Helping To Hear
1st Samuel 3:1-20
This past Monday when I took the kids to preschool, I breathed a little sigh of relief. I love my kids with everything that is in me, but I was ready for a break. Ten non-stop days in the Midwest with a two-year old and almost four-year old wore me out! As I said my prayers on Monday morning, I thanked God for preschool and those people who are wired to be around little ones all day long.
One phrase we use at our house continually, and one that I felt I used countless times on our trip, is “Please use your listening ears!” Little kids hear a lot! I know Ainslee and Eli hear many more sounds than my 41-year-old ears hear. But sometimes they need help discerning which the important sounds are, and what some sounds mean.
When we were the hotel in Chicago for Diane’s sister’s wedding, Eli discovered the button in the elevator that makes the bell ring when someone needs help. It’s a great sound! But on more than one occasion there was a hotel employee waiting for us when the doors opened asking if we needed assistance. They had heard the bell. I wanted to answer, “More than you know!” to their question but I had enough discernment to understand the true point of his asking.
Who helps you use your listening ears? Who helps you discern the important sounds and messages? Who helps you interpret what some sounds mean? Auto mechanics help us hear and interpret sounds from our cars. Doctors help us hear and interpret sounds from our bodies. Financial consultants help us sift through our personal finances so we have a grip on our financial health. Mechanics, doctors, and financial consultants are professionals in their fields.
Many of you know where I’m heading with this. Who helps us hear and interpret the voice and messages from God? Our text today gives us some surprising answers.
In our text, Eli was a religious professional. He made his livelihood listening and talking to God. I believe he was dedicated to his work, and was a pretty good guy, but he wasn’t always the sharpest pencil in the box. And by this time in his career he seems to be old and tired.
One of the things that always scares me when I read this passage is the shape of his family – it was a mess! His sons were corrupt and far away from God. The Bible is full of villains and the sons of Eli are on the short list of unsavory characters. Even their names give us a clue as to how things are going to turn out – Hophni is a name that we think comes from an Egyptian word meaning, “toad.” And Phinehas means, “brass lips” – a very uninspiring name for someone who’s supposed to speak for God.[1]
As a pastor, I wonder, did Eli work too hard and neglect his kids? Did Hophni and Phinehas have bad ‘church’ experiences that soured them on the things of God? How did they get to the corrupt place in life we find them in here? How can I avoid making some of the same mistakes in my family? If you want to know what things I worry about these days – this is on my short list.
For our purposes today, I want you to remember two things about Eli. One, he was someone who had experience listening and talking to God. It appears he didn’t always get it right because it says at the outset of our text that the word of the Lord was rare in those days, but he had experience and like so many things, that counts for something. Second, remember that Eli wasn’t perfect. Professionally, Eli seems mediocre at best. Personally, his family life had a lot of blemishes. Yet, he plays an important part in this story. Eli doesn’t come across as a hero in this text but maybe that makes him even more accessible to us.
Eli was given a protégé, Samuel, to train. Samuel was a gift from God to Hannah – a woman who was believed to be barren. You don’t have to be incredibly bright to figure out early in this story that there’s going to be hardship for Eli and his family. His sons are corrupt. God has told Eli that both of his sons would die on the same day. And his family will be cursed. Yet, Eli continues in his work preparing Samuel for the priesthood.
One night, Samuel hears a voice calling him. Samuel thinks it’s Eli and goes to him. This same thing happens three times. Samuel doesn’t know what’s going on. He needs someone to help him use his listening ears. And surprisingly, that person is dull, my-family’s-a-mess Eli. Eli acts like a midwife to Samuel in birthing Samuel’s awareness to the voice of God.[2] Eli tells Samuel that the next time he hears someone calling him, it’s probably God and he should listen. So this is exactly what Samuel does. Samuel listens to the voice of God and the news was not good for Eli’s family. And then notice how Eli responds. He says, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.”
I asked you early on, “Who helps you use your listening ears?” Who helps you hear and discern the voice of God? This text provides some good reminders for us.
First, we should remember that the voice of God is often heard in the context of community. It’s hard to predict what might have happened with Samuel if Eli had not been there. Eli had a lot of kinks in his spiritual armor yet God used him to open up the pathways for Samuel. I have no doubts that God speaks to individuals. That’s happened with some of you! But I think it’s much more frequent that God uses others in our lives to help us discern the divine voice. And often, God will communicate the same message to a number of different people as a way of confirmation.
Second, those with experience are great resources for us. We each need to be actively cultivating relationships with those who are more mature in hearing the voice of God than we are. It could be a minister, a Sunday School teacher, a trusted friend, a neighbor who’s more spiritually mature than we are. One of the most powerful lessons from this text is that God doesn’t use perfect people. We have only to look at Eli. His life was pretty messed up yet God used him to fine-tune Samuel’s listening ears. As we sit here this morning as a group imperfect people, we could be the “Eli” God wants to use to open up communication with someone else. Many “Samuel’s” in our world today don’t have anyone to whom they can turn.
Third, messages from God come from folks of all ages. Who are the “Samuel’s” among us today? We don’t know exactly how old Samuel was when God spoke to him, but we do know he wasn’t an old man. To Eli’s credit, he listened to what young Samuel had to say as an authoritative voice from God. One never knows from where the voice of God will come.
Are you using your listening ears? This is what we say around our house. Perhaps there’s another application for these words here among us?
Amen.