Bible Study - 1 Samuel 3:1-18 (Keith Howard)

The text for this coming Sunday, September 30th, 2012 is 1 Samuel 3:1-18

What words, phrases or images reach out to you?

Why do you think they have some drawing power for you?

______________

This is one of those passages that can be looked at from a number of angles:

1. It has important religious-political implications
It can be seen as an early episode of the transition from the movable ark (think Indiana Jones) to a fixed temple. The call of Samuel is imbedded in the larger text of the end of the priestly house of Eli which is due, it is said, to the unrighteous behaviour of Eli’s sons.

2. It can be a reflection on how God calls
The casting of Samuel’s call as the prototype has traditionally led to two unfortunate trends.
a) The rise of the image of call as God speaking dramatically in the night has sometimes led to (would-be) leaders in the church rising and declaring that God has called them (and therefore their word should be followed without question); and
b) the dismissal of many Christians of their own call because it may lack the drama of the Samuel scene.

3. This story in 1 Samuel is part of what of a much larger stream within the Bible called the Deuteronomistic History. One of the characteristics of this stream is the pattern of reward and punishment. This holds a deceptively simple appeal: goodness gains God’s blessings; wrongdoing triggers retribution. As James Duke notes in Feasting on the Word this position prompted dramatic responses and outcries like: the book of Job, Augustine’s City of God and post-Holocaust theologies. “Also to be considered are those biblical testimonies of God’s refusal to give up on love, even if it is unrequited, and God’s unconditional promises of care and mercy for the “lost” as well as the least of us.” In short, it raises the question of theodicy (as it is known).

4. Finally, from a devotional point of view the text has prompted reflections about the nature of prayer. As noted on the Baylor University’s site:

Samuel’s prayer, “Here I am for you called me. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:5, 10), teaches us three things about prayer. First, prayer is the task of a lifetime, for it requires that we really listen to God. “We only kid ourselves,” Westphal says, “if we think we have finished learning how to listen to God as God deserves to be listened to.” Second, “prayer needs silence, not only external but also internal silence; for our minds and
hearts can be and usually are very noisy places even when we emit no audible sound. God speaks in and as the silence.” Finally, Christian prayer is rooted in Scripture. “The very call to which we may respond ‘Here am I’ can come as a mysterious voice in the night, but it typically comes through the words of Scripture, directly or indirectly in preaching, hymnody, liturgy, and so forth.”

Some questions to ponder:
1. Many feel we are in the midst of a fundamental shift in the religious structure that is as profound as the shift from tabernacle to Temple. I wonder to whom God might be speaking now in a manner akin to how Samuel was addressed?

2. How would you describe your own sense of the presence and call of God? Have you had dramatic occasions? Has your journey been more a matter of subtle adjustments of the steering wheel?

3. Why do bad things happen to good people? What is the state of your reflection on this important question?

4. How does God most frequently “speak” to you? (I have found Ben Campbell Johnson’s work on this question helpful. See especially Godspeech.)

5. Samuel was a small child given a profound message of cataclysm. Many young people now look at the state of the world and pronounce cataclysm. Do you think this may be a voice of God?