Rev Hugh Perry

Theme: Voices in the Night and Encouragement

1 Samuel 3:1-10

Samuel you may remember was dedicated to God by his mother and given into the care of Eli the priest so he could be brought up to serve God.  In 1 Samuel 2:12 we are told:

Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for Yahweh or for the duties of the priests to the people.

So in a time of hereditary leadership, we have a constitutional crisis looming with the dedicated successors to Eli demonstrating that they are clearly unsuitable. It is a time when people were not particularly in touch with God.  But today’s reading tells us how that is about to change and how that change comes from an unexpected direction.

John 1: 43-51

Mark, Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ baptism. But John’s Gospel does not have a baptism scene as such.  Instead, John the Baptist describes what happened when he baptised Jesus.  In so doing he recommends Jesus as the one to follow on from his ministry to two of his own followers and they go to visit Jesus.  One of them, Andrew, then goes and brings his brother Simon to Jesus whom Jesus then names Peter, or Cephas in Latin which in Greek is Petros.  John wrote in Greek so there is a pun as Petros is confused with Petra the Greek word for ‘rock’.  That becomes relevant later as Jesus affirms Peter’s rock like dependability and authority.

The key issue here is that John the Baptist, who has had a vision of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus at baptism, recommends Jesus to others who then pass on that recommendation.  Listen for that as.

SERMON

Sometime, in the not-too-distant past, a young dyslexic man is called back to work an extra shift because the person rostered on was sick.  His father had told him that if you are working for someone you should always treat their business as your own.  So, in spite of a promised diner date with the love of his life he went back to work.

What his boss hadn’t told him was that there would be a film crew in the restaurant making a documentary about restaurants.  That didn’t bother him because he worked in the kitchen.  He just worked away with his usual skill and control of multiple orders, as he usually did.  However, the film crew were fascinated by the way focused on his tasks, his manual dexterity, his cheery countenance and his ability to keep so many tasks going at the same time.  As a result, he featured extensively in the filming and when the producer saw the film crew’s results, the young man’s phone began to ring.

This year with the publication of his latest book, Five Ingredients Mediterranean that now not so young man became the author of the most non-fiction books in the United Kingdom.  He has also just had a series on our television called ‘Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts.

He is of course Jamie Oliver MBE. And after I reheard him relate that story on a recent Graham Norton programme it mixed with my recent reading of Samuel’s night voices, and I woke with the thought:

‘How many times does a serendipitist moment change people’s lives.’  Was, being in the right place at the right time what Samuel’s night voices was all about?

Are we all called to be awake to those unexpected events that can change the direction of our lives? Should we always be ready to sing, even in the middle of the day. ‘Here I am, Lord, Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night’.

As a small girl Rosa Parks had sat on the porch beside her grandfather with a shotgun across his knee daring the Ku Klux Klan to come.  Then one day in 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.   Pete Seeger sang ‘If you miss me at the back of the bus,’ Martin Luther King had a dream and the United States elected Barack Obama as its 44th U.S. President.

Rosa Parks reminds us that voices in the night and unexpected serendipitist moments create opportunities that send ripples into the future.

Certainly, it is the calling in the night that is the theme of our reading from Samuel, and it is all too easy to focus on the direct contact with God and bypass Eli’s contribution to Samuel’ destiny.

‘Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’  (1Samuel 8b-9a)

A voice calling in the night easily vanishes with the first cup of coffee and the morning paper.  It needs someone to be encouraging.  Someone to butt out the butts and open up the possibilities and the excitement of the challenges.

It wasn’t a voice calling in the night, it was a phone call from the Rev John Hunt that told me God had a task for me in Christchurch.  I did not believe him.  My first thought was that all interim moderators want to get the task completed as quickly as possible.

But I agreed he could send me the parish profile.  After reading it I phoned a friend who used to be the minister here at St Ninian’s.  We had a chuckle together about John’s assertion that he knew the divine will for my future in ministry.

Then we talked about St Alban’s goal of settling on one worship centre and using the capital from selling the other two and using the funds generated for community facing mission.  We agreed that would be difficult because each church would want to settle on their church as the one to keep.

Then Margie asked how I would feel if someone else achieved that goal and it was a great success.

My answer was not the sort of language to use in the pulpit.  What I meant was that I would be extremely jealous and quite miffed.  Not good motives.  But God moves in mysteries ways and the Spirit appeared to be moving me.

It was a special moment one recent Sunday after I had taken the service at Knox, and John Hunt came up to me and said, ‘That decision you made when I suggested you should come back to Christchurch, I think we can now safely say that it was the right one.’

Our Gospel reading is not directly about voices calling in the night.  However, it is definitely about supporting the Spirit’s callas John and Margie did for me.  It is about continuity and the supporting the call of others.

John the Baptist made a big enough splash in his part of the Roman World to be recorded by the Jewish apologist and historian, Josephus.  According to Josephus, Herod was afraid that John the Baptist was becoming popular enough to cause trouble, so he had him executed.

John the Gospel Writer tells us that, before his death, the Baptist had already recommended a successor to his followers, and according to today’s reading that recommendation was passed on to others.

John the Baptist was in the mould of the Hebrew prophets.  He called for renewal through repentance to allow God to act and redeem God’s people.  He called for the punishment of the wicked and the restoration of the righteous in an act of recreation that would be initiated by God.  The writer of today’s Gospel reading claims that John saw that beginning to happen in Jesus, and John’s disciples went and became Jesus’ disciples.

‘The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus’. (John 1:35-37)

John was aware that those two disciples had heard or felt the Spirit’s call on their life though the baptism he administered.  So, as he saw Jesus as the continuation of his mission, he encouraged his disciples to act on the spiritual call on their lives.

Our gospel reading follows on from that initial encouragement by John to follow Jesus.

‘The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ (John 1:43-45)

It reminds me of the game we used to play at school where one person chases everyone else and when one of them is tagged they become part of the chasing team.

Like that game people need to be encouraged to accept the Spirit’s call on their lives and people also need to encourage others.

Without encouragement the voice calling in the night can easily be dismissed by the cold light of day, as our mind brings us back to the reality of everyday living.

Samuel dreams of a conversation with God and John the Baptist sees a vision of the heavens opening and the voice of God claiming Jesus as the Son of God.  The voice in the night to Samuel proclaims him as Eli’s successor but John’s vision proclaims John’s successor.  The common point between the two stories is passing the mission on.  The development of ideas and commitment to a spiritual reality that is passed onto another who develops it and builds something new upon it.

But that development depends on the support of others, and we are all called to both give that support and receive it.  The calling in the night can inspire our own spiritual quest but it can also encourage us to support and inspire others.

We have looked at people with direct contact to the people whose visions they supported but as ideas and movements gather momentum their success depends on other’s who allow themselves to be swept along by, and inspired by, the enthusiasm that develops.

Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus and Pete Seeger sang ‘If You Miss Me At The Back of The Bus.’ But how many others sang that song and swayed to its rhythm.  I still have Seegers LP with that song on it and along with so many things it was a song that helped form my vision of social justice and democracy.

If you miss me in the cotton fields

You can’t find me nowhere

Come on over to the courthouse

I’ll be voting right there.

When I accepted nomination for moderator of Presbytery, I resolved that I would fulfil that task and then resign and concentrate on my business.  The aim was to build up the business so I could sell it and retire when I was 70.

A good sensible business decision.

I didn’t make it through my term before voices were making suggestions that gave me nightmares.

But when I finally walked across the stage at Otago University to receive my theology degree, I walked past Colin Gibson, in all his academic finery.  At that point a little voice in my head said, ‘So this is where the road runs out and the signposts end.’

It was in fact where the excitement began, and I didn’t retire till I was 75.

Today’s readings ask if we will hear the voice in the quiet times.  It also asks us to encourage others to listen to their own call, however that comes to them.

So will we, with them, walk the discipleship journey that brings God’s domain into being and places us in the presence of Christ?

Will we be as Christ to others and see Christ in those we meet along the way?