Hearing a Calling

If you missed church on January 15^th, you missed a fabulous rendition of the story of the Calling of Samuel, performed by two of our own kids.  In the story, found in 1 Samuel 3, a 10 year-old Samuel hears a calling from God.  He doesn’t know right off, though, whose voice it is, or how to respond.  His mentor and teacher, the old, bearded Eli, finally recognizes that Samuel is being called by God, and tells him how to respond: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

The kids are so cute that I hate to block out their faces, but I don't have permission to use their images on this blog.  Alas.

This story speaks loudly to all faith communities trying to raise up children in their midst.  We are the Elis of the world ; we must listen carefully to what our children are saying about their lives, and to help them hear where God might be speaking to them.  If this sounds like a daunting to you (like, if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t even know if God is speaking to ME, let alone someone else!”), fear not.  Eli wasn’t actually able to hear God, either.  But he was faithful in his attempts to be a good steward of Samuel, and through that both of them were able to hear God.

Here are some practical ways we can do this today:

1.  Talk to the kids.  At the next coffee hour, challenge yourself to ask one of our children what they learned in church school, and what they think about it.  Learn their names.  Ask what sports or instruments they play, or what they’re excited about this week.  Maybe even ask if anything reminded them of God this week. 
2.     Support their parents.  Whether or not you’re a parent yourself, you have a listening ear that can hear what’s going on for parents, and how they might need support in showing God to their children.
3. Volunteer with them.  We need a rotating slate of volunteers for our nursery, because we have a lot of children in there!  We also need help with our special family events, like Shrove Tuesday.  Talk with me for more info.
4. Pray for them.  All of us need prayer, especially our children.  They face so many challenges in this crazy world of technology, bullying, and peer pressure.  Pray for them, and you’ll likely be changed, too!

Let us all pray together: Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening!  Amen.

Seeking Epiphany

Here is my most recent newsletter article:

Seeking Epiphany

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

                      -- MLK (and probably lots of other people, too)

Skeletons of trees line the sides of the road; the winter has turned bitter cold.  Gift wrap has been buried in confetti, which is now buried in the local landfill.  The kids have already broken or gotten bored of some of their toys.  Christmas and New Year’s have passed, and we are faced now with the cold dark of winter, school- and work-weeks that are actually five days long, and very little to anticipate…

What can the church teach us about this time of year?  A lot, actually.  The season of Advent encouraged us to wait with anticipation, and now the season of Christmas, which lasts until January 6^th, teaches us that the story does not end with the birth.  Indeed, the Christmas story gets dark and cold after that beloved manger scene, with the slaughter of the innocents, the fleeing of Jesus’ family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, the continued tyranny of the Roman empire.  The wise men have barely arrived to give the Lord their gifts when the scene turns from joyous December to frigid January.  The bright hope is easily dashed if one dwells too long there.

Enter the season of Epiphany!  January 6^th marks the end of Christmas, but the beginning of a long Season of Light, a celebration of the revelations that this God incarnate, this presence of the holy among us, can bring.   It starts with a fast-forward to Jesus’ 30^th year, when even he – God on earth – got baptized, was renewed and repented of sin (a word that can mean a great number of things!).  He was declared then to be God’s beloved, just as we each are declared to be beloved of God at our own baptisms.

In Epiphany we are reminded by crazy John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord.  We hear of the callings of the disciples to drop everything and follow Jesus; we are invited to the baffling Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop.  These strange and wondrous – unbelievable yet in some ways truthful – stories invite us to think upon light and all its strange facets in these dark months.   

We can celebrate this season by being on the lookout for the ways that light breaks through the darkness, where a spark of inspiration, joy, or laughter suddenly lights our hearts.  With our children, we can help them recognize these as God-sightings; like shooting stars, they are easy to miss, but if you look for them, they’re more common than you think!

As we dwell in the dark, cold months, we have the memories of a happy Christmas and the promise of a brightened future; keeping our eyes wide open, we take steps toward getting closer to our God, our light, the hope that we celebrated being born at Christmas. 

Happy Epiphany!