Knowing me, Knowing you - aha! (Epiphany 2)

The season of Epiphany is all about God making himself known in the world - Knowing me, knowing you!

When I was a boy I had a book of Bible stories and one story I remember vividly is the one about the boy Samuel being called by God. I've read the story now many times as an adult and I'm always struck by what we can learn from it.

There's a now, old, joke which goes - 'If you talk to God you are religious. If God talks back you are a psychiatric case.' And I can well understand that to those who don't have anything to do with religion, the statement the joke makes might not be very far from the truth. At least for them.

The story of the calling of Samuel can be found in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel chapter 3 verse 1 onward. The beginning of the story, for me, always resonates with how we find the state of the Christian faith and religion in general in this Western world today- 'The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread,' it says. The secular world makes little if any opening for the Christian God to be heard nowadays.

But the phrase 'the lamp of God had not yet gone out,' which occurs in verse 3, seems to chime with the fact that the Christian faith, despite all that militates against it and seeks to quash it, still 'burns' here and in Europe.

We have the impression that it's night time in the story, because old Eli the priest, who, we are told, is losing his sight (another allusion to losing contact with God and the spiritual life?) is lying down in his room. And Samuel is lying down in the temple 'where the ark of God was'. In other words, being in the temple and near the ark, Samuel is just about as physically close to God as he could get.

And here's the twist. Eli, the priest of many years experience hearing God speak to him, years of wisdom and spiritual maturity, whose now old, and with failing sight, weary and despairing of his wayward sons, is in his room presumably asleep and feeling far away from God. Samuel, the boy recently dedicated to God, new to faith, inexperienced, tender, innocent, is nearer to God than he realises but 'Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him (verse 7)

Into this scene, God speaks to Samuel. Samuel, not realising it's God, thinks it's Eli calling him. So he goes to Eli who says, 'no, it wasn't me.' Three times this happens before Eli cottons on to what's happening. Realising it's God speaking to Samuel he tells Samuel to say to God, 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening'. Samuel does as he's told and his life as a prophet begins.

The story raises lots of questions for me about if, how and when God speaks to us. More importantly still, is the question, how do we know it's actually God speaking? How do we know it's not our over-active imagination or our own ego yelling out to us?

God speaks into lives that are completely closed to Him, as well as into those that are totally open. We read of both instances in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, in the Old Testament we read that God used the Persian king Cyrus to do His work for Him and in the New we read that God speaks into the life of Saul of Tarsus, so much so that the experience knocks Saul off his horse and blinds him! Both of these men, at the time were closed off to God. One of them opened up. But as I said, the more important question for me is how we know that it's God speaking.

I believe that we can never truly know, but we can become so convinced that we believe we know. St. Paul said, 'I know whom I have believed.' (2 Timothy 1.12) We might be right, but that's where the danger lies too. Because we can't be sure, especially at first, that what we are 'hearing' is coming from a benevolent source or a malevolent one. For again, St. Paul said that 'the devil comes disguised as an angel of light.' (2 Corinthians 11.14) So, is it God or the devil that's speaking to us? Or is it our own ego, that powerful part of us that is our own god wanting to have sway over everything we are and do? And here's where we can listen to the message in what we read of Samuel and Eli's experience, and follow a tradition handed down in the Church for the best part of 2,000 years.

Discerning the 'voice' or word of God has traditionally been seen as a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing. Traditionally it has been reserved for those men and women of maturity of faith and spiritual experience and wisdom who have usually (but not exclusively) been mature in years as well. The word 'elder' has been and still is used, especially in Eastern Christianity, to refer to such people. It's this 'model' we see in the story of Eli and Samuel.

Samuel, unaccustomed to hearing God speak to him thinks it's the voice of Eli. It's a new experience for him. So it's quite understandable that he should be confused.

Eli, even with his spiritual maturity takes time to understand and discern for himself what the voice is and where it's coming from. Samuel goes to Eli three times before Eli understands. But then, from his own experience and wisdom, he gives guidance to Samuel about how to respond.

This model of spiritual guidance has been accepted down the centuries as the one to follow. Being able to discern the voice of God or His word in any situation and then giving guidance or direction, has been seen as a gift or grace of God; a Charism. And so it's not for everybody.

It isn't always easy to find this sort of spiritual guidance. But without such a spiritual guide, all is not lost. We simply need to tread very carefully when it comes to discerning God's voice in our life and especially in acting upon what we believe we 'hear' from God. We must 'test the spirits' as St. Paul said. God can 'speak' to us in different ways, (but that's a subject for another blog post) and we have to learn to discern what are the different 'voices' speaking to us, especially whether they are from God or from some other source. Time will tell us if we've discerned correctly and acted wisely upon what we believe we've heard.

Samuel, with the direction of Eli in the beginning, learned discernment and how to listen well and went on to be one of the greatest of God's prophets.