The Bible is filled with human beings.
That’s stating the obvious right?
But how often do we look at the humanness of the people in the Bible? How often do we focus on their sainthood instead? We put Old Testament heroes like Moses and Joshua and Solomon and New Testament heroes like Paul and Peter on pedestals and we think how can we ever achieve a fraction of what they achieved? How can we ever experience the closeness and richness of their relationship to God?
When we think like that we create a barrier between ourselves and them. They cease being people and become characters and legends. They are simply people who have lived so long ago they might as well not have lived at all. They become stories.
Which is why I found two of today’s readings so refreshing because of the humanness of Samuel’s response to God and because of the perfectly natural response of Nathanael’s when told the savior had been found.
In 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Samuel is lying down minding his own business when he hears someone call his name. Thinking it is Eli, Samuel rushes to him only to be told that no, Eli had not called him. Samuel lays down again and again hears someone call his name. Again he rushes to Eli and again is told that Eli did not call him. But Eli guesses that maybe it’s God calling to Samuel and tells Samuel to go back and address the voice should it speak to him again.
A third time, someone calls Samuel’s name and Samuel responds, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
And God speaks.
And Samuel’s time as prophet begins.
But for a while there, Samuel was just like us. Someone was calling his name and he couldn’t figure out who was calling him or why. Have you ever woken up to a strange sound in the middle of the night? Have you ever gotten up to investigate that sound and then, having found nothing, gone back to bed only to be woken up again by the same noise?
For me, that’s usually the smoke alarm battery going, but for Samuel, that noise was the voice of God and for more than a few minutes, I’m sure Samuel was irritated and frustrated at not being able to recognize the voice.
We are all like Samuel and just like Pastor Debbie said in her Kid’s Talk today, God doesn’t always speak to us audibly, but He does speak. He stirs something within us, something that cannot be ignored no matter how hard we try. Something that will not go away until we address it.
It was exactly how I feel with my calling to the priesthood.
Today’s Gospel reading was from John 1:43-51. Jesus goes to Galilee and is in the process of calling his disciples to him. As always when Jesus calls, in this case, Phillip, Phillip drops everything and follows him.
Phillip’s blind faith to a man he’s never seen before is a hard thing for any of us to live up to. How can we possibly do as Phillip did and just go, just leave everything behind and follow? The amount of faith that takes seems extreme.
But then in the same passage we are given Nathanael. Nathanael represents all of us. When Phillip comes to him excited and thrilled to have found Jesus, all Nathanael can do is say, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
And here I thought cynicism and sarcasm were creations of my generation, Generation X.
Nathanael is a skeptic. And it is Nathanael we should most identify with because the reality is that we are more like Nathanael than we are Phillip and that’s okay because Nathanael doesn’t walk away. He doesn’t brush Jesus aside.
Like Samuel, Nathanael doesn’t know who’s calling him, but he’s curious and so he sticks around and listens. And like Samuel, Nathanael meets his Lord when he decides to listen.
So forget about the heroes of the Bible for a minute and focus on the little guys, like Nathanael. Focus on Samuel, who actually turned out to be one of the big guys of the Bible, but for a moment was just as confused as any of us.
And learn from them.
