2024.06.02 | Embrace Your Calling
“Embrace Your Calling”
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Second Sunday after Pentecost; June 2, 2024; Bravo! Sunday
I Samuel 3:1-20 (NRSV)
Welcome to “Bravo! Sunday,” everyone! #Bravo!Sunday is Eden’s answer to what my people in the flyover states call “baccalaureate.” This is the momentous occasion when academic communities circle up for worship, or people of faith gather in their respective houses of worship and thank God that the school year has come to an end, and that some of us are moving on to higher education and employment opportunities--or, thank you Jesus! retirement.
If you’re stressing about this transition, reach back to me after worship or send an email or text to me this week. Let’s talk. Let’s walk. Let’s paddle. Nobody needs to go through these rough patches alone. Eden Church is here to accompany you.
Conversely, if you’re hiring, or looking for a summer interns, or are a seasoned empty-nest-er or retiree, and are willing and available to mentor someone else through one or more of those experiences, see me after worship--or raise your hand--so I know who I can count on for Eden’s version of “speed-dating” accompaniment through the silly-season of summer.
We teach our youth these skills in leadership classes and Eden’s own ChYLI program, but not everyone gets this hand or leg-up in life. So at Eden, we teach and preach to give back. Now we are able to do that not only one-to-one, but institutionally.
For example, Eden’s Empowerment Team, which offers employment navigation and micro-business development services, and provides a space and introductions to help you build your personal and professional network for economic success here in the Bay Area.
The most challenging piece of work in other settings has been convincing employers to hire the jobseekers in our network.
Here in the Bay Area, by contrast, the most challenging work has been trying to dismantle the draconian immigration policies that keep capable job seekers from obtaining work permits, so that they can participate in background checks, complete their W-4 form, complete their orientation, and fill one of the numerous vacancies in our labor force.
As a result of our brokedown immigration system, a ridiculous number of workers in our community have their self-esteem ground down, while anxiously waiting to take open jobs that local employers are dying to fill--jobs that would provide for able workers and their families.
Perhaps given our context it doesn’t surprise you to learn that I feel more than a little bit like old man Eli in the Temple. I am frustrated as all get out that there is an enormous amount of work to do in the kingdom for the glory of God, while the so-called “qualified worker” pool remains unnecessarily small.
Meanwhile, I find myself in the crazy situation of repeating the obvious to those who are called and equipped for the work--many of whom are latecomers, newcomers, and up-and-comers--the Lord is calling you! the Department of Homeland Security just hasn’t figured that out yet!
You keep saying, “Here, I am, Lord!” And those of us who have “U.S. papers” we’ll keep speaking truth to power!
II
Lord, have mercy! Now you know a little bit about why I chose the Call of Samuel for today’s baccalaureate text.
Who was Samuel?
Samuel was the firstborn child of Elkanah (el-kay’ nah) and Hannah. His father had two wives, the first was Hannah, and the second was Peninnah (pe-nin’ uh.)
Elkanah and his second wife, Peninnah, had many children, but he had no children—until Samuel was born—with his first wife, Hannah, who had been barren for many years.
Hannah’s infertility challenged her sense of identity as a woman, and brought her future and her welfare into question. If Hannah were unable to conceive and raise a child—particularly a son—and if her husband preceded her in death, then Hannah’s welfare would be dependent upon whether her brothers-in-law were willing to provide for her. If they were not, she would be left to beg.
Hannah prayed fervently that she would be able to have a healthy child. As an act of devotion, she participated fully in the annual pilgrimages to Shiloh, Israel’s national shrine. At Shiloh, she vowed that if she could conceive and bear a son, she would dedicate that son to a “nazarite life,” which was a life of religious devotion and strict practices.
Nazarites, for example, abstained from drinking alcohol, cutting their hair, and touching human corpses. [C.f., Numbers 6:1-21, Judges 13:5 and 7, and Paul Achtimier, The Harper’s Bible Dictionary. (HarperCollins: San Francisco, 1985) pp. 689-690.]
As the story goes (in I Samuel), Hannah’s prayers were answered. She conceived and bore a son, and she named him “Samuel,” which means, “He who is from God.”
When Samuel was weaned (probably around age two or three), she fulfilled her promise to God by taking him to Shiloh, presented him to Eli, the High Priest, and offered him up to God as a servant in the Temple.
Under the tutelage of Eli, Samuel was called by God to be a prophet in Israel and a bridge between two kinds of leaders, the Judges and the Kings.
Samuel was called to prophecy during a time of rapid growth, cultural change, and a turbulent transition in leaders. Few would have sought his job, and even fewer would have seen him as adequately credentialed and for this role.
For example, his predecessors, the Judges, were mature men, who had been raised by their fathers to fill these roles, and who passed on their mantles to their sons when they could no longer serve or when they died. The Judges were trained and skilled in protecting Israel against external threats, and leading their army in battle.
Eli was a Judge. Therefore, he was expected to train his sons to follow in his footsteps, and he was expected to pass on the mantle of leadership to them.
At the time that Samuel was called to follow Eli, Eli’s sons (Hophni and Phinehas) were of an age and at a training level to do so.
Samuel, by contrast, was not Eli’s son. He was still a youth and he lacked political and military training and experience.
Despite his deficits, Samuel represented a fresh alternative to Hophni and Phineas, who (read the historical fine print) lacked the moral character to fill the role. They were wicked men (I Samuel 2:12), who were known to be womanizers and self-interested cheats.
So, God interceded in Israel’s conventional judicial succession plan. God ditched Hophni and Phineas and, instead, called the boy, Samuel, to serve in their place.
God chose someone with, in theory, the wrong credentials. Samuel was the wrong age, he had the wrong pedigree, and he didn’t have the requisite training to lead the nation.
So it is no surprise that he did not quickly embrace his calling, or that Eli did not immediately recognize and affirm it. Eventually, however, they both got the message that he was being called. Eli correctly interpreted that calling. Samuel accepted it. God blessed it. And the nation flourished.
Despite his seemingly limited qualifications, the prophet Samuel presided over the “Golden Age” of Ancient Israel. He was just who was needed at that important time of national change. And he defended his people in battle, and anointed the two most important kings in the history of Ancient Israel, Saul and David.
III
Despite what formal and informal structures exist in our culture today that contribute to or detract from some people’s ability to secure employment and rise to the top, and that hold others back, the call of Samuel in the history books of Israel and numerous other call narratives found throughout the scriptures, serve as a reminder that God has always called and claimed unlikely people with unconventional credentials to fulfill God’s purposes and plan, perhaps most especially in turbulent times.
Other biblical examples of unlikely callings include the following:
God called Abraham and Sarah, Hebrew migrants, in their old age, and God promised to make their descendants a great nation—even more than the sands on the beach.
God called Ruth and Naomi, who banded together after their husbands died and who formed a new kind of family even though they were from different nations, and owed nothing to each other. Together, they carved out a new future and a new hope for themselves as they overcame despair and deprivation, and became a model of faithful solidarity for Jews and Christians alike.
God called Jeremiah, a country boy, in the ancient world, to serve as a prophet in the capital city of Jerusalem, and speak truth to power.
God called Mary and Joseph to give birth to Jesus, to participate in the census of a foreign occupying country, and raise a peasant king.
And that shepherd king called fisher people, tax collectors, eunuchs, orphans, widows, prostitutes, and other marginalized people to be his disciples in the service of others.
God called Mary, Martha, Salome, and other women to be the first evangelists by going and telling others (men) what they’d seen and heard at the cemetary.
God called Paul, a Pharisee and a self-proclaimed enemy of the gospel, and to serve as the leading apostle, and Peter who had to be convinced that gospel was intended not only for Jews, but also for Greeks and other literal and figurative “Philistines.”
Samuel’s call and response, and the call and responses of Abraham and Sara, Ruth and Naomi, the prophet Jeremiah, the Holy Family, the apostles, and many others—known and unknown to us—in scripture, in history, and in these later days—have been called and claimed by God, not because they had conventional credentials, but because God had a plan and a purpose and a hope for them, and God had a way of preparing and developing them to fulfill their callings.
The Apostle Paul explained this phenomenon to the Corinthians in his first letter to them (I Cor. 2: 26−31) where he wrote these words:
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Given the preponderance of Biblical evidence that God calls and works in and through unlikely people, we are put on notice that thinking small and sticking with convention isn’t the best way to fulfill our vocations. To the contrary, the best way to fulfill our vocations is to EXPECT a hope filled invitation, to LISTEN UP when it comes, and to respond COURAGEOUSLY with the words, “Here, I am! Send me!” And to God be the glory!