Samuel 3:1-20: A Voice in the Night

The calling on Samuel's life began before he heard the voice of the Lord in the middle of the night.  It began before he was even born, when his barren mother, Hannah, cried soundlessly from the depths of her soul, with anguish, with deep desire for a child.  In her petition she asked the Lord for a son and she offered this child back to the Lord. Eli happened by and saw a woman so beset that he thought she was drunk. When he realized the turmoil of her soul, Eli blessed her prayer and true to her word she brought her boy Samuel back to Eli when he was three years old.  I wonder what went through her mind as she took that journey with Samuel.  Did she was worry about Eli's ability to care for and lead her son? After all Eli's own sons were gaining quite a reputation. It was faith and a profound trust in God to care for her and Samuel, that carried Hannah up to the temple and to  Eli, saying: “Oh my lord, as you live my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the LORD.  For this child I prayed and the Lord granted me the petition that I made to him.  Therefore I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he is given to the Lord.” 




Hannah prayed and said,


My heart exalts in the LORD; 

my strength is exalted in God.

My mouth derides my enemies,

because I rejoice in my victory.


There is no Holy One like the LORD;

no one besides you;

there is no rock like our God. 

Talk no more so very proudly,

let no arrogance come from your

mouth;

for the Lord is a God of knowledge,

and by him actions are weighed.

The bows of the mighty are broken,

but the feeble gird on strength.

Those who were full have hired

themselves out for bread,

but those who were hungry ate fat

with spoil.

The barren has borne seven,

but she who has many children is 

forlorn.

The LORD kills and brings to life;

he brings down to Sheol and raises 

up.

The LORD makes poor and exalts rich;

he brings low, he also exalts.

He raises up the poor from the dust;

he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes

and inherit a seat of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are the 

LORD's

and on them he has set the world.


He will guard his faithful 

ones,

but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness;

for not by might does one prevail.

The LORD! His adversaries shall be

shattered;

the most high will thunder in 

heaven.

The LORD will judge the ends of the earth;

he will give strength to his king,

and exalt the power of his anointed.

Hannah's prayer is an enormously powerful theological statement that sings a song of triumph in the midst of travail and depicts the coming day of the Lord.  Hannah is speaking of how the Lord has prevailed in her life, how her tormentors have been silenced. There is a collapsing of time as she prays and her words reach beyond her to include the marginalized in every time and place. She speaks to a time when all that is wrong with the world will be turned on its head.  This grand reversal is also the story of Israel, of Jesus, of God's Kingdom amongst us and his Kingdom that is yet to come in its fullness.

Samuel the boy with the unusual childhood; raised at the temple at Shiloh, by Eli, half blind and withered by age.  The strange and wonderful sights, sounds and smells of the temple, the duties of the daily, would shape his life. There were pots to be scrubbed, rooms to be cleaned, doors to be opened, fires to tend. I wonder if Eli delighted in the life that Samuel brought to the temple or if he was too burdened by the grief of his own sons to appreciate the gift Samuel was to him in those years. The Lord had spoken to Eli - this was the end of the line for him and his sons because his sons were treating the Lord’s offering with contempt, taking the best pieces of meat and bringing them home to roast, sleeping with the women who helped out in the sanctuary.  And Eli was complicit because he did not deal well with them; he was too indulgent.  Amidst the ruins of his own family life Eli had Samuel, a kind and obedient boy who loved him and kept him company at the end of his life.

Samuel was deep in sleep when he heard his name cut through the silence of the night, through his dream and into the room where he lay.  It is always unsettling to be woken in the pit of the night. The silence is as ominous as the sound that is heard but not identified. It can be a struggle to discern what is real and what is imagined. Our bodies respond: the mind races, the heart pounds. It's as though our deepest fears and anxieties have been waiting all day to swallow us in the belly of the night, when we are most vulnerable.

"Samuel, Samuel," the voice said. Samuel woke up and instinctively went to Eli, "Here I am, you called for me."  Eli replied, "I did not call, lie down again." Samuel returned to his room in a sleepy stooper somewhere between conscious and subconscious reality.  And then it happened again,  "Samuel" the voice called. It had to be Eli.  Samuel got up, walked gingerly to Eli’s bedside and quietly said, "Here I am, you called for me." Eli, was puzzled by the strange night too.  It had been a long time since Samuel had woken in the night and come to him, "I did not call for you, lie down again."  Samuel was now somewhere between frustration, fear and curiosity.  If nothing else, this night was unusual.

The next sentence in our story reads, "Now Samuel did not know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him."  Surely this boy who grew up in the temple, who laid beside the ark of the Lord at night, who kept the oil in the lamp, who knew the difference between sin offerings, guilt offerings and burnt offerings, knew the Lord!  This implies there is a more personal or intimate knowing of the Lord.  Think back to all of the ways people have known God in the stories of the Old Testament. How Moses and Joshua were covered in a cloud so glorious Joshua did not want to leave.  The way Moses face shone so severely after meeting with the Lord that he had to wear a veil when he addressed the people.  There were bushes that flamed but were not consumed, there were three strangers who met Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. And Jacob had a memorable night-time encounter himself. Do you remember it? Jacob had separated himself from his family with a river between them.  The next day he would meet his brother for the first time since stealing the blessing and fleeing his home, and the weight of this bore down fiercely on Jacob.  When suddenly, out of the darkness a stranger leapt and tackled him. They wrestled against one another through that long and terrible night.  Jacob never saw the face of his mysterious opponent though he was desperate to.  Who was the strong and terrible man he was wrestling? Before the dawn broke, before the identity of the attacker might be revealed,  the stranger touched his hip.  Jacob released his grip, the attacker fled.  Jacob would never be the same after that night; he would have the limp as an ever -present reminder of the stranger who held him in his grip as he let it all out, that night by the river.

And after this night, Samuel's life would be changed, Samuel would be transformed into a prophet of the Lord.

Perhaps you can think back to an experience of God that changed your life; when God became more than an idea, or a philosophy, or a good story. When he spoke to you, out of the ordinary or extraordinary events of life, out of the silence, or the beauty of creation, or the ruins of life, through his word, or the words of others.  The truth is, we have God who desires to be near to his people, who has revealed his very self to us in Jesus, whose is always speaking.

The Lord called Samuel a third time and when he went to Eli he perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. The word of the Lord was rare in those days and visions were not widespread. This was a jarring night for Eli too.  Eli gathered his thoughts and said to him, “ Go lie down and if he calls you, you shall say, speak Lord for your servant is listening.”  Eli came alongside Samuel and instructed him on how to proceed; to address the Lord and to listen.  I appreciate that Eli allows this to be Samuel’s experience.  I think if I was Eli, I might have followed behind Samuel and peeked in the room, or sat quietly on the foot of his bed. Maybe I would have taken a pen and paper so nothing was missed. Then we could have a really great debrief about the whole experience (and I could be sure to lay my whole interpretation over it). And in doing so I would have completely taken over/gotten in the way/snatched the beauty and mystery and intimacy of the experience from the child.  Eli allows Samuel to have a direct encounter with the Lord; he does not try to mediate it, he has helped him to discern what God is doing and now he will go back to sleep.  And Samuel will utter the words that will change his life, “speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

God’s entrusted young Samuel with a serious word: “See I am about to do something that will make both ears of anyone who hears tingle.”  Samuel might have known that particular tingling right then as he heard the voice of the Lord.  I wonder what was triggered in his imagination as he heard the words, “I am about to do something.”  This was the kid who slept beside the ark of the Lord after all, he had known the stories of God’s deliverance, how the ark had been carried across the Jordan river, how the walls fell down at the sound of the horn and the trumpets.  He knew of the judges God had raised up, and how God had used them to save his people.  The Lord went on to tell Samuel that Eli’s house would be wiped out, there would be no sacrifice to atone for the sins of his family. Perhaps God wanted to help Samuel understand all that he has seen in Eli’s family.  After all it would have been hard for the boy to reconcile the disrespect and contempt of God he saw from Eli’s sons with all that Eli had been teaching him, and what he had known from his own mother. Maybe the Lord wanted to make sure that Samuel understood that the death of Eli’s sons was a judgement from God for their sins and he wants to speak to him personally about it.  However you look at it, this is not the word you might expect God to give the young boy.  God does not underestimate the child or patronize him; he entrusts him with a serious word and we learn that even (and maybe especially) children can be trusted with God’s word.

In this story it is the blind man who sees what the Lord is doing and it is the child that hears from the Lord and is chosen by God.  This is the God who Hannah prayed to, the God who brings low and exalts, the God who chooses the second born Jacob rather than first born Esau, politically and economically weak Israel over rich and powerful Egypt, young Samuel as the last and greatest judge in Israel.

This week as I considered this story I prayed for all children who gather at our parish, that they might know the Lord, and discern the presence of God in their lives and in the world. That as those journeying with them we might be discerning and wise, as Eli was with Samuel on this particular night.

There is much to consider in this story:

- God speaks to us! Think of the ways God speaks to us.

-       - We can learn to listen to God; others can help us learn about following God.

 -   Sometimes God chooses the youngest, or most unlikely person to show us who He is and to lead his people.