“Speak, for your servant is listening” —Lectionary Reading for Epiphany 2B (1 Samuel 3)

1 Samuel 3:1-10 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

3 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; ³ the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. ⁴ Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” ⁵ and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. ⁶ The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. ⁸ The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

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                How do you know if it’s God speaking to you? Lots of people say that God has spoken to them. Often those who make that claim use that claim to justify heinous acts or at the very least use the claim to justify power plays. It even happens in churches! So how do you know? Might it be that the community is called upon to be discerning, to ask questions, to check references? That seems to be the guidance Paul gives to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 14. With these questions in mind, we turn on this second Sunday after Epiphany to the call of Samuel to prophetic ministry. When this call comes to Samuel, he is just a boy living in the temple at Shiloh with Eli the priest. He lived there because his mother vowed that if God gave her a son, she would give that son to God. Lo and behold, she did have a baby and she did as she promised. After he was born, she gave him to Eli to raise in the Temple. As he grew up, he assisted Eli in the Temple. This took place in the days before the monarchy, during the age of the Judges.

                It is worth noting that while Eli the priest seems to have been a good man, the same could not be said for his sons. While they should have succeeded their aging father, such would not be the case. Samuel on the other hand, well according to the author of 1 Samuel, “ Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people” (1 Sam. 2:26). Something similar would be said of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). All of this takes place in the first two chapters of 1 Samuel.  

                Samuel the prophet, priest, and judge, would play an important role in the future story of Israel. He would lead the nation and when pressed by the people he would anoint a king (Saul) and a successor (David) before dying. Even after death, Samuel continued to play a role in the life of the nation, as a dispirited Saul reached out to him in death through the auspices of the witch of Endor. That’s all part of Samuel’s story, but it’s not the story that lies before us. The story here is one of a sacred calling. That call comes directly, it appears, from God.

                The reading from 1 Samuel 3 begins by reminding us that Samuel, still only a boy, ministered before the LORD in the shrine at Shiloh under the supervision of Eli the priest, who essentially was his foster father as well. The next word we hear is important to set things up: “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread” (1 Sam. 3:1). In other words, one did not expect to hear a word from God. It just wasn’t happening regularly.

                The story goes like this, Eli was very old and nearly blind. While he was sleeping in the night, Samuel was doing the same in the temple where the Ark of the Covenant sat. In a word that fits with the season of Epiphany and its emphasis on the light of God, the author tells us the “Lamp of the LORD had not yet gone out.” Whether or not this was the intent of the author, this brief word might suggest that while things were going poorly in Israel, there was still hope. The light of God remained lit despite Eli’s age and the wickedness of his sons. The hope of Israel seemed to lie in this young boy who slept before the Ark of the Covenant. While he slept, Samuel heard a voice call his name: “Samuel, Samuel.” It was, we’re told, the voice of the LORD (Yahweh), but as noted above neither Samuel nor anyone else was used to hearing that voice because it was rare that God spoke. When Samuel heard his name called, he woke up and ran to Eli. He said to Eli, “Here I am, for you called me.” Eli must have figured that Samuel was hearing things in his sleep, so he told Samuel he hadn’t called out to him, so go back to bed. That’s what Samuel did. He went back to the place where he was sleeping before the Ark and tried to get back to sleep. But, once again he heard a voice calling out to him “Samuel, Samuel.” Samuel got up and went to Eli and once again said “Here I am.” Again, Eli told him he had called out to him and to go back to bed.

                After the second time, Yahweh called out to Samuel, we’re told that Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord and that the “word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him” (1 Sam. 3:7). He had been dutiful in his service to Yahweh, but he hadn’t yet met Yahweh. God had not yet spoken to him. So this was new and rather unexpected. By this time, having been told by Eli that the priest hadn’t called out to him, he had to be confused and a bit disoriented. Nevertheless, he dutifully went back to bed. But again, Yahweh called out to him. This was the third time Samuel heard his name called. When he went to Eli, this time Eli had an inkling something special was happening. God might not be talking to the people regularly, but Eli knew that something was up and that it had to be a God thing. After all, Samuel wasn’t in the habit of waking up and thinking he had heard a voice calling his name. So, “Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy.”

                This third time, when Eli sent Samuel back to bed, he instructed his young disciple and protégé to answer the voice by saying: “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:9). With these instructions in mind, Samuel lay down in the temple at Shiloh, one of the shrines to Yahweh that existed before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. At this point in the story, with instructions in mind, and back lying down before the Ark in the temple or shrine at Shiloh, we’re told that “the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel, Samuel.” This time, when Samuel heard his name called, he answered: “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I know, it sounds as if it’s Frazier Crain, but it’s not. It’s Samuel, a young lad, perhaps around twelve. That was about the age when Jesus began to figure out who he was. I find this word from Sergius Bulgakov concerning Jesus’ emerging self-consciousness at about that age intriguing. “The Gospel conceals this period of His earthly life behind the veil of silence, and we will not make fruitless attempts to uncover this mystery, which is wholly expressed in three words of the Gospel of Luke: “the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him” (2:40). In this silence, His personal consciousness of self was awakening and was awakened in Him as the consciousness that He was God—as his divine consciousness. This veil of silence is lifted for a brief moment to show us this divine consciousness already awakened in the twelve-year-old adolescent Jesus.” [Bulgakov, Sergius. The Lamb of God (p. 262). Eerdmans. Kindle Edition]. To that point, Samuel had no idea that God might call him to a greater ministry. But at the same age that Jesus seems to have caught sight of his calling, the same was true of Samuel. Though the callings were quite different!

                After Samuel answered God’s call, he essentially began his ministry. According to the Revised Common Lectionary, our reading ends with verse 10, though it suggests we might want to continue with verses 11 to 20 (though I think we might want to add verse 21). In verses 11-20, we hear more about God’s rejection of the family of Eli. God tells Samuel that something is about to happen in Israel that “will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” That is because God will act against Eli and his family. After all, they had acted unfaithfully. Because Eli failed to reign in his sons, who had blasphemed against Yahweh, they will be cut off forever. When Samuel woke up, he went to Eli and told Eli what God had revealed, hiding nothing from his mentor. Eli simply told Samuel, “It is the LORD, let him do what seems good to him” (1 Sam. 3:18). From that point Samuel grew up and God was with him, such that the entire land recognized him to be a trustworthy prophet. While Yahweh had not been speaking regularly, that all changed. Now, we’re told: “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (1 Sam. 3:21).    

                We might not hear God speak to us in the same way God spoke to Samuel. But that doesn’t mean God doesn’t continue speaking. God’s voice might come to us differently than the way God appeared to Samuel. The question is, are we listening? If we are listening, it’s probably wise to have some form of discernment. One possibility is what is known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral which brings into play Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. These four, when taken together, would seem to provide some important checks and balances so that we hear what God wants us to hear and not just what we want to hear.  

Image Attribution: Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. The Call to Samuel, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59172 [retrieved January 4, 2024]. Original source: Estate of Frank Wesley, http://www.frankwesleyart.com/main_page.htm.