God Calls
October 12th, 2025 “God Calls” Rev. Heather Jepsen
1 Samuel 3:1-21
My friends, this morning we continue our journey through the large story arc of the scriptures studying God’s growing relationship with God’s people. Last week we read about Manna in the wilderness. Moses was wandering in the desert with the Israelites and the people learned that they needed to rely on the blessings of God each day to survive. They could no longer hoard provisions and provide for themselves, instead, God would offer fresh manna, just enough to get through each day.
Many years have passed since that time. The Israelites wandered with Moses in the desert for 40 years. Johsua, Moses’ successor, led the people into the Promised Land where they settled. Through the period of Judges, the tribes became increasingly scattered and chaotic. Where we find the nation today, they are in a crisis. It is a time of civil war and open violence between tribes, corruption in religion and governance, and no real leadership. As our story opens the author is clear, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days and visions were not widespread.” The people have wandered far from their God.
Zoom in to the particulars of our story and we find the boy Samuel sleeping in the temple. Samuel is a blessed and holy child. After years of barrenness his mother Hannah had prayed for a son. Upon receiving the child, she offers the boy at the temple as an offering of thanksgiving to God. So, Samuel has been raised as a child of the faith.
Unfortunately, the temple isn’t a great place for kids to be right now. Rather than a beacon of deep devotion and upright behavior, the temple is more like a den of sin. Eli, the head priest, has a good heart but he is blind and aging. He neglects to stop the evil behavior of his sons who steal from the offerings, sleep with women working at the temple, and revel in their unopposed power. It’s a place of sex and greed, not a place for a young man to find God.
So, it is no wonder that when God comes calling, Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice. The story finds Samuel sleeping when the Lord calls him by name. Samuel assumes his master Eli is calling and runs to him instead. Eventually Eli realizes that Samuel is hearing the voice of God and instructs the boy on receiving the divine message.
I could easily have titled this sermon, “when Good news is Bad” because boy does Samuel get an earful. Finally turning to hear the word of the Lord, Samuel finds that God is not happy with the way the temple is being run. God is coming back in a powerful way and will be with Samuel in the years to come. But before that can happen, God will wipe Eli and his corrupt sons from the face of the earth.
I could also have titled this sermon, “speaking truth to power” because that is what the boy Samuel ends up doing. In the morning, Eli asks what the message was and warns Samuel to tell him the truth. Samuel does, and Eli realizes that God’s judgement against his sons is a judgment on him too. Eli knows that his time is over “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him” and he slinks away defeated and broken. But it is a new day in Israel. The ears of all who hear it will tingle as the word of God is spoken again and Samuel brings the community back to faith.
As we move through these Old Testament stories we have also been talking about the historical context of their authors. We’ve talked about the Yahwist author, the Elohist author, and the Priestly author. Today we finally hear from our remaining major voice, the Deuteronomistic Historian. Covering much of the material from the book of Deuteronomy through 1 and 2 Kings, the Deuteronomistic historian’s material was developed during the reform of Josiah around 622 BCE.
Rather than being a direct history, the goal of this author was to create a re-telling of Israel’s story that seeks to provide a unified voice centering power in Jerusalem and the Yahwistic faith. The author writes in four major phases, the time of Moses and the lawgiving, the time of Johsua and the conquest of the Promised Land, the time of Judges and the apostasy of Israel, and then the time of Monarchy from Saul to the fall of Judah. The themes of the Deuteronomistic Historian are covenant loyalty and obedience to God, which we see in our story today with the punishment of the priestly line that has gone astray.
As we have been reading these stories from the Bible we find several themes. One thing that we have noticed is God’s changing relationship with God’s people. Remember in the beginning God created order and then was surprised to find that our natural inclination is toward chaos. In navigating new relationships with Abraham, God tried tests of faith. In the Moses narrative God tried to force the people to rely fully on God. And in the chapters that we have skipped, God tried to covenant with the whole nation only to find that once again we disappoint. Over and over again God is trying to reach us and over and over again God must pivot and shift, trying something new. Which brings us to our next big biblical theme, endings and beginnings.
Our story today marks a shift in the narrative. The time of Judges, which was mostly a failure, is coming to a close. The temple reign under Eli is over. God sees that the nation of Israel is a chaotic mess. This is a time of spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political danger, and social upheaval. It is a time of great unrest, and the people feel very distant from God. Even in the temple, the word of the Lord was rare in those days.
It is into this mess of disappointment and selfishness that God decides to pivot and do a new thing. To the boy Samuel, God declares an end to the priestly line of Eli. “I am about to punish his house forever.” At this point all Samuel is given is bad news, but good news is on the way. God is planning a new thing, a monarchy in Israel, and God needs a faithful priest and prophet, Samuel, to enact that plan and anoint that first king.
You don’t need me to tell you that we too are living in a time of spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political danger, and social upheaval. Like the 12 tribes of Israel, we too are feeling the push and pull of tribal factions in our lives. These may not be tribes of lineage and blood, but we certainly have tribes of politics, identities, and economic class. All over the world this is a time of violence and a lack of leadership. And looking around at our world we are dismayed.
We talk a lot in church about new beginnings and new life, but we often forget that endings have to be a part of that story. The wheel of life keeps turning and we have seasons when we are on an upswing and seasons when we are in a down. Facing the reality of both good news and bad news is a real challenge.
In the brown bag book group, we are reading “Your Heart Was Made for This” by Oren Jay Sofer. Oren is a Buddhist Meditation teacher, and his book offers contemplative practices for meeting a world in crisis with courage, integrity, and love. A few weeks ago, we discussed Equanimity which is a non-reactive inner balance. It’s kind of like noticing how you emotionally respond to the world, both good and bad, but not letting your emotions run away with you.
Equanimity affects both how we respond to our inner landscape of thoughts and emotions and how we respond to the world around us. In a season of social upheaval and endings, equanimity is a useful tool for responding to the heartbreak and suffering in our world. Equanimity helps us approach the painful circumstances of our lives with acceptance, “right now this is the world I live in”. And it helps us avoid burnout by teaching us to offer total effort toward our goals without attachment to the results.
You do your best, you give your all, and you also recognize that the wheel of life keeps turning and many things are simply out of your control. What’s happening in the world today is just that, it is what’s happening in the world today, and there is very little we can do about it. Equanimity teaches us that we can’t control the world, but we can control how much we let that world affect our thoughts and emotions.
So today we find the young Samuel with bad news from God. The age of Judges is over. The house of Eli has fallen. The tribes are in chaos. But still God is about to do a new thing. Samuel doesn’t yet know what God’s plan is, but he hears God’s voice and is willing to follow. We too, hear the bad news of our world, we don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that God goes with us.
The voice of the Lord was rare in those days, but the lamp of God had not gone out yet. May we too keep our lamps lit as we wait for God’s call in the night. Amen.
