"RETURNING GOD'S CALL"

I Samuel 3:1-10

October 17, 1999

Dr. David Beckett

Has God ever called you?  If so, how many times did the phone have to ring before you picked it up?  Have you ever returned God's call?  Presbyterian author, John Purdy, tells the story of a Mennonite farmer named Sam Reimer back in the 60's.  One night Sam heard a voice saying to him, "Samuel...Samuel...I am the God of your fathers, the Lord your God.  Go and proclaim peace in Vietnam."  In perplexity, Sam went to his pastor, who told him to listen for the voice a second time.  The next night the call came again, but Sam could not get anyone to believe that he truly heard God's voice.  His pastor wouldn't believe it.  Neither would his wife or his fellow Mennonites.  The Canadian government wouldn't give him a visa to Vietnam; the inter-Mennonite Church Service Society wouldn’t help him.  Sam's reaction to these rejections was to give up hope and die.  On his deathbed he said to his wife, "When I heard the voice, I should have gone.  Left a note and gone.  When you know that you are chosen, you shouldn't wait.  Just go."

Sam Reimer heard the same call that came to Samuel the prophet.  But Sam Reimer's call never materialized into a prophetic mission because the community of faith surrounding him failed to support him.  If old Eli, despite his short-sightedness and personal failures had not counseled the young Samuel on recognizing and responding to God's call, how could the fledgling prophet have learned to open his mind and heart to receive God's words? 

How is God calling us today?  And are we returning God's call?  We need to realize that every call from God is a personal call.  It is not a conference call.  It comes to us person-to-person. 

An executive was visiting France and made a person-to-person phone call from her hotel room to London.  When the call was completed she asked the operator about the charges and was informed that they amounted to $38.49 in US currency.  The businesswoman became quite upset and stated, "Where I come from we can call to hell and back for $38.49."  The operator didn't flinch, "Yes, but where YOU come from it's a local call."

You and I may go to church every Sunday, sing the hymns, put money in the plate, and pray, but still not grasp the truth that God's call is person-to-person.  God's call is not to the community first.  It is to persons.  In other words, God's call will never get through to us as a church until God's call gets through to ____________ and _______________ and ______________ and me.  God knew Samuel's name.  And God knows your name AND your phone number.  It's not like God has to call information to get your number. 

A mother wanted to phone one of her daughter's dancing school classmates one day.  The only information she knew was that her last name was Johnson.  There were five Johnsons in the phone book so she started down the list.  Johnson number three was the first one at home.  "Is this the Johnson where the little girl goes to dancing school?" the mother asked.  "No," came the answer.  "This is the Johnson where the man was in the bathtub."

So God is calling us.  How do we respond?  Some of us have to admit that if we pick up the receiver at all, we find it easy to put God on hold.  When we pray a prayer of confession every Sunday we are saying, "God, I'm sorry I put you on hold this past week.  Thank you for not hanging up.  Help me to stay on the line this week." 

Today's telephone technology is wonderful, isn't it?  Now, when you are put on hold you can listen to pleasant music, radio news, or business propaganda.  Once I was trying to buy an easel from a company in Connecticut.  They had my check but would not send me the easel.  Every time I call they put me on hold and I have to listen to this recorded baloney about their excellent service and customer satisfaction. 

But we do the same thing with God, don't we?  God calls us and we push the hold button, "Not now, Lord.  I've got a family to raise."  "Can you hold on for a few years, God, while I have some fun first."  And then we make it worse.  We play this silly message about how good a person we are.  We don't commit any of the "bad" sins.  We don't kill.  We don't steal.  We don't do drugs.  The amazing thing is that God hears this nonsense while on hold and loves us in spite of it!  That's good news, isn't it?

It's taking awhile but I am learning about all the various options available to phone customers such as call-waiting and call-forwarding.  You can be talking with someone and suddenly a clicking sound is heard which means another person is trying to call.  So you get to be put on hold while the person you are talking with talks with the other person.  But it gets confusing sometimes.  More than once I have heard some static and interrupted a conversation by saying, "Do you have another call coming in?" 

And then there is call-forwarding, where a friend calls you but you are not home.  No problem.  The system simply forwards your call to a second number where you are.  Isn't it great to have a technology where people can talk to you wherever you are?

Don't we do something similar with God?  God calls us but we say, "Excuse me, God, I've got a call on another line.  Could you hold?"  Or sometimes we want God's call to be forwarded not to where we are, but to someone else.  We think that God's call is for preachers, nuns, monks, and other religious people, but not me.  We say, "Here I am, Lord.  Send someone else."

We all need to sharpen our listening skills when it comes to hearing the call of God in our lives.  Learning how God communicates with us is an important part of spirituality.  As we all know, some conversations happen where something got lost in the transmission.  One of the most frustrating conversations in theatrical history is recorded by "Theater Arts" magazine.  A subscriber dialed Information for the magazine's number.  "Sorry," drawled the operator, "but there is nobody listed by the name of 'Theodore Arts.`"  "It's not a person.  It's a publication," insisted the subscriber.  "I want THEATER ARTS."  The operator's voice rose a few decibels.  "I told you," she repeated, "we have no listing for Theodore Arts."  "Confound it," hollered the subscriber, "the word is Theater:  T-H-E-A-T-E-R!"  "That," said the operator with crushing finality, "is not the way to spell Theodore."

Part of the problem in our world today is that we are not listening to one another.  We think we hear something.  We permit it to solidify in our minds where it becomes like heavy static on a phone line.  It is hard to hear what the other person is saying.  We also are not listening to God.  We have allowed too much static to interfere with God's call and claim on our lives.  It's not that we are bad people.  But we create the static by the decisions we make and priorities we choose to live by.  Returning God's call isn't always easy.  Sometimes God calls us to do the very thing we would never do.  And sometimes it even hurts.  But we are in the business of ushering in a new kingdom.  This new birth will certainly have its labor pains.  But what an exhilarating experience for us to be a part of God's new kingdom. 

Richard Cardinal Cushing writes about the kind of people who could start a revolution if only they would return God's call:

If all the sleeping folks will wake up,

and all the lukewarm folks will fire up,

and all the dishonest folks will confess up,

and all the disgruntled folks will sweeten up,

and all the discouraged folks will cheer up,

and all the depressed folks will look up,

and all the estranged folks will make up,

and all the gossipers will shut up,

and all the dry bones will shake up,

and all the church members will pray up...

and the Savior for all is lifted up...

then...

You can have the world's greatest renewal.

It begins with us, folks.  It begins with us.