Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. Amen.

“In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

These are the last words of the Book of Judges, right before First Samuel. And it wasn’t a compliment to the people of Israel; rather it was an outright condemnation of their behavior. The era of the Judges had been a steady downward spiral of lawlessness and chaos for centuries. The people would sin–usually idolatry, and then God would punish them, usually through military defeat. Then the people would beg for mercy, and then God would deliver them, usually through military success. And then there would be a period of peace. But after a while the people would forget their covenant with God, and they would sin again. And the cycle continued; sin, punishment, supplication, deliverance, peace, forgetting, sin, lather, rinse, repeat, until Israel had spiraled into such misogyny, depravity, and violence that the 19th chapter ends with a plea to Israel (and arguably to the reader):

“Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel and speak out.”

Following this plea are two more chapters of misogyny, violence, and destruction. You can read it for yourself, but I recommend that it not be before you go to sleep.

“In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

What does this have to do with Samuel?

Everything.

Samuel was a pivotal figure in the history of Israel, and to understand the power of the story of his call, we need to understand its context, beginning with the storyteller, known as the Deuteronomist. 

The Deuteronomist is reputed to be the source of the book of Deuteronomy, as well as the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The Deuteronomist’s overriding theme was simple; that Israel was called to live in exclusive covenant relationship with God, period.

This is why the first commandment was that Israel should have no other Gods but YHWH, and why idolatry was the foundational sin in the eyes of God, the root of all other sins. 

So, by the end of the Book of Judges Israel had descended into such chaos that, by the time we get to First Samuel, the storyteller tells us, “Now the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” In other words, things had gotten so bad that God seemed to be keeping distance from Israel.

This was what Jim Wallis calls a “Kairos moment”; a critical point in time when things are at a tipping point of dramatic change. The birth of Samuel takes place at a Kairos moment when the people of Israel have begun to realize that the status quo of the Judges is unsustainable and needs to give way to a new kind of leadership. It is time for a king. No more feuding tribal chieftains, no more spiraling into disaster (An example of wishful thinking.) The people desire to be like the surrounding countries, governed centrally by a monarch.

What did this have to do with Samuel?

Everything.

Samuel was born to a man of Ephraim named Elkanah, and to Hannah, one of his two wives. Hannah, devastated by her barrenness and tormented by Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, goes to the house of the Lord and prays fervently for a child. Long story short, against all odds, Hannah at last conceives and gives birth to  Samuel. 

Now in the Bible, a miraculous pregnancy means that something big is about to happen. Hannah is so grateful that she dedicates Samuel to God, and when he is weaned, she takes him to the priest Eli where Samuel will serve in the house of the Lord and learn to become a priest. 

Hannah, in her joy, bursts into prayer:

“My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God… The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low; he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes…He will guard the feet of his faithful ones but the wicked will perish in darkness…”

Divine reversal of fortune; a world turned upside-down. This prayer should sound familiar. In Luke’s Gospel there is another miraculous pregnancy, and Mary the Godbearer proclaims the greatness of the Lord in her Magnificat:

“…He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and the rich he has sent away empty.”

So, another mother prays, at another Kairos moment. Luke’s Gospel acknowledges first the importance of Samuel as a focal point of transition from judges to kings (Samuel will actually be the last of the judges,), and second, that the nature of that transition wasn’t just about a change of ruling personnel. In fact it had less to do with earthly kingship than it did the nature of God’s Dream for Creation; God’s kingdom, on Earth as in heaven.

It’s enough to make our ears tingle. 

“Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”

We can’t help but smile as the child Samuel hears a voice calling in the night, and imagine his bare feet pitter-pattering across the floor to Eli, who blearily sends the boy back to his pallet three times before the penny drops. After all, the people had forgotten what the divine voice sounded like, or what divine vision looked like. Eli himself had become, not just physically blind, but willingly blind to his sons’ blasphemous behavior, taking the choicest portions of the people’s sacred offerings for themselves. Eli’s priesthood had become corrupted, and it turned out that God had been watching after all. 

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Samuel’s call is not just a charming story. God’s first instructions to him are words that raise him up as Israel’s first prophet: He must proclaim the Lord’s punishment upon Eli for complicity in his sons’ corruption. Samuel probably lies awake until morning, maybe trying to talk himself into remaining silent; after all, Eli is his mentor. But even Eli, as flawed as he is, recognizes what is happening and insists that Samuel speak the truth, even if his voice shakes. Samuel’s first prophecy spells doom for the house of Eli, and the burden of his call will not get any lighter. As the years go by, he will call out the powerful when they disobey God, and side with the marginalized and victimized. He will also ultimately, although reluctantly, usher in the era of kings in Israel with the anointing of Saul, and when Saul falls from favor with God, then David. It will be Samuel who warns the people of the danger of absolute power in human hands. But the people will reject the pleas of Samuel, and they will reject the kingship of God in favor of an earthly king. It will bring glory to Israel, yes, but as Samuel prophesies, it will not end as Israel hopes. Such is the burden of the prophet. But it never keeps the prophet from speaking God’s truth to those with ears to hear; even if—or perhaps especially if–they tingle. Because God is persistent.

What does this have to do with us?

Everything. 

We are called to see the world through the eyes of God–through the eyes of Hannah and of Mary—seeing the world as it can be and not just as it is. We are called and challenged, like Samuel, to speak and to embody God’s truth in a world where it would often seem that God is distant and silent, and where visions are rare and suspect. We are called, like Samuel, to be an active part of the unfolding of the Kingdom in what feels for many to be a new Kairos moment at which the world is teetering on a knife’s edge. 

How do we do it? How do we attend to the prophets among us, and nurture the prophets within us?

Famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer—one of the prophets among us– was asked a similar question—how did she keep going in such turbulent times? She responded, “When God tells you to do something, you just do it, baby!”

I love this. Because beneath the charm and the quippiness is a basic truth; that in order to hear God’s persistent yearning call, we begin by being ready to receive it.

Speak, Lord; your servants are listening.