1 Samuel 3.1-20 Mark 2.23-3.6
This is for an All Age Service at Annscroft. Emma hopes it will have relevance for all of us.
Do you come when you are called? Be honest! How many of us can say that we never fit in just one more thing before we turn up for a meal, or whatever it is that someone wants us to do? Have you ever been called three times before you answer? I bet all you children would have to say yes! Of course Samuel was called in the middle of the night, so maybe he was sleepy. But in actual fact, he did answer pretty much straight away each time, but he just couldn’t work out who was calling him. Do you think you would have worked it out sooner? It took three goes before he realised that it wasn’t Eli calling him! To be fair to him at the time he was living, it was very unusual for people to hear God. Today, the Holy Spirit allows all of us to hear God. But still we are not really listening most of the time!
So how do we know when God is speaking to us? Well, to start off with, how do we know when anyone is speaking to us? Can you suggest some of the ways that people speak to us or message us – whether it’s loudly, or quietly, from a distance or from right next to us?
Can someone come and whisper something to me? God whispers to us all the time, just quietly talking to us about his love in the beautiful things all around us. What do you enjoy in your gardens, or when you go for a walk? What makes you smile? Maybe it’s a cuddle from someone you love, or stroking your pet, or the sunshine on your back. We are surrounded all the time by God’s loving care – he whispers to us in his creation.
What about written down messages from God? Would someone like to come and share a story from the Bible that they like? I have the Story Bible here to help. So what might that story say to us here and now?
God doesn’t always need to talk to us directly. He can speak via our friends and family, our teachers and the people we work with. When did you last hear someone say something that you felt was really true, something that struck home deeply? Maybe they told you that they loved you , or maybe they challenged your behaviour! God can use everyone to speak his words, comforting or unsettling. He can speak through the news, or even social media! He can and he does make himself heard in anything we listen to, provided that we are prepared to listen out for his voice.
He can even speak to us when things go wrong. C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia stories, said ‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: pain is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world’. That doesn’t mean that God wants things to go wrong! But when they do, then we are more ready to remember that we need God. He shouts out that he is there for us, that we can depend on him.
But perhaps we hear God best of all in silence, when we stop talking enough to listen. Can you be super quiet now? Even when we stop talking, there are still voices chatting away in our own heads, sometimes distracting us, and sometimes doing us down. To hear God, we have to switch off those internal voices as well as be still and quiet on the outside. It was in a quiet prayer time more than twenty years ago that I heard Jesus tell me to bear his name and tell his good news. I understood that he was encouraging me to think about ordination, becoming a priest and leading in his church. That message changed my life, and it still speaks in my mind today. God spoke to me again to encourage me when I got sick with ME - this time in a picture, not with words. He showed me a shining sword coming out of a sheath, and he said I wasn't like a sword stuck in a sheath, but one that was drawn and ready to use. Maybe God has got a message like that for you today, a message that will change your whole direction?
Hearing the message is just the beginning. Samuel had to work out what to do about it. He asked Eli for help, and when God called him a third time, he said ‘speak, for your servant is listening’. He was ready for God’s instructions.
I wonder if we are ready? Anyone heard someone tell them what to do, and just ignored it? So why do we do that? Sometimes we are just too busy. We don’t have time to fit God in, even though he made us and we depend on him for everything! We are so busy living our own lives, maybe even busy at church, that there is no time to listen to God, and no time to do what he says.
What about if we don’t expect God to be talking to us, because we think we aren’t important enough? It’s like sitting at the back of the class, hoping the teacher won’t notice us! We don’t join in with God’s plans, because we don’t think we have anything to offer. Well, that’s a bit sad because God made each one of us on purpose! None of us are mistakes, and each of us has something unique to offer. If we don’t join in, the world misses out!
But you might not be the quiet, fade into the corner type of person, you may be super confident! In which case, the danger can be that you might refuse to listen to God because you think that you know best. We can be very sure that we want to be in control, and very uncomfortable if God shows us that we aren’t! Do you know the story of King Canute, who wanted to show that he was not in control of everything? He put his throne on the beach and told the tide not to come in. Of course he just got wet! So he made it clear that no one, not even a king, could change God’s laws. Of course he couldn’t, he just got wet! The whole universe belongs to God, and we really need to remember that we are just teeny tiny parts of it. If we trust God, then he can show us how to join in, even if we are not actually in charge!
Last of all, we are often too selfish to do what God is telling us. It might be inconvenient or take us away from what we want. If I have a big bag of sweets, what do you think God might want me to do with them? Maybe he even wants me to give away the very last one! We don’t want to hear that! I’m sure that grown-ups can think of an equivalent, like when you finally have a moment’s peace and quiet but someone needs you? It can be very hard to let go of what we want and do what God wants.
So let’s finish by asking for God’s help!
Please God, help us to recognise your voice when you talk to us. Help us to listen well, and to do what you ask of us. Help us to know that when we are part of your plans, then we grow and bless the world you have given us. Amen.
The Revd Emma Phillips