Come and see

You know, I don't know about you, but usually when I think about the calling of the disciples, I think about the scene by the See of Galilee, with James, John, Simon Peter and Andrew all mending their nets after a hard days' fishing – or, perhaps, them out in the lake still and Jesus pointing out to them a shoal of fish that he could see and they couldn't. And Simon Peter falling on his knees before Jesus, and Jesus telling them that if they followed him, he would teach them to fish for people. That's what I think of, anyway.

So this story in St John's gospel comes a little strange. In this passage, Andrew is already one of John the Baptist's disciples, and, at John's suggestion, goes after Jesus, and then comes and gets his brother, Simon Peter, and introduces him. Not a fish or fish-net in sight! You wonder, sometimes, when the stories were being collected, who told what to whom, and who was trying to make who look good!

Not that it matters, of course; truth and historical accuracy weren't the same thing in Bible days, and don't need to be today. So for now we'll stick with John's story, since it was our reading for today.

And today's story introduces us to a very important person – Andrew. At least, Andrew is very important in John's gospel. We don't often think of Andrew, do we? He's Peter's younger brother, but it's Peter, James and John who go with Jesus when he is transfigured; it's Peter, James and John who accompany Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane. Andrew gets left out. Andrew stays back with the other disciples.

But here, according to John's version of events, Andrew was with John the Baptist, and when they encountered Jesus, he and his friend went off after him. “What do you want?” asked Jesus.

“Where do you live?” asks Andrew, in return. And Jesus says, “Come and see!”

We're all so used to the idea that “Foxes have dens and birds have their nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” that it might strike us a bit odd – but, of course, when Jesus hadn't yet started his ministry, he was not yet itinerant, and presumably still lived with his mother and brothers in Nazareth. Although, in fact, the story says that they were in Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptising, and later on they leave to go home to Galilee, so presumably he was staying with friends somewhere. This wasn't the same Bethany where Martha, Mary and Lazarus lived, though, so he wouldn't have been staying with them. This Bethany is sometimes called Betharaba, to distinguish it.

I did read that the questions have a deeper meaning – I don't know enough Greek to be sure, but apparently they can be interpreted as Jesus asking Andrew what he is really looking for, Andrew asking Jesus who he is at the deepest level, and Jesus inviting Andrew to come and find out. But whatever happens, Andrew and his companion spend some time with Jesus, and the first thing that Andrew does afterwards is go and find his brother Simon Peter, and introduce him to Jesus.

Andrew does this a lot in John's Gospel. He introduces people to Jesus. First of all he introduces Simon Peter – to become Peter, that great Rock on whom Jesus was to build his church. And Simon Peter becomes one of Jesus' closest friends and supporters, far closer than Andrew himself did.

Then a bit later on, Andrew introduces some Greek travellers to Jesus; the travellers speak to Philip, and he goes to Andrew, and then both of them take the travellers to see Jesus. We aren't told what happened next; John goes off into one of Jesus' discourses. But it was Andrew who introduced them.

And in John's version of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand, it is Andrew who brings the boy to Jesus, that nameless youth who had five barley loaves and two fishes, and who was prepared to share them with Jesus. Andrew brought the boy to Jesus.

Yes, well. I've heard, and I'm sure you have too, lots of sermons on St Andrew where they tell you that you ought to be like him and introduce people to Jesus. Which is all very well, and all very true, but it's not quite as simple as that, is it?

First off, when preachers say things like that, the congregation – well, if I'm any representative of it – go all hot and wriggly and feel they must be terrible Christians because it's so long since they last introduced anybody to Jesus. And the ones who are apt to feel the hottest and wriggliest are those who really do more than anybody else to introduce people to Jesus.

And anyway, Andrew only introduces people to Jesus when they want to be introduced. Simon Peter, his brother, was probably already following John the Baptist, and was anxious to meet the Messiah. He may, of course, have thought that the Messiah, the Anointed One, would rebel against the occupying power, an earthly leader, but, of course, he soon learnt differently. The Greeks in chapter 12 of John's Gospel had asked for an introduction. The boy with five loaves and two fish was anxious to share his lunch with Jesus, but couldn't get past the security cordon of the disciples.

And when our friends want to be introduced to Jesus, that's when we need to imitate Andrew. If they don't want to know him yet, and we keep trying, we'll just end up being utterly boring and probably lose their friendship! It's probably better to just pray for our friends, and hold them up to Jesus that way – if and when they are ready for more, they will let you know. There is, as the Preacher tells us, a time for everything!

King's Acre, as a church, does a great deal to make Jesus known in the community, what with the youth club, Girls' Brigade, Pop-In and the Tuesday toddler group. We are giving people the opportunity – they know what a church stands for, and if they don't, they can always ask. We may never know how much we've done for people, how much our example has led them to want to find Jesus for themselves, to question the easy, unthinking atheism popularised by Richard Dawkins and his ilk. That's as it should be – our job is to be ourselves, to be Jesus' people, as we have committed ourselves to being.

So what sort of people are we going to be being? I think Jesus gives a very good picture of what his people are like in that collection of his teachings we call the Sermon on the Mount: poor in spirit – not thinking more of themselves than they ought; mourning, perhaps for the ungodly world in which we live; meek, which means slow to anger and gentle with others; hungry and thirsty for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; peacemakers and so on.  They love everyone, even those who hate them; they refrain from condemning anyone, or even from being angry with them in a destructive way; they don’t hold grudges or take revenge, value or use people just for their bodies, or end their marriages lightly. Their very words are trustworthy. In short, they treat everyone with the greatest respect no matter what that person’s race, creed, sex or social class. They also treat themselves with similar respect, looking after themselves properly and not abusing themselves any more than they abuse others.

We don't, of course, have to force ourselves to become like that in our own strength – we'd make a pretty rotten job of it! We do have to give God permission to change us, though, to “let go and let God”. We have to be willing to allow God to work in us, gradually transforming us into the people we were created to be.

And as we do so, we will be able to have a response when our friends ask what Church is all about, or who Jesus is.

And people are asking, aren't they? Like Andrew, they want to know where Jesus is. Where is Jesus in these dreadful floods in Queensland? Where is Jesus in that shooting in Arizona? Where is Jesus in the riots in Tunisia and the Ivory Coast? Where is Jesus in Haiti, where a year after the earthquake people are still living in tents – and they are the lucky ones? Where is Jesus in Pakistan?

Jesus answers us, as he answered Andrew: Come, and see. And the answer, of course, is that he is there in the middle of it all, as he always is. “Behold the Lamb of God,” said John, “Who takes away the sins of the world.”

There are always dreadful things happening in our world. There always have been – even back in Jesus' day, you remember, the disciples asked what had gone wrong when a tower collapsed, killing rather a lot of people. Look at the book of Job, or at some of the Psalms, trying to come to terms with why bad things happen, and so often to people who really didn't deserve it. And there are no easy answers; all we can do is to trust and to believe that God is there in the middle of it. “Come and see,” said Jesus, and they went and saw. And we are invited to stay with him exactly where he is: in the middle of it all. Amen.

With thanks to Joelle Hanson for the 2nd half!

Samuel

The story of Samuel in the Temple is an old friend, isn’t it? I was
amazed, when I came to have another look at it, that it was actually a
much darker story than I remembered. We all know the bit about Samuel
waking up in the night and thinking Eli has called him, and Eli
eventually clicking that God was trying to speak to Samuel.... but what
is the context? And what, actually, did God want to say?

It all started, of course, with Samuel’s mother, whose name was Hannah.
She was married to a man called Elkanah, and, in fact, she was his
senior wife. But her great sadness was that she had no children, and her
co-wife, called Penninah, did. Elkanah actually loved Hannah more than
he loved Penninah, and although I don’t suppose he minded for his own
sake that she had no children, he minded for her sake.

And, we are told, whenever Elkanah went to the Temple to make
sacrifices, he gave Hannah a double portion. And one day, Hannah, in the
Temple, is just overcome by the misery of it all, and pours out her
heart to God – I’m sure you’ve been there and done that; I know I have.
And Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk, seeing her mumbling away
like that.

It was rather a bad time in Israel’s history. I don’t know if it ever
occurred to you – it hadn’t to me until this week – but this is not the
Temple in Jerusalem that Jesus would have known; the first Temple in
Jerusalem wouldn’t be built until the reign of King Solomon, about
seventy or eighty years in the future. This Temple was in Shiloh, and
really, it was the place where the Ark of the Covenant resided. And Eli
is the priest in the Temple. Now, back then, being a priest was
something that only certain families could do; and if your father was a
priest, you usually were, too. It’s actually only within quite recent
history that what you do with your life isn’t determined by what your
father did – and didn’t we just hear this week that people are finding
it increasingly hard to get a better education than their parents, and
perhaps do different things? Anyway, back then, you followed in your
father’s profession, and if your father was a priest, as Eli was, then
you would expect to be one, too.

Unfortunately, Eli’s sons were not really priestly material. They abused
the office dreadfully – taking parts of the sacrifices that were meant
to be burnt for God alone, sleeping with the women who served at the
entrance to the temple. I don’t think these women were prostitutes –
temple prostitution was definitely a part of some religions in the area,
but I don’t think it ever was part of Judaism. These women would have
been servants to Eli and his family, I expect, and considered that
service as part of their devotion to God. And perhaps, too, they helped
people who had come to make sacrifices and so on. Whatever, Hophni and
Phineas, Eli’s sons, shouldn’t have been sleeping with them, and they
shouldn’t have been disrespecting the sacrifices, either.

There had been a prophecy that the Lord would not honour Eli’s family
any more, and that Hophni and Phineas would both die on the same day,
and a different family would take over the priesthood. Eli had tried to
tell his sons that their behaviour was unacceptable, but they hadn’t
listened, and one rather gets the impression that he had given up on
them. He was not a young man, by any manner of means.

And now he had this child to bring up, Samuel, first-born of the Hannah
whom he had accused of being drunk. Hannah had lent her first-born child
to the Lord “as long as he lives”, since God had finally granted her
request and sent her children – unlike some of the other childless women
in the Bible, people like Sarah or Elisabeth, God gave her more than one
child in the end. So Samuel, her first-born, was lent to God, and grew
up in the Temple.

I had always somehow imagined the Temple as being the Temple in
Jerusalem, but, of course, it can’t have been. It was probably just an
ordinary house, but with the main room reserved for the altar of the
Lord and the Ark of the Covenant. Samuel sleeps in there, you notice,
and Eli has his own room at the back somewhere. And I imagine Hophni and
Phineas have rooms of their own, too.

I do think that the first verse of our reading is one of the saddest
there is: “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not
widespread.” “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were
not widespread.” It sounds like a very bleak time, doesn’t it?

Samuel, we are told, did not know the Lord. He didn’t know the Lord.
This in spite of ministering in the Temple daily. He wasn’t able to
offer sacrifices, of course – he was not, and couldn’t ever be, a
priest, as he came from the wrong tribe. But he would have helped Eli
get things ready, he would perhaps have made the responses. He would
certainly have known what it was all about. But he did not know the
Lord, in those days. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

So when God calls him in the night, he has no idea what is happening,
and thinks that Eli is in need of help. And it isn’t until the second or
third time that Eli realises what is happening, either. But once he
does, Eli explains that it might be that God is wanting to speak to
Samuel, and he should say “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening!”

And then what? No message of hope or encouragement such as anybody would
want to hear. In fact, quite the reverse:

“See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of
anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfil against Eli all
that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I
have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the
iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did
not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the
iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering
forever.”

There will be no escape for Eli; he could, and should, have stopped his
sons from being blasphemous, from disrespecting the offerings of God’s
people, from sleeping with the temple servants. I get the feeling Eli
has rather given up, don’t you? When Samuel tells him what the Lord has
said, his reaction is simply, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems
good to him.” And in the end, just to round off the story, both sons
were killed in a battle against the Philistine, and Eli died of a heart
attack or something very similar that same day. And the Philistines
captured the Ark of the Covenant.

All very nasty – not one of the nicer stories in the Bible, I don’t
think. But what does it say to us? What do we have in common with these
people at the end of the Bronze Age, or early Iron Age, I’m not quite
sure which they are?

The thing is, of course, we do have rather too much in common with them.
This is a time when the Word of God is not heard too much in our land.
It is a time when churches are disrespected, and even ministers and
priests have been known to abuse their position.

I suppose that there is nothing new; every age has probably said the
same of itself. We know that we are, naturally, sinners, and unless God
help us we shall continue to sin.

Samuel served in the Temple but he didn’t, then, know God. Eli had given
up; Hophni and Phineas set him a poor example. It must have been
confusing for Samuel – what was it all about? And then when God did
finally speak to him, it wasn’t a comforting message of cheer and
strength, but a reminder that God’s judgement on the whole shrine and
the priestly family who ran it was going to happen.

But good things came from it, too. Samuel became known and respected as
a prophet and as a judge in Israel. He couldn’t be a priest, as he was
from the wrong tribe, but he could be, and was, a prophet who was widely
respected and loved. It was he who anointed Saul as king, and then David.

So there is hope, even in the cloudiest, stormiest days. The temple of
Shiloh was abandoned, and the Ark never returned there. But the Ark did
return, and eventually the Temple was built in Jerusalem. Samuel became
one of the most famous prophets of them all.

Samuel said “Yes” to God. He was willing to hear God’s message, no
matter how unpleasant it had to be, no matter how traumatic. He was
willing to hear, and he was willing to speak it out. And so God used him
to establish the Kings of Israel and then of Judah – perhaps not the
most successful monarchy ever, but from King David’s line came, of
course, Jesus.

It is never totally night. God ended Eli’s family’s service to him, yes;
but the Temple endured, and was eventually rebuilt in Jerusalem, bigger
and better than before. The Ark of the Covenant was taken into captivity
– but it came back, and remained in the Temple until it was no longer
needed, as God made a new covenant with us.

When we go through difficult times, and I think we all do, whether as
individuals, as churches, or as a society, it’s good to think back on
this story. God may be bringing one thing to an end; but a new thing
will, invariably, follow, just as spring follows winter.

The difficult thing, of course, is going on trusting Him when all does
seem dark, when we can’t see how things are going to work out. But
remember Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8: “And we know that in
all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been
called according to his purpose.” I do think that we can ask to see how
God is going to work a bad situation for good: it’s amazing how that can
and does happen.

And we need, like Samuel, to listen to God, and to do what He asks of
you, no matter how difficult? Are you willing to do this for God? Am I
willing? It isn’t easy, is it?

Thanks be to God that we need do none of this in our own strength, but
in the power of the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us. Amen!