Roger Ray, pastor
January 15, 2012 Epiphany 2
1 Samuel 3:1-11
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 2At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 3the 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. 4Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" 5and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. 6The Lord called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again." 7Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. 9Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. 10Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
11Then 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.
As the career of the probably insane comic, Andy Kaufman, began to take off in the 1970's, Kaufman he made the decision to return on a part time basis to the first job he ever had, as a busboy in a diner. Appearing on Saturday Night Live, in Playboy Clubs and finally in a lead role on Taxi, he became aware that wealth and fame could separate him from everyday people and it was his understanding every day people that had made him a successful comedian.
When I first learned that about Kaufman, I was initially impressed but almost immediately thereafter, I was convicted. It was such an obvious thing.... To stay in touch with your roots, don't let your goals of success rob you of being who you are, literally to lose your soul.
There has been a poster floating around the liberal websites this week that says, "Each week, millions and millions of upper middle class American citizens put on expensive dress clothes, and load themselves into SUV's and drive past homeless shelters, orphanages, prisons, missions, and halfway houses on their way to very expensive and nice church, where somebody tells them how to be more like Jesus."
Let the congregation say, "OUCH." I'm sure that some of you get tired of hearing about our involvement at Bill's Place and at Crosslines. In 2004 I chaired an effort to build 200 little cinder block houses in rural Nicaragua in a blitz build. I had to raise nearly a half a million dollars and make a lot of trips to Nicaragua but we got it done. The next year, when I was trying to organize a new team to go down and help build more houses, a church member complained, "That's what we did last year, let's do something different this year."
The challenge made me angry but in a way I understand it. For most of the world, religion is a form of entertainment.... It should be kind of exciting, thrilling, and doing the same thing over and over.... Well, that lacks Hollywood imagination.
And so, some of us go to Bill's Place every week. For the past few months, we've been going twice a week. That's my Andy Kaufman, busboy, staying rooted exercise. Some of the guys we share food, sleeping bags, hats and coats with are just unemployed and down on their economic luck. But many others are haunted with addictions, mental illnesses, TB,HIV, hepatitis.... Some have cancer, most are either on parole or there are warrants out for them somewhere.
For me, to be a real pastor, I feel that I need to stay in close contact with the people who are in the greatest need, who are the most broken, the most vulnerable and, quite frankly, the most abandoned by mainstream religion.
Back when Bruce Willis still had hair he made a movie with the child actor, Haley Osment, that made my hair start falling out. In the frightening mystery movie, The Sixth Sense, little Cole shares with the psychiatrist his horrifying secret, "I see dead people, walking around everywhere, they only see what they want to see, they don't even know that they are dead."
Someone took that iconic picture of the frightened child hiding under his covers and added the caption, "I see churches, they are big buildings everywhere, they only see what they want to see, they don't even know that they are dead."
That seems rather harsh but I know where the sentiment comes from. But rather than saying that they are dead, I think that it might be more fair to say that they are sleeping. That's how the faith community is portrayed in this reading we had this morning from I Samuel. The literal story is that the boy Samuel was sleeping in the temple and the Lord kept calling to him and he keeps thinking that the old priest, Eli, is calling for him. It took God several times to get Samuel to sit still and actually listen.
That part of the story would be meaningless except for what it symbolizes. The writer of the narrative sets it up the account by saying: The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. How's that for an introduction? How would that do as a way of describing the modern church?.... the word of the Lord is rare these days, no one seems to have any vision.
Sleeping is used frequently in scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the gospels, as a metaphor for just not being aware.... Of not getting it.
The disciples slept in the Garden of Gethsemani while Jesus was in such stress that he was sweating blood. Both Pauline and deuteron-Pauline epistles enjoin the church to "wake up" and realize what is going on.
My continued hammering of issues of biblical criticism and of the historical Jesus goes to this issue of how the church took the powerful, life changing, socially challenging message of Jesus and put it into a prison of doctrines and dogmas, rituals and creeds that go so far that the very voice of Jesus is drowned out entirely.
Look at the creeds themselves..... I believe in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate...... the creed is telling you what Christians are supposed to believe but all they want to tell you about Jesus is that he was born of a virgin, killed by a Roman governor and then raised from the dead..... not a word about what he said.... Not a word of his teachings, what he stood for, what he wanted us to be and to do....... Indeed, the word of the Lord is rare in these days, visions are not wide spread.
The church has used belief in order to cover their ears and fail to hear how Jesus has told us to love the least of these, to serve them, even to forgive and to love our enemies. Those of you who have suffered through reading that book I wrote several years ago, may remember my section on fideism.... Fideism is the belief that we are saved by believing the right things.... Rejecting reason and just believing. The Catholic Church officially condemned fideism as a heresy but you have to admit that both Protestants and Catholics practice it with abandon..... believe the right things and your soul (which no one has ever seen or knows exists) will go to heaven (which no one has ever seen or knows exists) rather than going to hell (which also no one has ever seen or knows exists).
Which is so much easier than actually doing what Jesus distinctly said which was to give to the poor, forgive the people who have hurt you and love your enemies. So the church focuses on getting everyone to believe the right things and that process is to terminally boring that everyone goes to sleep.
Harriet Tubman, and amazing black woman who was such a successful abolitionist, famously said, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew that they were slaves."
In the conclusion of this little periscope from I Samuel, when God finally has Samuel's attention, he warns him, "I'm about to do something that is going to many anyone's ears who hears it, tingle.... Burn..... you are going to want to cover your ears."
For centuries the church has depended on being able to tell people, "Come to here and we'll make sure you go to heaven, but stay away from here and you will spend eternity in hell." And people, in droves, are staying away because that old saw just isn't going to work any longer. The main stream denominations are dying. Most churches in America have fewer than 40 people in attendance each week. Gigantic structures stand on street corners throughout the east coast, in Europe, and they are virtually empty.
Mega churches here in the Midwest are using as many as 8 drum sets on their stages to keep people awake... they can put a Starbucks in the lobby and add multiple gymnasiums, but the message won't continue to seduce a population that is able to look at it and recognize a snake oil sham when they see it.
Jesus is the teacher of radical compassion. He is the one who told us that love, forgiveness, mercy, self sacrifice, service of others, working for peace and fighting poverty..... that is our religious heritage and the only church that will survive, the only one that deserves to survive, is the church that wakes up to that message.
