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Covenant Service Next Week
Next week is our Covenant service, before communion I will invite us all to say a special prayer of commitment to God. The early Methodists used to say this difficult and profound prayer annually.
In that prayer we will make some amazing commitments, surrendering ourselves to God… we will say things like:
"let me be employed for you, let me be laid aside for you… let me have all things, let me have nothing."
It would be quite easy for us to say those words and not mean them. But if we do mean them – we open ourselves up to God, inviting God to take us, to use us for his purpose.
But in order to be used, we need to learn to listen.
As I read the scriptures for this Sunday I learned a couple of things about listening.
The first example is the young prophet Samuel. Samuel learns that the voice he has been hearing is the voice of God…
The Psalmist and Paul remind us that we belong to God and so have an obligation to listen.
Nathanael reminds me that we need to be very honest in our listening.
Samuel
In 1 Samuel we read the beginning of the story of the young prophet Samuel, whom God used to anoint David – who was the last of the prophetic judges of Israel.
God calls Samuel while he is sleeping in the temple…
"Samuel, Samuel!" he hears and runs to his master Eli's room – you called?
He does this three times and Eli says: "I did not call, go lie down again."
The fourth time this happens Eli realises that it is God speaking to Samuel.
Eli says to Samuel:
"Go lie down again, and if he calls you say: 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening…"
Samuel does as Eli has told him – God calls Samuel again, and this time Samuel listens.
Community Helps
Perhaps the first lesson for us about learning to listen is that we listen as a community. Samuel is able to take what he has heard and run it by Eli…
As church we have learnt over the years that we listen to God more responsibly as a group… In a cloud of witnesses.
As someone who believes he is called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament – I don't just say to the church, hey God called me, ordained me now!
I say "I believe God is calling me…" and we begin a long process of discernment... Eventually when the wider church says yes – we think so too – we get ordained as ministers.
We do this because any one of us could begin to believe that God was speaking to us. And this 'god'; voice could say to us all the things we want to hear or think we should hear.
We could quickly become deluded by our own imaginations if we didn't bring what we thought we heard into community to see if what we are hearing is really what God is saying.
Like Samuel learnt to listen for the voice of God from Eli, so we gather together to hear what God is saying to us as a community.
Experience Helps
The text tells us that Samuel didn't recognise God's voice because he hadn't heard the word of the LORD before.
The phrase 'word of the LORD' does not refer only to the Bible as we are sometimes tempted to think.
This phrase was written before people had a Bible to speak of. What the writer is talking about is the very real and living voice of God, speaking clearly to his servant.
We learn to discern that voice through the study of the experience of those who went before us. The prophets who record what they heard God say to them in scriptures.
And most importantly, Jesus, whom John describes as the Word of God…
When we are familiar with the voice with which Jesus speaks we begin to be able to discern what Jesus says.
Nathanael
Like Samuel, Nathanael whom we read of in the gospel is a bit slow to listen. And not for any bad reasons but for the fact that he is one of those people who carefully discerns what he has heard.
Its hard to know exactly what Jesus meant when he saw Nathanael and said "Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit…"
But I guess, because Nathanael was so quick to question saying:
"Can anything good come out of Nazareth…"
It became clear that Nathanael was one of those honest sorts of people who spoke his mind – who called a spade a spade.
I also guess, from Jesus words to Nathanael that he was a serious student of the scriptures, when he asks Jesus how he knows him Jesus says "I saw you under the fig tree…"
It was common for teachers to teach the scriptures under fig trees – for students of the scriptures to gather and speak about them in the shade.
And from the words Jesus uses – referring to deceit, an allusion to Jacob the deceiver (who tricked his brother out of his birthright and blessing) and the angels descending and ascending – a reference to Jacob's ladder… Jesus just might be referring to what Nathanael and company were speaking about under the fig tree.
And so – because Jesus knows Nathanael – and answers him wisely, Nathanael is able to say about Jesus:
"Rabbi! You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel."
And follow him as a disciple.
* * *
Often we are ashamed of or afraid of our doubts, our willingness to question – to discern.
I don't know why.
Perhaps its because people have taught us over the years not to question but to just believe.
To have faith like an imaginary child…
(The imaginary child is the one that doesn't ask questions… I say he or she is imaginary because I haven't met many who don't ask questions. And our Sunday School Teacher's will tell you they ask tough ones…)
* * *
When Jesus asks us to become like children he speaks of humility and dependence, not of giving up our minds.
* * *
Through honest questioning, I believe we come to the truth… and I believe that the truth of Christ, his life, death and resurrection stands in spite of our questions.
Nathanael – is able to discern God's voice in Jesus because he asks questions.
And when he is sure of who Jesus is – he is able to be obedient, and receive the promise that Jesus gives him:
"You will see heaven opened and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
A promise that Nathanael will see Jesus enthroned as King – not just of Israel but of heaven.
Critical
In our listening for God's voice I believe we need to be quite critical… we need to apply our minds to what we read in the scriptures, hear from the pulpit and believe we hear as God speaking to us.
I believe that we could easily deceive ourselves into not hearing the voice of God.
It is too challenging, demands too much of us and so we rationalise it away.
Or on the other hand we deceive ourselves into hearing a voice that is not God's. Anne Lamott writes in a book entitled Grace (Eventually)
"You can tell that you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates the same people you do."
So often we make God in our own image – we imagine God – and we get it all wrong.
I invite us to join people like Nathanael who are not easily deceived and become honest questioners who seek the truth.
And when we find it, commit to it.
Psalm 139
This morning as a part of our worship we read from Psalm 139.
For me Psalm 139 has special significance. At a time when I was struggling with my call to the ministry – telling God all the reasons why I was not the sort of person God should call I read Psalm 139.
Reading Psalm 139 reminded me that I was the person God had in mind to do what God wanted me to do.
But more importantly I realised that the one who knows me better than anyone on earth.
Who loves me more than we can understand or imagine.
Also calls me.
* * *
And if someone knows and loves you – it makes sense to listen to what they say, and do what they call you to do.
After my struggle with listening to God's voice – calling me into the ministry; with really grappling with the questions of faith, asking myself if I really believed in Jesus and God and what God was calling me to do.
Having taken the time to work those things out.
I am more firmly resolved to do what God calls me to do.
* * *
My prayer for us this week, as we prepare to say the words of our covenant service together. Is that we would not only commit to doing what God calls us to do.
But that we would listen too.
Not just hear, but listen.
And we will need grace to do that, at the end of the service we will pray for one another once again, and pledge to support each other in our journey when we pray for grace, love and fellowship.
And I know that in the power of that grace and love we will be able to hear what God calls us to do, and do what God calls us to do.
And we will be surprised when we see the angels ascending and descending on the son of Man…
The Kingdom of God here in this place.
Amen.
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