“The sensation of being alive in the early 21st Century
consisted of the [distressing] sense that our ability
to pay attention was cracking and breaking…like our
civilization had been covered with itching powder
and we spent our time twitching and twerking our
minds, unable to simply give attention to the things
that matter.”
When I read those words in Johann Hari’s new book
Stolen Focus, it was as if the author had been peering
over my shoulder for the last three years. Perhaps you
feel the same way hearing them now. Hari introduced
me to the concept of the attention economy—
the notion that human attention is the scarcest
commodity, the limiting factor in our consumption of
information, and the object of intense competition.
That is, as the demands on our attention have grown
in scope and complexity, the bitter contest for our
attention has grown fiercer. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
Prioritizing what matters and maintaining focus are
profound challenges in our time. We are a distracted
and preoccupied people, often overwhelmed by the
sound and fury of information assaulting our senses at
all hours and on every inch of the globe. I remember
hiking at the top of Scarp’s Ridge in a remote part of
western Colorado. I was nearly 13,000 feet up. Not a
soul in sight. And my phone began to buzz. A phone
call. Would I like to participate in a survey? There is
truly no escaping the attention economy.
The word of the Lord was rare in those days.
That’s how this morning’s scripture begins. God’s
voice rarely heard. Visions of the sacred not often
reported. This story in First Samuel, it’s one of our
oldest stories, and it might just be our very best one. I
love it. It describes a relatable experience for some of
us. It is happening with great regularity in our house
these days. Middle of the night. Fast asleep. Sudden
awareness. A small person standing there, staring at
you. “Dad, I can’t sleep. I had a bad dream. I heard a
scary noise. I need to sleep in your bed.” And, perhaps
we try the same thing old Eli did. Three times Samuel
wakes him having heard a voice in the middle of the
night, and twice Eli tells Samuel, “Go back to bed.”
And why not? Afterall, the word of the Lord was rare
in those days. Who would have expected it to be the
voice of God?
Samuel and Eli are literally living in the temple, but
even there this is no exception—no expectation of
a divine voice or a holy vision. Until finally, the third
time God calls, the old priest perceives a different
possibility. Eli instructs Sam on how to respond if it
happens again.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
When the child does this, the course of his entire life
is set, radically changed. He will be a seer. A leader.
A prophet. A kingmaker. A voice of the divine. Once
God gets Samuel’s attention, his vocation comes
into clear focus. Once Samuel speaks those words,
your servant is listening, God’s call.
What are we to make of this ancient story of a child
hearing voices in the middle of the night? How do
we apply the call of Samuel to our own lives and
our stories?
Often it seems that what was spoken in the time of
Samuel is true of ours as well. The word of the Lord
is rare in these days. God’s voice not often heard.
Visions of the sacred not often reported. And, when
they are, we tend toward justifiable skepticism. You
heard what? You heard who?
Whenever I consider the assumption of God’s silence,
I’m reminded of just how loud my life is, just how
intense the fight for every ounce of our attention.
Consider this: if God were speaking, how would we
ever hear? How would we ever perceive this voice
in the cacophony of contemporary culture and the
endless onslaught of streams of information?
Two of the reasons I love the story of Samuel’s call
are (1) the voice is not immediately recognizable and
(2) the boy does not (cannot?) discern it on his own.
These are valuable lessons for those of us who long to
listen for God.
It takes God four times to get through to Samuel.
And so it is for most of us, I think. We may envy
those who have heard God speak in such a clarion
voice that they need no repetition. They know
immediately what’s on God’s mind. No need to ask
for confirmation.
But it’s not that way for most of us. Most of us require
steady, patient repetition, a refrain of providence. The
first time we experience a nudge that might just be
divine, we can easily dismiss it. Coincidence. Chance.
Accident. Something I ate. Certainly no reason to get
all excited. No reason to change the course of my life
or ruffle any feathers. But what about the third time,
the fourth time, the fifth time?
I have a friend who has recently made the risky
decision to change career paths from a safe and
profitable trajectory to one that offers no such
guarantee. When I asked him why, here’s how he
responded: “I want my life to count for something more
than money. I tried and couldn’t shake the nagging
feeling that I could achieve by every measure and still
feel empty inside.” God’s call is patient but persistent in
getting our attention. Where might God be waiting for
you to make a change or answer the call?
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
Still, it is not repetition alone that gets Sam’s attention.
Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And without the
presence of Eli, he may never have. For many of us,
the voice of God is heard in the voice of other human
beings. People who know us. People who love us
enough to tell us the truth about our lives, to shine a
light of revelation, to open a door to a new epiphany,
to point the way to God’s call. It strikes me that Eli
knows Samuel. It strikes me that Samuel trusts Eli.
Who has been Eli for you? Who has perceived the
possibility that God might be speaking?
Who has been your Eli? Urged you to listen?
Encouraged you to pay attention? Guided you to a
new direction?
Who has been your Eli? Who has affirmed your gifts
and your talents, the nudges of the divine in your life?
Orval Wintermute was a professor of Old Testament
and Semitic Languages at Duke University. He
translated the Dead Sea Scrolls. He contributed to
ground-breaking work in understanding the ancient
world in which many of our biblical texts were written.
But that’s not why I’m thinking of Orval this morning.
After a career teaching for forty years, Orval retired
and began a new stage of his life. Since he is an
ordained Presbyterian minister, he decided he would
return to the parish. Specifically, he became pastor of a
fifteen-member congregation an hour north of Duke’s
campus. When he had to be out for the summer with
knee replacement surgery, the church asked a college
freshman to preach and visit and teach for that small
church. But before he would let me loose on the
congregation, Orval and I traveled up to Warrenton
several times together. Over the next three years, we
traveled that road weekly together. Through personal
crisis and community concern, deaths, illnesses, and
all the issues of congregational life, we traveled that
road back and forth. We conversed about theology
and scripture, about how to care for a congregation.
We discussed the academy or the parish, the parish
or the academy. He listened. He encouraged. And
in his voice, I began to perceive my own call. In the
years since, I have taken many wonderful courses and
read many books on ministry, but not one has taught
me more than what I learned riding in Orval’s car or
watching him pull his chair right up next to a dying
person so that he could hold her hand and look in her
eyes while he prayed. In the corner of that hospital
room, a college student was watching, listening,
feeling the tug toward a life of ministry.
What I mean to say is that we all need Orvals—Elis—
people who point the way toward God’s call in our life,
and we can all fill that role for someone else.
You see, in the church, we have a unique call to be a
listening community, to listen to each other’s lives, to
listen for the voice of God, to affirm and celebrate the
gifts of God that are given to each and every one of
us. In a time when our attention is commodified and
our distractions are multiplied, we must set time aside
to listen prayerfully and well.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening—the wisest
advice the old priest ever gave his young apprentice,
because it opened a new world. And because Samuel,
whose name means “God has heard,” listened to Eli and
to God, this child found the courage to embrace his call.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
A powerful prayer. A risky choice. If we open our
ears to the voice of God, we will be challenged, and
we may be changed. Our priorities realigned. Our
attention redirected. Our relationships reset. Our life’s
purpose rediscovered. It’s probably easiest to just
ignore it. Coincidence. Accident. It’s probably best to
drown the voice in a flood of excuses and distractions.
To dismiss, demean, tune out, and turn down. After all,
the word of the Lord is rare these days.
Except. Samuel! Psst…Samuel!
Listen. God is calling.