"Jesus Is My Influencer" : Christ Episcopal Church

June 2, 2024: May God’s words be spoken. May God’s words be heard. Amen.

Like many of you, I was glued to the television taking in the monumental news this week of a former President of the United States being convicted of 34 felony crimes by the people of the State of New York. Of course, this is new to us here, but many other countries, including France, South Korea, Egypt, Algeria, Japan, Israel, Russia, Norway, Italy, and more, have convicted & imprisoned former heads of state long before we ever got around to just putting one on trial. So, not exactly big news around the rest of the world. Of course there are other trials going on – this time in Federal court – with our own Democratic Senator of NJ Menendez that starts this week, and Democratic Congressman Cuellar from the state of Texas. Corruption seems to know no political party boundary. And none of this is limited to politicians. There was also the news of horrific videos of Sean “Diddy” Combs and the Federal Grand Jury investigation into alleged sexual assault too. And so much more.

The sad truth is that we have an unhealthy habit in this country of assuming that if you are rich, famous, or powerful, you must also be good, right, and just. We tend to put our famous folks up on pedestals, and we become shocked when they come falling down – hard. We want to blame the system. We want to think it can’t be true.

Why is it that we can believe the most horrific things that are untrue about some people, but not believe the very real things about people we like? Well, it is a type of blindness, or really deafness, to what is right in front of us, and it doesn’t happen overnight.

I was thinking about all this when pondering the texts for today. In the story of Samuel in the first reading today, the passage opens with “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. 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.” Hold on to that thought as we hear again the story of Samuel.

He was a boy, probably around 12, the first child of Hannah, who had prayed to God, in that very temple where Eli serves, for a child. She promised in that prayer to give the child to God’s service if her prayer were answered. And when she finally gave birth to him and he was fully weaned, she made good on that promise, brought him to the temple, and offered up a prayer. And, if we paid attention, we would hear this in parts of Hannah’s prayer: ‘My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God… …The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil…The Lord raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap…”

Sound familiar? It is what Mary, the mother of Jesus, had in her heart when she prayed with knowledge of who it was that was in her womb – and yeah, as I always point out – Mary knew.

Back to the story today though… Eli was old and had stopped listening to God. His sons, leaders in the temple, were corrupt, and they had preyed upon those they were called to serve. Into this environment the young Samuel was offered by his mother in fulfillment of her promise to God. This is why, as the text notes, the boy did not yet know God. There was no one to teach him…at least not until this moment.

Samuel is sleeping in the temple and hears a voice. Now, this might be a warning for everyone – be careful where you sleep. Or, as one pastor put it, the sermon for this text ought to be titled “The Danger Of Sleeping In Church.!”

Anyway, back to young Samuel, he hears this voice calling out “Samuel! Samuel!” He gets up, runs to where Eli is sleeping, wakes him up and says “Got your call – wadda ya need?” Eli, likely annoyed, sends him back to bed. The voice is heard again. Again Samuel goes to Eli, and again Eli tells him to knock it off and go back to bed. Finally, when it happens again, Eli realizes that this isn’t some sort of annoying prank, but that maybe, just maybe, this kid is hearing something from God. So, Eli tells him to go back, and if he hears the voice again, to respond with “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” And listen he does – to the bad news that he must deliver to Eli – that God is really ticked off at the wickedness of his sons and his unwillingness to do anything about it – so things are not going to go well for them.

Samuel goes back to his mentor and says, “Eli, ya gonna lose it all.” And Eli responds, “Yeah, that tracks.”[1]

The thing is, this a call story. For Samuel, of course, but also Eli – for though he had long ago stopped listening to God himself, he had the experience and the wisdom to guide the young Samuel in how to listen to God, and thereby enabled the prophetic work he would do in his life.

Now, remember that bit that opened the story of Samuel and Eli? “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” “The word of the Lord rare?”…highly unlikely. The reality was they weren’t listening. God is always speaking – then and now. The question for us, are we listening? Do we even know how to listen?

Samuel could hear, but he didn’t understand. That’s because hearing and listening are not the same thing. He needed someone to help him. Every single person who ever was called into ordained life will tell you that we didn’t understand what it was we were called to without help. People saw in us, or heard God’s call in us – they were able to help us listen, help us respond. Eli may have lost his way, but in a sort of final act of grace, he was able to guide his young charge so that Samuel could do what he was called to do. And to Eli’s credit, he pushed Samuel to fulfill his vow to God and speak the prophetic messages he was told to – no matter how hard it was for Eli to hear.

What about us?

What about you?

Whose voice are you listening to?

Sadly, though many go to church on Sundays, they often follow others – whether on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, the news…whatever it is – we are really good at following. But the one we promise in our baptism to follow – his voice – well, sometimes it just doesn’t break through. Maybe it would be better if Jesus had a Tik Tok channel – you know “Christ Tok.” Like a mug one of you gave me that says “Jesus is my influencer.” The other side of the mug says “Like and follow him.”

Folks, we are not meant to listen and follow to famous people – music or movie stars, politicians, or insta influencers…because when we do that – I can assure you – we will be deeply disappointed. We, who are baptized into him, are meant to listen to Jesus, to hear his voice, to answer his call! And oh how we need to do that these days, because the voices of others are loudly proclaiming to follow Jesus, but advocate with flags, banners, and social media Christian Nationalism.

Now I have been talking about this for some time and I will continue to do so as long as there are those who dare to conflate following Jesus with earthly civil power. These folks are the Elis and his sons of today – they have stopped listening to the Word of God. Worse, there are memes going around where the former POTUS is hugged by Jesus with the words “I too was persecuted, or depicted hanging on a cross with a flag as his loin cloth” I kid you not! To which, I think his mom would like to have a word – something along the lines of the Magnificat “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Never, and I mean never, equate the son of God to any human politician, artist, or anything else – no matter who they are. That is blasphemous.

Folks, we have serious work to do, and we cannot delay in doing it. We need to listen to God. We need to speak about our faith. We need to proclaim the good news of Christ – of that unconditional love of God. We need to be guided by the Holy Spirit and help others to be as well.

And that means that sometimes we will have to say things to people, as Samuel did to Eli, that they don’t want to hear.

It means we also need to listen to the ways in which God is calling us.

It means we will need to be watchful for those God is calling, and help them to hear God’s voice – help them to respond and be who they were born to be.

And that takes practice – so it also means we have to continually remind ourselves of who we are and what we are called to do.

I remember a story about the former newscaster, Dan Rather. He spoke once about his way of keeping his professional objective always in mind. He says he looks often at a question he’s written on three slips of paper. He keeps one in his wallet, one in his pocket, and one on his desk. The probing reminder asks, “Is what you are doing now helping the broadcast?”

We should have those notes too – except for us, it would read “Is what you are doing helping spread the good news of Jesus?”

And of course the best place to practice is here – right here in church…though try not to fall asleep.

For it is here that we are reminded of who we are in Word and in sacrament.

Here we are given strength for that call in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Here we learn to listen – to listen to God’s voice – because, for perhaps the only time in our busy week, we don’t have our cell phones out, we aren’t also cooking, watching TV, working… those are set aside. Here we allow ourselves the luxury of a singular focus – to listen in heart, mind, and soul, to God.

And when you do this, when you set your ears to listen, you just might feel in your deepest heart some voice stirring. If that happens, remember the words of Eli: Say “Speak God, for your servant is listening.”

And if someone tells you they are sensing something deep inside – something persistent they can’t quite name – tell them to listen more, and help them to hear it, to respond to it, no matter what it may mean for you.

Do this, all of you.

Do it because the world needs prophets – those who hear the Word and share it with others – for there are many powerful voices out there shouting hate and killing God’s children by their words and actions.

The world needs visions – for so many have lost the ability to dream of what can and should be. And visions are the lanterns that light the path toward what is possible.

As we enter this month of June in which we call for an end to gun violence on June 3rd, when we celebrate the freedom of people of color on Juneteenth, when we proclaim that love is love is love in all of this Pride month – we need to remember who we are – to listen for God’s voice, to help others to listen too, and to respond to that voice in the world.

Because that is what being a follower of Jesus is – we listen to his voice and model him in the world.

And that means we never align with earthly power, but serve all of creation, guided by the Holy Spirit, and with the humility of Jesus by the grace of God.

That means we never hate anyone or anything, but love all people unconditionally, and seek forgiveness when we fail, as we humans are bound to do.

That means we do not look to human idols for our guidance, but only to the one true God.

Because Jesus is our influencer – and we follow him.

And because of that, we will fight against injustice, as he calls us to do.

We will speak up for the voiceless, as he calls us to do.

We will be repairers of the breach, as he calls us to do.

We will serve the prisoner, the immigrant, the sick, the poor and thirsty, as he calls us to do.

We will listen to His voice, we will say “Speak God, for your servant is listening.”

And if we do that, all the world will come to know that “The word of the Lord is truly plentiful in these days and visions are widespread” most especially the vision of peace and harmony, of love and joy that God dreams for us all.

Amen.

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