1 Samuel 3:1–20
Saint John 1:43–51
If we have learned or had to relearn anything in the past few weeks it is that words are very powerful instruments. They have the power to hurt and the power to heal or, as Scripture tells us in Proverbs: “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”1
We have been drowning in a cesspool of harsh words that have stirred up the anger of people who turned into mobs that have stormed through our streets and eventually breached the halls of Congress. For many, listening to the same words over and over again can make them do terrible things.
It was said once by a very evil man, Joseph Goebbels: “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.“2
That is what we watched happen last week. The lie about the election that was tested by recount after recount, court case after court case, was told so often that some people believed it and heard it as a call to arms. No matter the evidence to the contrary, no matter the facts, the lie was believed and people descended upon the nation’s capital to take back their country.
People who were probably furious with sports figures and others who knelt during the national anthem took the same flag the anthem honoured to smash windows in the Capital Building. “Law and Order” insurrectionists used it to club policemen.
The flag of the Confederacy which on July 11, 1864 came no closer than six miles of the Capital building when, under the leadership Jubal Early “the balding, foulmouthed, tobacco-chewing, prophet-bearded” Lieutenant General of the Army of Robert E. Lee was on the verge of becoming a legend. “He was going to take Washington City—its Treasury, its arsenals, its Capitol building, maybe even its President.”3
Yet we saw a man with no sense of this history proudly march that same symbol of division through the halls of congress in an attempt to overthrow what he was told, and so believed, was a rigged election. An extremist did what a southern general could not.
Others believing one lie perpetrated others. There was “a long-haired, long-bearded man wearing a black ‘Camp Auschwitz’ T-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, and under it the phrase ‘work brings freedom.’”
Another image, more subtle but no less incendiary, is of a different man whose T-shirt was emblazoned with the inscription “6MWE” above yellow symbols of Italian Fascism. “6MWE” is an acronym common among the far right standing for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough.” It refers to the Jews exterminated during the Nazi Holocaust and hints at the desire of the wearer to increase that number still further.4
It was all happening because of a lie that was told over and over again until people not only believed it but acted on their misguided beliefs.
What resulted was mob violence that must be condemned on any and every level. As As Ton Breven, co-founder of the website RealClearPolitics wrote: “Mobs are fueled by passions that arise out of a sense of grievance, and modern elected leaders from both parties and the media have spent years stoking those passions, not lowering them.”
Brevan then reminded his readers of what young Abraham Lincoln said in January of 1838 “condemning a series of vigilante attacks that had recently taken place across the young republic.” Lincoln said prophetically: “Whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands ... depend on it, this government cannot last.”5
So we stand with knots in our stomach, fearing the worse and waiting for a kind word, a soft word, than will if not turn away our wrath but, at least, turn down the temperature of our rhetoric.
Amid all the clamour it is hard to hear the voice of the Lord. In that way not much has changed from that night when the high priest Eli and the young Samuel dozed in the temple.
Israel was a mess. Eli was getting too old to lead and his sons were wicked. The two boys were priests dedicated because of their lineage to serve the Lord but they had turned their vocation into a way of serving themselves. They were skimming offerings off of the temple treasury and, in general acting like common day reprobates. Eli had spoken to them but his kind, fatherly advice had not caused them to mend their ways. If those in charge of things are corrupt the voice of the LORD goes silent or, at least, may not even be heard.
Does this sound like our day? Some leaders are corrupt. They are gorging at the public trough and doing anything they can to stay in power. No wise council is smarter than they are. They are without a moral compass. But that doesn’t mean that all of us are like this or have to be like this.
“The lamp had not gone out.” God was still speaking then, God is still speaking now. “I am about to do a thing at which the ears of everyone that hears it will tingle.”
Both Samuel, the youth, and Eli, the elder, dare to listen, though the content of God’s speech to each is quite different. The boy receives God’s promise of a bright future; the old priest hears a word of devastating judgment.6
It would have been nice if the God of the Covenant had chosen to break silence for a more cheerful message. But Samuel hears what he hears, and repeats it faithfully. Eli understands that God will do what God will do. Things will change. And the people who have endured his misdeeds will be helped.
This is a difficult story. The wrongs done to the {people will be made right} but at a high cost to Eli and his sons. And it reminds us of one thing: God remains free to speak and to act in ways we do not expect.
We need to hear this today, amid a long winter of a stubborn pandemic, food insecurity, and power politics turning us into competing audiences divided by mutual suspicion and hostility. Our best efforts and intentions can feel so futile.
God's unexpected word to Samuel shows us that even our world is not frozen in its patterns of conflict and suffering.7
There is a better way and that way comes to us in the same person who came to those disciples and invited them to follow him.
When they followed him he became their north star, their guide and guidepost that showed them what no politician ever could or would – that life is not about what is in it for you or me. He showed them that life is not about getting what we think we deserve. It is not even about hanging on to the highest office in the land if that price comes at the peace and security of the nation you are called to serve and yes, of your very soul.
All of us who have been claimed by Christ and who have claimed him in return are his disciples. We are called to be like Nathaniel and put aside our preconceived notions and our prejudices.
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he asked when hearing the name of Jesus’ hometown and widen our vision of the world so that it doesn’t include just people like us, or people from our tribe, or people from our party but all of God’s children.
When we do that we just might hear our Lord say of us – in one of my favourite lines of all of scripture. ““Here is truly {a person} in whom there is no deceit!”
And if we do, if all who call on Christ’s name do just that, the promise of Jesus to his first disciples will be made real and the world will see greater, better things than what is currently happening.
If we follow Jesus, really and truly follow Jesus, the word of the LORD spoken to Samuel will come true in our land. “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.”
May the word of God, the words of truth, go out through “every Middlesex village and farm” so that everyone’s ears who hears those words tingle. Tingle, not with hate but with kindness and peace.
_________
1. Proverbs 15:1. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
2. Martin Svoboda, “Joseph Goebbels Quote #1789432,” Quotepark.com, accessed January 15, 2021, https://quotepark.com/quotes/1789432 joseph goebbels if you repeat a lie often enough people will beli/.
3. Thomas A. Lewis, “When Washington, D.C. Came Close to Being Conquered by the Confederacy,” Smithsonian.com (Smithsonian Institution, July 1, 1988), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when washington dc came close to being conquered by the confederacy 180951994/.
4. Jonathan D. Sarna, “A Scholar of American Anti Semitism Explains the Hate Symbols Present during the US Capitol Riot,” The Conversation, January 9, 2021, https://theconversation.com/a scholar of american anti semitism explains the hate symbols present during the us capitol riot 152883.
5. Tom Bevan and Carl M. Cannon, “Abe Lincoln's Warning About the Perils of Mob Rule,” RealClearPolitics, January 13, 2021, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/01/13/condemn_the_mob_in_all_its_forms_145025.html?mc_cid=e9ea99bddf&mc_eid=aa27ec4b19.
6. William H Willimon, “Difficult Conversations,” Pulpit Resource 49, no. 1 (January/February/March, 2021): p. 9` 11.
7. Benjamin Dueholm, “A Scarce and Precious Word,” Day 1. Weekly Broadcast (Day1.com), accessed January 16, 2021, https://day1.org/weekly broadcast/5ff3518d6615fb2a57000010/ben dueholm a scarce and precious word.
8. Saint John 1:46. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
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