Anyone Good

Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1–10, John 1:43–51

Some people find Psalm 139 to be reassuring. Some do not. We have just sung the beginning verses together. How do they strike you?

You have searched me and known me, it says. You know all that I do. You know all the paths I travel. You know all my ways. You know more about me than I do myself. There is nowhere I can go where you are not, no time when you are not with me.

For some, this is comforting. God will find us in the depths of despair and the worst of wickedness. When we are most alone, most frightened, in peril, in captivity—then God will be there with us. Like Jesus with the lost sheep, like a parent with a lost child, God will never leave us alone. God will always search for us and find us. Your hand will lead me, says the psalm.

But for others, this is scary. God pursues us to the ends of the earth. Like a divine stalker, God is always on our case. God is invasive, demanding, and relentless. There is nowhere we can hide. God will never leave us alone. God follows us and hounds us. Your hand will grab me, says the psalm.

The call of God is never altogether welcome. At best, those whom God calls are ambivalent about it. God calls us to adventures and duties that are often perilous, tedious, or just hard. God’s call can disrupt our lives and confuse and antagonize those whom we love. At the same time, God often calls us to a new and better life, one that is more like us (God knowing us better than we know ourselves; says the psalm: even before a word is on our tongues, O Lord, you know it completely)—a life that is more suitable for us than our current lives.

God does call us. We are called through the things of the world. Through wind and ocean, and scripture and friends, and our heart’s response to suffering and injustice. We are called through the hand of the Holy Spirit, nudging and guiding us as if we were walking blind along some rocky trail. And we are called, as Samuel was, by the spoken word of God. Or as Nathanael was, by a direct invitation from Jesus.

God calls us often, I’m convinced. That longing we sometimes feel and the urgings of our consciences are signs of God’s offer. But we hesitate to accept.

We might, as Samuel did, mistake God’s call for something else. The word of God was rare, it says, and visions were not widespread. Why would a voice in the night be God’s voice? Samuel thinks his mentor, his teacher, his master, Eli is calling him. Eli is old and sick; perhaps he needs some help. But Eli sends him away. It was not Eli calling. Does Samuel think, as we might, that perhaps it was a dream, or maybe that Samuel’s concern for Eli made him imagine a voice.

There are a lot of voices competing for our ears, demanding attention and action. And many are compelling and even good. Why should we think that any of them is the voice of God?

God calls Samuel three more times. Three times Samuel is confused. But Eli, older and wiser, knows what is going on. His advice to Samuel is to act as if it was God who was calling, and to listen, and to see what happens next. And thus Samuel hears God, and becomes God’s prophet.

We might think the voice calling us is God’s but deny that it is us whom God is calling. Why would God call a boy like Samuel? When God calls the prophets, they usually think God made a mistake. I’m too tongue-tied, says Moses. I’m too young, says Jeremiah. I’m too wicked, says Isaiah.

We are just ordinary people. Not all that good, not all that compassionate. Too selfish, perhaps; too young, too old, too committed to other paths; too unsettled, too unreliable. Yet people like us are those whom God calls.

Nathanael’s amazement with Jesus is not that Jesus miraculously saw him under a tree (anybody could have seen him there), but that Jesus knew him and perhaps in spite of that invited him to be one of his disciples.

Or we might suspect that it is God who is calling and that it is us whom God calls, but not be eager to respond. Prophets are reluctant for good reason. The rewards of a life obedient to God, while deep and profound, are balanced with the hardships. Samuel has to prophesy against Eli, the disciples meet a bad end. It can be rough. Yet, having heard God calling us, how can we refuse? How will we live knowing that we refused God’s invitation?

Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we especially honor this Monday, had a good life. He thought he’d teach and be a pastor and have a family. He only reluctantly agreed to speak at a rally for Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the civil rights movement. Nonetheless, he knew that God was calling and calling him in particular. He later said:

“If a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just, and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer. . . or he is afraid he will lose his job. . . he may go on and live until he is 80, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”

God calls us, prophets and disciples, one by one. The call, as it was to Samuel, or to Nathanael—or to Martin Luther King—the call is not some general advice on how to live a good and faithful life. It is particular to you. God has searched us and knows us. We are called by name. Samuel, Samuel—that double naming is Biblical code for God’s calling voice.

A call is an invitation to change something. Something in our heads, or hearts, or lives. In small steps or big ones. In what we do, the way we see things, the effect we might have on the world. To make different decisions than we have been making, and to hope for different things.

We think: there is a voice calling. We think: It is God calling. We think: It is God calling me. We hear our name. We hear an invitation: Come and see. We answer: Here I am, Lord. Speak. I am listening.