Scripture Readings (1 Samuel 3, John 1:43-51) Epiphany 2, Year A

“You will see greater things than these.” Jesus tells his new disciples Nathanael in our Gospel reading this morning. Nathanael, truth be told, wasn’t expecting to see anything great at all, not least something great from somebody with as dubious an origin as Nazareth. His expectations are low. He doesn’t think he can be surprised by the quality of offering from this Jesus character. It sounds as if Nathanael was not expecting to hear from God. 

And it’s the same in our Old Testament lesson, “The Word of the Lord was rare in those days. Visions were not widespread.” I wonder, do we live in a time in which the Word of the Lord is rare? Do we expect to hear from God?

I wonder if we get confused or mishear God, too. The great prophet Samuel, who ushered in King David –  a man after God’s own heart! – didn’t recognize God’s voice when he called. Samuel’s mentor, the priest Eli, didn’t recognize God’s voice at first, either. They assumed it was just a bump in the night, less than something to be ignored, they assumed it was totally imagined, nothing at all. 

I wonder if we dismiss God’s voice. I wonder if we attribute the stirring of the Holy Spirit to be less than a bump or a coincidence, I wonder if we dismiss the call of God as indigestion or as totally imagined, nothing at all. 

What are we missing out on if we are dismissing God’s voice?

What are we suffering needlessly, because God has given us a way out but we are too focused on our expectations in order to listen to him? 

What difficulty might we avoid, what joy and peace might we have access to, what confidence and strength might we enjoy, if we were attuned to the voice of God?

In our Gospel reading, Nathanael does not immediately recognize God’s voice, either. When Jesus starts to reveal intimate details, Nathanael relents and realizes there might be more going on with this Jesus, that there might indeed be something good to come out of Nazareth. 

Even later in Samuel’s story, when he goes to anoint the future king David, David’s father Jesse thinks that God’s calling of David is so unlikely he doesn’t present this 8th son to Samuel. Can anything good come out of Bethlehem? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? What could God be about, calling people from these places, calling these types of people? Is that even God’s voice? Is this voice to be trusted? 

How do we know if a voice is God’s? How can we understand the call of God and follow it? How can we trust? 

One of the things that strikes me in the readings today is that all these people who are hearing from God involve other people in the call. Nobody is hearing God’s voice off by themselves and then acting on it alone. Samuel brings in his mentor, his priest, his father-figure Eli, to ask what to do and what’s going on.

 Is there someone in your life who you look up to, who you have experienced as wise? Maybe they’re somebody to sit with in learning and discerning God’s voice in your life. 

Both of these stories, too, show a sort of testing of spirits in different ways; God calls Samuel several times before he responds, and I wonder if you’ve experienced that, too. How God will put the same opportunity in your path a few times until you accept it. In the Gospel lesson, Nathanael hears about Jesus from Philip, he receives Philip’s testimony, but then he doubts, he famously wonders, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” 

It’s okay to question, to wonder, to doubt. God can handle our uncertainty. God is big enough to receive our questioning, God loves us enough to hold space for our wondering. The important thing in doubt and questioning, though, is sincere inquiry – I sometimes see “doubt” as a shield people use to avoid tough questions or examining their own assumptions. God is big enough to hold our doubts, but it’s disingenuous to just leave him carrying all our baggage. 

God longs for relationship, longs so much to be near to us that he came to be a human in order to be as close to us as possible, to enter our experience, to understand us and love us well, so how might we respond well to that kind of gesture, that sort of call? 

In each of these narratives, we see a sense of community discernment, we see an airing of doubt, and then finally, we see a resolution, a surrender and submission, an openness and an attitude of humble listening on the part of the person called. 

So whether you have a call on your heart today, whether you wonder if you’re hearing strange voices or you believe you have a Word from the Lord, or perhaps you’re straining to hear anything at all, what we can surely all do to prepare us for God’s voice is to adopt open ears and hands and hearts, ready to listen and to humbly receive. 

When I was 16, I went to a summer camp for theology nerds. I’d always been the most zealous for church of my parents’ children, I served on the worship team and in the children’s Sunday School. I loved to read books far beyond my depth when it came to matters of faith and philosophy (I infamously brought Aristotle on a spring break trip to Florida). When I came home from this summer camp, a very small voice suggested I be a pastor. It was a strange voice and a weird thing to say, and those around me dismissed the epiphany, just like Eli when Samuel came to him at first. 

So I wanted to be a religion professor, and that felt much more acceptable to me and to those around me – I wouldn’t actually be traversing that ground of being a woman in a world that had been ruled by men for millenia – though of course academia isn’t that much better! Near the end of my time in college, that voice came again. It reminded me how much joy I’d felt when mentoring young women in my sorority, and how it was the relationships and interactions that fueled me more than reading and regurgitating books. 

I still wasn’t sure about this voice, and thought maybe it meant I should be a college chaplain. That didn’t sound nearly so scary as being some kind of parish priest. But brothers and sisters, I remember the night I laid in my bed, much like Samuel, and the thought was placed in my head, “You will be a priest.” A few weeks after that, a dear mentor of mine wondered aloud to me whether my call was to blow hot air about women in ministry – which was my desired academic focus – or to just go be one. 

God’s call will keep coming, in different times and places and tones and harmonies, until each of us responds. This is true in our individual lives as well as our call as a worshiping community, and as a city, a nation, and a world. 

Openness, brothers and sisters. Being open to God’s voice sounding or looking different than we expected. Allowing our community to help form and inform us about how God is showing up. Allowing ourselves to be challenged and to re-examine our conceptions, which is itself humility. 

So this morning I leave you with the challenge and charge, especially as we celebrate this season of Epiphany, of revelations and of the flooding in of light to our lives: may we be open to the Holy Spirit’s call, may we be open-handed in our response, may God give us courage to humbly submit to his gracious will. 

Amen.