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The 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany (B) In the words of Samuel in today’s first reading: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” May this be our prayer today, and especially now at this moment. Amen. What is the difference between hearing and listening? They are not necessarily the same. One of the miracles of modern medicine is something called a cochlear implant – a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The implant is surgically placed under the skin behind the ear and consists of four basic parts: 1) a microphone, which picks up sound from the environment; 2) a speech processor, which selects and arranges sound picked up by the microphone; 3) a transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses; and 4) electrodes, which collect the impulses from the stimulator and send them to the brain. (From the NIDCD – National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders – Website.) The cochlear implant gives the deaf ears to hear, but with it, can they really listen? Omer Zak, a deaf person who received the implant, posted his views on the Web. He wrote that cochlear implants do not differentiate between sounds, but instead amplify ALL sounds – and this is not always helpful. For example, think of a crowded, noisy restaurant, into which you take a tape recorder to record the sounds around you. As you are taping, you hear various conversations, and instinctively you listen to some, but filter out others. But when you then go home and listen to the tape, what you hear is nothing like what you heard in the restaurant – it is raw, unfiltered noise. Machines, you see, do not have the capacity to filter sound – that is something that must be learned by the hearer. Cochlear implants can provide the sense of hearing to a deaf person, but it can take up to twelve years of intensive and regular therapy to make some sense of the noise that they receive from using the implant. In other words, the cochlear implant might help the deaf to hear by creating sensation, but it may not improve their listening. Sensation is not perception – and hearing is not listening. Let us keep this distinction in mind as we deal with the text of today’s first reading. Samuel was a boy who had been consecrated to the LORD’s service by his mother Hannah and father Elkanah. As soon as he was weaned – probably when he was about three years old – his mother brought him to Eli the priest to be his full time apprentice in serving at the LORD’s tabernacle at Shiloh. By the time of the events in today’s reading, Samuel had been serving with Eli in the tabernacle for a number of years – and yet, as verse 7 of our reading tells us, Samuel did not yet know the LORD – and that is why he did not recognize the LORD’s voice when the LORD called him. Samuel did not yet know the LORD – think about what a remarkable saying that is! Although he had lived virtually all his life in the LORD’s service – and had spent most of his time in what was believed to be the very dwelling place of God – and had in fact slept in front of the holy ark of the covenant – “the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” Samuel had been literally SURROUNDED by religion for years – and yet he still did not really know God. We might say that he was like a deaf person with a cochlear implant – having plenty of “sensations” about God, but never really able to make “sense” about understanding his message. So when the LORD calls Samuel in today’s reading, Samuel at first thinks that Eli is calling him. In fact, this happens three times before Eli finally perceives that the LORD has been calling the boy – and tells Samuel to answer the next time by saying, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” I have a feeling that the boy Samuel is typical of many of us. “Religion” is certainly a part of our lives – that is why we are here in church this morning. But it is possible – even probable – that we usually “hear” God without ever really “listening” to him! Often we hear well enough, but all of the “noise” of the trials and joys and distractions that we face in our daily lives keep us from being able to listen carefully to what our Lord is saying. Perhaps we don’t hear what God is saying because of environmental noise. For example, we may be physically uncomfortable – or on the other hand, perhaps too comfortable! – and it is difficult to keep listening. Soon we give up and allow our minds to wander off. Has that ever happened with any of you? Is anyone dozing off or daydreaming right now in the midst of this sermon?! Or perhaps we don’t listen to God because of sociological noise. That is, we may be at a point in life where we are not ready to listen to God – because we have different outlooks about things and different priorities for living – and so we may just “tune out” and refuse to pay attention to God’s message. I am sure that we all know people who are like that – who don’t want anything to do with God, or at least “religion” – and so they close their ears and hearts to what he says. Or we may turn off from listening to God because of emotional noise. When we are stressed, or are feeling bitter or even hateful toward someone – it is hard to listen to God’s message of peace, love, and forgiveness. Has that ever been true for us? I am sure that it has – and perhaps even IS for some of us right now. Yes, we often have a problem in filtering out the worldly, secular, and selfish NOISE that prevents us from hearing the still, small voice of the Spirit of God. Paying attention to God’s voice, really listening to what is being said, is difficult when our ears and minds are cluttered with the honks and hoots, the toots and beauty and bothers of life. But what I call the “Eli implant” can help. The “Eli implant” consists of seven simple words of prayer: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” It is a request that God help us to hear what he has to say – to hear his still, small voice among all of the many other competing voices that we encounter around us and within us. “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” If we pray that prayer – not just in passing – but with our hearts and souls and from the depths of our being – God will speak to us through all of the “noise” that surrounds us, and will touch our lives with his love, and joy, and peace. The “Eli implant” is what helped Samuel to listen to and understand the word of the LORD and become known as a trustworthy prophet of the LORD. “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” May this be so for us today. I would like to invite you to say this prayer with me three times – and then we will have a minute of silence – and then listen to a message that God wants to tell us. (If you wish, you may close your eyes to help you to focus.) May this be a moment in which we can truly hear God speaking to our hearts. Let us pray together as Samuel did at Eli’s bidding: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening…Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening…Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” (A moment of silence). And God says: “I love you, and through Jesus you are mine forever.” We hear you Lord – and we love you too. Amen! -------------------- George R. Karres, Pella Lutheran Church 418 W. Main Street Sidney, MT 59270
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