( 1 Samuel 3:1-10 ) - [ Deutsch ]
Read the Bible text
Eli had been right. It is indeed God's voice that he has heard.
The text sounds like a cheerful game of confusion to me. Who's calling whom? And why? Samuel hears something and can't read the voice. He thinks that the priest Eli called him, but this is not true. Eli himself doesn't know anything about it. We recognize that God is at work here, but those involved do not. Until the mystery is solved at the end:
Exaudi: Lord, hear my voice. Listening and listening is at the heart of our worship service today. Behind this is the longing to be close to God. You are my help, don't leave me. This is how the psalmist speaks, this is how we speak. Often.
But do we hear God's voice out of all the other voices that want something from us? Do we listen to God's Word?
At that time, the word of the Lord was rare and there was hardly any revelation, it is said. The judges and saviors had failed. There were few people who understood God's Word. Eli is also an aging man, his sons do not ask for the Lord. And so the house of Elis had been declared doomed.
But the lamp of God had not yet been extinguished. Yes, the word of the Lord was rare, but not gone. There was still hope.
And as long as there is hope, one can trust with the psalmist: the Lord is my light and my salvation.
Samuel was the one to whom God turned. He was, so to speak, the light of hope for God at that time. It must have been at the end of his training when God called him. God calls for him 3 times. At night.
I wish it was so clear for me too. I ask God what I should do in this situation. I'm waiting to get clear instructions. I try to translate the biblical words into our time. And then I hear ... nothing.
What makes God's call to Samuel clear is that the Word of God comes to people from outside. Samuel has an astonishing experience: God's voice is not really "different", much more it is confusingly similar to a human voice. Samuel runs to Eli three times. In his world of experience, there has so far only been speech and listening to each other from person to person. What could he trust God to do in this regard? Samuel's life had taken place close to the temple, even near the Ark of the Covenant, the signs of God's presence. But until now, God's voice had not yet reached him directly.
And how good it is when there is sometimes someone who can then give tutoring, so to speak, as Eli was able to do for Samuel. "It takes the others to point us to the other," someone said (Alexander Deeg).
When God speaks to us, we should listen. We should also allow ourselves to be disturbed in what we are doing. We should listen and listen and ... yes, the word is not very popular: obey. In the past, one of the biggest educational goals was that children "obey". And it is also the top priority for authoritarian states and governments that their people "obey".
However, this feeling of slavery is not meant when we speak of listening carefully to God. God created us as mature human beings and that's exactly how we listen to Him. With a free will. We can also decide against God. This is the greatest honor the Creator has given us. We can follow God, reject Him, or, as we often observe today, we can doubt Him and at the same time yearn for Him.
Listen and listen.
It's good to take conscious time-outs for this. Times of silence that make it more likely that we will be able to hear God's voice from all the other voices.
In order to get out of everyday life, also from the everyday life of the community, we went with the KV from Friday until today to the KV Rüste, to Padre Pio. A beautiful property of the catholic church. Listen and listen. On each other and on God's Word. That's what we set out to do.
You know, at the beginning of September we have a visitation and we were given questions about our vision of the future that we should prepare as a whole church. What is our mission, what are our goals in St. John's Church?
It starts with listening to God's Word.
Exaudi, we are in this intermediate period. We are waiting for the power from on high. God's power, his light and his salvation, we depend on it.
"Hear my voice" is what we ask God to do in all our planning and doing. "Hear my voice," this is what God asks of us.
Samuel realizes that God has something in mind for him.
How many people after him. No one can know how God will show himself – not then and not now. There don't seem to be any hard and fast rules, not even for the vocation of prophets. Reports have come down to us about:
Jeremiah, who had God's word put into his mouth. Ezekiel, who even had to eat a scroll to internalize the divine word. Isaiah, who saw divine glory and perfection in a vision, and whose lips had to be prepared to speak God's Word.
The Bible tells us about people who followed Jesus because He called them. "Follow me". That's all it often took. And he got up and followed him. That's what they say.
The lamp of God has not yet been extinguished.
I want us to continue to trust God to make Himself felt in our world. And that we trust that we will be called. Maybe with confusingly similar voices, maybe in the gaze of a counterpart, maybe in a dream and maybe also through completely different channels nowadays – who knows. I also hope that someone will help us understand when we are not able to do so ourselves. – Will we be able to listen?
Will he also call us by name?
Then we too can answer him:
Speak, I hear.