הִנְנִי (HINENI)

January 15, 2012
Epiphany 2
1st Samuel 3:1-10;19-20
John 1: 43-51

(prayer)

If you start reading the book of 1st Samuel from the beginning, you learn quite quickly that Hannah was one of two wives of Elkanah. Peninnah was the other wife. Peninnah had children and Hannah did not. The legacy of children was very important in the culture of the day. Sadly, wives were often valued by their ability to rear healthy children: particularly male children (sorry, ladies: it wasn’t a very enlightened time of human history).

In spite of this, Elkanah loved Hannah and treated her very well, maybe even better than he treated Peninnah and her children.

When it came to the relationship between these sister wives, things weren’t so rosy. Basically, they were competitors for Elkanah’s affection and admiration. And Peninnah was merciless in her taunting of the barren Hannah.

Hannah became depressed and felt that she had been abandoned by God because she could not have children. At the tabernacle, she prayed: “O LORD of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death.”. A nazirite was a person who took a vow to be “Holy to the LORD”. Such a person abstained from alcohol and certain foods; they never cut their hair and sought to be in a constant state of ritual purity by avoid any contact with a dead body, even those of a family member.

The Bible says that when the family returned to their home: “Elkanah knew his wife Hannah” – you know what that means. Nine months later Samuel was born. After he was weaned, Hannah took him to the Tabernacle, to Eli the priest, and said “For this child I prayed; and the LORD has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he is given to the LORD”. And so it came to be that Samuel (the son of Elkanah and Hannah) lived at the tabernacle with Eli the priest. That’s where we picked up the story today in our first reading.

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We heard how Samuel was in the tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant was, because the lamp of the God was still lit, when he heard his name called. He naturally assumed that he was being called by the only other person nearby. After all, Eli was aging and his eyesight was poor, I imagine he often called out to Samuel to tend to him for this and that. So Samuel went to Eli [“Here I Am” – hinəni - הִנְנִי], only to learn that Eli hadn’t called him. Curious. This happened three times, before Eli concluded that it must be God who was calling the boy.

The fourth time Samuel was called, he didn’t go to Eli but said, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening”. And God replied, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it, tingle”. Exciting, eh?

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It wasn’t enough for Samuel to simply hear the call of God, he had to be willing to listen.

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The gospel of John tells the story of Jesus a little differently than the other Biblical gospels. Next week we will ready the familiar story of Jesus calling the fishermen, Simon, Andrew, James and John away from their nets to help Jesus ‘fish for people’.

It we had started reading the gospel of John today from verse 35 instead of 43, we would have heard John’s version of the calling of Simon and Andrew. As the fourth gospel tells it Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist and learned from John that Jesus was the Messiah. Andrew went and told his brother and they went to see Jesus and the rest is history. In fact, in the gospel of John, Jesus nicknames Simon as Peter (Rock) right away.

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Focusing on today’s reading, Phillip was from the same town as Simon Peter and Andrew and learned about Jesus from them. Phillip passed the news on to his friend Nathaniel: “We have found [the one] about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth”.

Nathaniel was not very impressed: “Nazareth? Couldn’t be. Nothing good ever comes out of Nazareth.” And so, he did not follow Jesus.

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Jesus then took on a more direct role, he went to Nathaniel himself. He had been watching Nathaniel and judged him to be of good character – the kind of person, Jesus was looking for. It’s unclear whether Nathaniel was humbled by this surprising attention or if his ego was simply stoked, but he joined Jesus’ band of followers at that point.

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It wasn’t enough for Nathaniel to be told about Jesus, he had to be open to listening to Jesus.

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In life, some people have a job, some have a career and some have a vocation. And sometimes, we use these words (vocation, career and job) interchangeably.

The origins of the word job are uncertain, but it could mean a “piece” of something. That makes sense as a person’s work life can consist of any number of jobs.

Career’s origins are similar to “carriage” or “chariot”. A career evokes the image of a path that is travelled.

Vocation, on the other hand, is related to the word “voice” – a vocation is a calling. In this way, a person is especially suited for this work – as if this is what they were meant to be doing.

I suppose a person’s job over the course of time could stretch into a career. And if this is something that felt drawn to, as if they were particularly gifted for this job, we could also call it a vocation.

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Today’s scripture passages draw us into the nature of being called.

In the wider United Church, we use the word Call is a couple of very specific ways:

(1) when congregation and a minister have ‘interviewed’ each other, the congregation may choose to Call that minister to be in an open-ended pastoral relationship with them;

(2) when a person is considering becoming involved in spiritual leadership within the church: we say they are exploring or discerning a Call to ministry. Our congregation, right now, is in the process of working with ‘one of our own’ in formal discernment (a process that takes at least a year). The main UCC resource for a Discernment Committee is called “Discerning a Call”. That booklet describes the full nature of call in several distinct ways. The first of which is the basic call to be a follower of Jesus: The call to be a Christian is...the call to discipleship of Jesus Christ—to hearing and doing the Word of God. The letter to the Ephesians (4:1) includes the reminder “to lead a life worthy of the calling (vocation) to which you have been called.” All Christian believers have a vocation to be “co-creators” and stewards of community and all creation, in order to fulfill God’s purposes for humanity. This is the call of all [people of the church].

In the Discernment Process, call is further narrowed down to include ultimately: the call of gifts – for formal ministry leadership in the church, there are certain gifts, skills and learnings that can help confirm the wider call,

In a way, this is the kind of ‘call’ being described in our scripture readings today. It is an invitation to become part of something larger than ourselves. The expectation is not that people will necessarily jump right in and follow blindly, but that they do more than simply ignore the call or just walk away.

Being called to serve God begins with being open to listening to that call and letting it resonate with us for a while. God is saying something very flattering to us as we consider our sense of call. God is inviting us to embrace this gifts we have and serve from there, outward.

A psalmist once wrote that God knows us better than we know ourselves. We echoed the sentiment of Psalm 139 as we called each other to worship earlier. The original Psalm includes this statement of faith: “O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You [are all around me], and lay your hand upon me.”

God knows us (the good, the bad and the ugly) and God still calls us. No one is unworthy of serving God; no one can consider themselves of being unworthy of following in the ways of Jesus, our Christ.

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As I mentioned before, next Sunday, we will focus on call again – and more specifically responding to the invitation to become involved in a vocation with Jesus. But for today, I simply want to emphasise that the first and necessary step is to listen – to pause and let the invitation enter us.

When we feel called, before we ask any questions, before we discern the details, before we make any life-changing decisions, we simply need to say “Here I Am! – hinəni - הִנְנִי”

“Speak, LORD, your servant is listening.”

“Here I am!”

“Here I am!”

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What wonders might be in store for us when we open that first door of faith?

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Holy God of Wonder and Hope;

Be patient with us when we are too busy and distracted to hear the small, still voice. Give us the courage to consider deeply what it means to follow Jesus.

Amen.



#79MV “Spirit, Open My Heart”