December 18 (4th in Advent, candle lighting)

Carol Barriger &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; 1 Sa= muel 3:1-11

1^st Congregational Church of Redwood City, UCC &= nbsp; &nbs= p; From Letter from Birmingham= Jail

January 15, 2006 (2^nd in Epiphany, Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday observance))

“The = Call That Makes Your Ears Tingle”

Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel that

will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.” (1 Sam 3:11)

Most of = you know that I do not let this Sunday pass each year without talking about Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s n= ot that I think he was larger than life, though history has cast him that way, somewhat like Rosa Parks. It’s more personal than that.= It’s because the civil rights movement, and the guidance of a = very special person in my life gave me my first exposure to the intersection of faith and social justice. We marched with thousands of others on that hot day in 1963. Though I didn’t realize it completely at the time, it changed my life forever. It was the call that made my ears tingle.

<= /span>I am not going to take advantage of this time to tell my own personal story again. I want to go back to t= he story we heard from the Bible. As progressive Christians, we are sometimes inclined to discount the relevance= of Bible stories cast in ancient terms for our lives today. As with any enduring work of liter= ature, I want to tell you those stories are there for a reason. Perhaps that is a more productive = way of looking at scripture when some of it stands out as unbelievable, difficult = to understand, or unpalatable. T= he Samuel story captures the reality that we have a dialogue with the Holy, our Creator, the Source of Love and Life. It’s a hard dialogue for us to recognize or sustain; it doesn’t occur in English, or even any spoken language at all, but in = the language of the heart.

<= /span>Good children’s stories have you right from, “Once upon a time…” don’t they? You expect exciting events, interesting characters and a good ending= . So we open ourselves up to the story. This story starts out … once upon a time, the word of the Lord was rare in those = days; visions were not widespread. (1 Sam 3:1) and we are catapulted b= ack into ancient times. Oooh, bad= news for the people of Is= rael. What happened to the covenants God= made with Abraham and Moses? It se= ems God had dropped out of their lives. Was God still speaking? We proudly proclaim that in the United Church of Christ, but most days we̵= 7;d say we don’t hear much of anything.&= nbsp; We have to listen in a different way – not with our ears, the language of very literal storytellers in the days of oral transmission. Maybe the story says that when God calls, your ears will tingle – but the calling to make a difference in this world is the one that makes your heart tingle.

<= /span>The Bible is full of "call" stories, so it’s worth asking, R= 20;What does it mean to be ‘called” anyway?” The holy knock on the door is not = that of a casual visitor, the UPS delivery, or your pastor. A call from God is imperative, insistent, and insinuates itself into your life. Some find creative ways to shunt i= t aside (like many of us, before we actually get to seminary). “You can't mean me," or= maybe “I don’t believe in that stuff.” Moses claimed he was slow of speech. Jeremiah said, "= I am but a boy." These are Bi= ble ways of saying: some people a= re in denial. But Ezekiel was drawn= in by fantastic visions, Isaiah saw angels and said, "Here am I; send me." The fishermen by th= e sea dropped their nets, their whole livelihood, when Jesus said, "Follow me." Clearly, stories li= ke these show us people do respond to the movement of the Spirit. God did not accept “no”= ; from Moses, Jeremiah, or the disciples. The stories are there for a reason, to convey the timeless truth that silence is not an acceptable answer – not while there is hurt, and oppression, and suffering in this world, and in fact, God will not leave us alone. So the first re= ason for not hearing “the call,” not having tingly ears, is denial – it’s not happening.

<= /span>Our "no" to God usually takes the form of -- no response at all. No comment. Talk to my agent, ta= lk to my pastor, anyone – but not me.= Maybe if we are quiet, and make ourselves very small, God will stop disturbing us, leave us alone. But the opposite occurs. When we = are quiet, we hear a great deal – God’s still, small voice w= hich spoke to the prophet Elijah (1 Ki 19:12) gets through! Once there is <= u>any response at all on our part – especially struggle, we’re engaged, in connection, in dialogue with God. The second reason for not h= earing God's voice is not listening, looking away; opting out. How many times have we said to our children – I know you hear me, but are you listening to me?

Some cal= ls are quiet; some are blockbusters. Are we afraid to answer? You bet.= Why? Fear. We absolutely expect to be asked t= o do more than our limited vision tells us we can. We forget that along with a call c= omes the promise of the presence of the Spirit.= When Moses asks: Who am I= that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? the immediate reply is, "I will be with you ..."= (Ex 3:11) and Moses leads an e= ntire nation through the wilderness for forty years. So a third reason we don= 217;t answer is fear – fear that we’ll be stretched so far … we’ll break, or die.

<= /span>In the story, Samuel hears his name called – or he senses his name being= called. But he responds to the wrong person. It's not Eli calling him. Why does he respond to t= he wrong person? Because life in= the temple conditioned him to believe that orders and direction came from Eli.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He expected Eli to call; but that = was the noise of his mind, of his expectations. Eli tells him: Quiet yourself. Don't jump to your expectations. So there’s a fourth r= eason for not hearing God’s call – we’re listening for the wrong voice, the voice of our preconceptions, our culture, or some authoritative voice from the media, or the political arena – a voice of shoulds and oughts to tell us what sort of person to be and how to live in the world. George Bush says that God speaks t= o him. Wonderful. Should, then, Bush’s voice b= ecome the de facto voice of God to us?&nb= sp; No – let’s listen for God to speak to us – to make our ears and hearts tingle.

<= /span>We’ve created all these ways to escape the conversation with God – denial, inattention, fear, listeni= ng for the wrong voice. We walk away= from God’s imperatives. But = there are some things we are commanded to weave into our lives, because they are holy. Those things – lo= ving neighbor, challenging oppression, stopping violence, seeking justice – are not matters of politics or a selective morality. They are divine imperative. This is the voice that makes your = heart tingle. The imperatives don't always come out of the mouths of very saintly people, in life or in scriptu= re. Jesus believed that ordinary, plainspoken people like you and I would answer God's call. The disciples were such people = 211; fickle, argumentative, dense, and undependable, and not classy or well-educated.

<= /span>Today we honor one person’s response to God’s imperative. A century ago, 50 years ago, America was a land of promise and optimism – if you were white. For descendants of slaves, it was = a land of Jim Crow laws. Lack of education and employment, poverty, disenfranchisement, humiliation, and abuse crippled the lives of b= lack Americans. The word of the Lord was [surely] rare in those days; visions were not widespread. But ever since Africans were first enslaved here, the Black church has been a force for community and hope. The stories of Hebrew Scripture, particularly the promise of the Exodus, are deeply woven into Black culture. Those stories provid= e a vision, an ongoing dialogue with God. The vision was not lost in the 20^th c., but it needed rekindling. The church was the cradle. And in that cradle, s= omeone was listening – Martin Luther King, Jr.

<= /span>Movements are never the work of one person, but when King agreed to lead the Montgomery bus boy= cott, he’d heard a call. Perh= aps you can explain his choice of ministry because he grew up with the role mod= els of his father and grandfather, though he first wanted to be a doctor or law= yer. But his call was deeper, more comp= lex, than making a job choice. He = was in a dialogue with God. His ears= were tingling. His heart was tingling. His study of Gandhi= 's philosophy of non-violence, led to his 1956 decision to lead the boycott. Violence, he learned, is noise. Non-violence is a form of quiet in= which the voice of God can be heard. In his 1963 letter from the Birmi= ngham jail, King wrote:

Nonviolent ... action seeks to create = such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refu= sed to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It also seeks so to dramatize the = issue that it can no longer be ignored.[1]<= o:p>

King created that quiet t= ension so that God's call to individual and societal justice could be heard. He also called the church to accou= nt, pleading for an awakening from complacency and timidity:

I see the church as the Body of Christ,= but, oh, how we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.[2]

&nb= sp;

He spoke in Washington later that year and said, &= quot;I have a dream..." but the= dream metaphor took on an overblown significance in how we remember King. He was more than that. He was a prophet and revolutionary= ; and also a man who doubted his own abilities and disappointed his family. But the dream captured his call fr= om God and was passed on to us. When= he spoke of his dream of children together, and freedom ringing from Stone Mountain in Georgia<= /st1:country-region>, was that not also the old dream of Jacob, the vision of which Jesus also spoke? That: you will see greater things than these.... Very truly, I tell you, = you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending... (Jn 1:51)

= ; Wh= ich is true in our day, in our community? That: The word of the Lord [is= ] rare in [these] days; [and] visions … not widespread? … OR … that [we] will see greater things than these? ... Heaven opened? The answer lies in attending to ho= w God calls us right here and now. = Those stories from the Bible have a point. From them we learn that skepticism is no barrier to being called; neither is denial, fear, stubbornness, or misplaced expectation. God issues imperatives in your nam= e and our name as the church. The f= irst response is to say to your God: Speak, for your servant is listening (1 Sam 3:10) and to sit in quiet attentiveness. The second response is to act.

&= nbsp; Throughout history God has raised up prophets to challenge erring and recalcitrant people. There are relentless naggers, outspoken loudmouths, articulate troublemakers who confront apathy, irritate us, arouse our defenses, make us anxious and angry. Sometimes we wish they would just = go away. Sometimes society shuts them up forcibly. Twenty-plus centuries after the Sa= muel text was written, there appeared in Montgomery this prophet who would not keep silent.&nb= sp; His inability to remain silent in the face of wrong is paradoxically linked to its opposite – his capacity to be silent and to listen to G= od. This is what makes a credible prophet. Such prophets teach = us that the calling to speak for God with authenticity, power, and compassion = is rooted in the ability to be silent before God in humility and expectation.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It is what distinguishes them from charlatans, demagogues or just plain persuasive people with private or poli= tical agendas.

&= nbsp; Martin’s ears tingled as he listened, and it would cost him his life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

&nbs= p;

c:\data\carol\redwoodc= ity 2006\sermons\ser0115.06 The Call the Makes Your Ears Tingle

The reading from Hebrew Scripture is the story o= f the call of Samuel. Samuel’s parents had dedicated him to God and sent him to serve in the temple at an early age.<= span style=3D'mso-bookmark:ecclesiastes'>

1= Samuel 3:1-11 = (read as a drama)

Nar= rator/God: Now the boy= Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in tho= se days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he co= uld not see, was lying down in his room; 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.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said,

Samuel: "Here I am!"

Narrator/God: and ran to = Eli, and said,

Samuel: "Here I am, for you called me."

Narrator/God: But he said= ,

Eli: &= nbsp; "I did not call; lie down again." =

Nar= rator/God: So he went = and lay down. The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel go= t up and went to Eli, and said,

Samuel: "Here I am, for you called me."

Narrator/God: B= ut he said,

Eli: &= nbsp; "I did not call, my son; lie down again."=

Nar= rator/God: Now Samuel = did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel a= gain, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said,

Samuel: "Here I am, for you called me."

Nar= rator/God: Then Eli pe= rceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel,=

Eli: &= nbsp; "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servan= t is listening.'"

Nar= rator/God: So Samuel w= ent and lay down in his place. Now th= e LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said,

Samuel: "Speak, for your servant is listening."=

Nar= rator/God: Then the LO= RD said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ea= rs of anyone who hears of it tingle.”

The= Letter from Birmingham Jail was written April 16, 1963 by Martin Luther King, Jr. He was jailed for his role in a pe= aceful protest of segregation. The l= etter responds to a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen, who agreed that social injustice existed, but contended the stru= ggle should stay in the courts and not on the street. King responded that without direct action such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved; and that civ= il disobedience was justified in the face of unjust laws. This is an excerpt from the Letter= from Birmingham Jail.<= o:p>

Letter from Birmingham Jail

… I am in Birmingham<= /st1:place> because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. = left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond= the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his villa= ge of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond = my own home town.

… I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, [but] as= I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.

Was not Jesus an extremist for love? "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them = that hate you, and pray for them which … use you, and persecute you."=

Was not Amos an extremist for justice? "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel? "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."

Was not Martin Luther an extremist? "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, = so help me God."

And John Bunyan? "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience."

And Abraham Lincoln? "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free."

And Thomas Jefferson? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all … are created equal ..." =

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremi= sts we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremis= ts for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? …<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Jesus Christ, was an extremist for= love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps …= the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Here end the readings for today. May God add new understanding to o= ur hearing of these words.