.... not just mine, not just yours, but ours together. Even the prayer Jesus taught his followers was a prayer of community, a reminder that we are all in this together.
There is another important place where we have reaffirmed our commitment to community: in the mission statement of our church:
With Jesus Christ as the center of our faith, hope and love, First Presbyterian Church glorifies God and will nurture, serve, and empower all people.
.... the center of our faith, hope, and love
... ours together. How will we accomplish our mission? We have begun to define the ways in the various vision statements that have come out through the hearts and minds of those who serve on our various committees.
And we are back again to where we began: vision. Just as Eli was able to see that which Samuel did not understand, so we gather together to help one another on our journey of faith each day. It takes much more than mere eyesight, which can only see what exists today. It takes more than memory, which can only see what was. It requires vision, vision not of the eyes which may grow dim, but vision of the heart and mind that grows stronger the longer we live in the knowledge and presence of God. But just as our eyesight may require adjustment and assistance, so too our vision requires attention and a chance to grow... and so we must continue to work together as we are given power by God's Holy Spirit to do, but we must also pause, stop, and be ready to hear God's message to us.
Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening....