Hide and Seek

1 Samuel 3:1-10,

3:1 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.

3:2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;

3:3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.

3:4 Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!"

3:5 and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down.

3:6 The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again."

3:7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

3:8 The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy.

3:9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

3:10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

139:18 I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you.

John 1:43-51

1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me."

1:44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth."

1:46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!"

1:48 Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."

1:49 Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

1:50 Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these."

1:51 And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

I grew up in Detroit, and like many of you, no matter where you grew up, I have clear memories, although for me they are in bits and pieces, of playing Hide and Seek with my friends – both outside when the weather was good, and inside when it was not. I remember plastering my face to a streetlight pole, with my eyes squeezed tight shut, and counting to ten while everyone went into hiding. And then yelling “ready or not, here I come!”. And then the feeling that I was the only one on earth, when I opened my eyes and looked around: that everyone else had just disappeared – vanished into thin air. It was quiet and strangely empty for those few minutes. And then I remember running around, peeking into all the places people could hide. And how the feeling of anticipation as I bent around to peek into a hiding place turned into disappointment when I found it to be empty. So then to the next place and the next and the next until finally I found them!! So glad when that happened. And then we’d start again, and I would get to hide. I really liked hiding better than seeking. Once I was hidden, I could hang out there and daydream for a bit until someone found me. I liked that part of the game a lot.

There are lots of ways we try to hide from God.

Sometimes we don’t realize that God is calling to us, and so we don’t respond as if it were God who was calling us. Sometimes we don’t open ourselves up to God’s word being revealed to us.

Samuel is the main character in our Old Testament story today. He was a young boy who was born to Hannah, who had been barren for a long time and who had prayed to God in the temple for a child. The prophet Eli had heard her prayer and had spoken with her. When Samuel was born, Hannah dedicated his life to the Lord, and brought him to the temple to serve God from there for the rest of his life. Hannah did this joyfully, actually singing a song as she gave him over, a song whose words are remarkably similar to the words that Mary sang when she and Elizabeth got together.

So Samuel is still a boy, and is ministering to Eli. And it was unusual at that time for the Word of God to be spoken to the prophets. So it’s likely that Samuel had never experienced Eli or anyone else receiving a prophecy.

But this one night, when Samuel is lying down in the temple, apparently waiting for the lamp of God to go out, he hears someone calling to him. And three times he says, “Here I am!” and he runs in to see what Eli needs. But Eli didn’t need him, didn’t call him. Finally Eli figures out what is going on, because Samuel really had no prior experience to help him with these things. So Eli tells Samuel what to do the next time this happens. And when the Lord calls Samuel again, Samuel says, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And that is when the Lord begins to use Samuel as a prophet of God’s word.

We have a hard time tuning into God’s wavelength too, don’t we? We hear, and can easily identify, so many voices, inner and outer, in our lives.  We recognize the voices of those who are near and dear to us. We know what it sounds like when our boss at work or our teacher, or our spouse, or our mom or dad, wants us to get something done right away. But what does God sound like? What is that still, small, voice like when it calls us?

It might happen in the middle of the night, when you get woken up for no good reason, and there is a message in your head that is more compelling than usual. Does this message relate to a struggle you are dealing with? Does it present a new way? Is it a way that lines up with what you know about God? Then it very possibly is God’s word you are hearing. I know it has happened to me, more than a few times, in this way.

Or we may need a brother or sister in Christ to help us recognize that God is calling to us, is sending signals that others can see but are hard for us to recognize. Like Eli with Samuel. Eli recognized the call of God to Samuel, without hearing it himself, and he helped Samuel know how to respond, and what to do.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Or it might happen in the middle of the day, when you are going shopping and you encounter someone who is asking for your help, who enters your consciousness and makes you feel uneasy about saying no, about passing by.  Could it be that God is putting the question before us,  “Who needs me now more than I need this shopping trip, those jeans, that nice dinner out?” Could it be that God is calling us to something new when that happens?

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Sometimes we are ashamed of our true selves, so we try to hide what we don’t want others to know. We try to hide pain behind a smile. We try to hide loneliness or depression by not reaching out for help.  We put on a mask, or a “game face” at work or even with loved ones at home, that does not reveal our true selves. Sometimes we are successful at hiding from others, but never can we hide these things from God.

The psalm we heard just now, psalm 139, expresses our desire to hide our truest selves, even from God. We hear it especially in the verses that were not included in the lectionary today. Listen to verses 7 through 12:

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

These words simultaneously say “I wish I could hide myself” and “there is no way to hide from you, my God and my Lord”.

God knows everything about us. There is nothing we can hide, and no point in trying. Even our deepest confessions to God are really a way of saying, I know you know this about me, and I’m ready to hand it over to you now, to accept and receive the forgiveness you’ve already given me, and to try, with your help, to get past this thing that has held me down for so long.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Sometimes a joke is a way of hiding what’s beneath the words.

In our gospel story, Nathanael says, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

It’s kind of a snarky response to an invitation. And it hides any real indication of whether Phillip’s words spoke to him, moved him. But Phillip is persistent. He could have given up and walked away, but  he says to him again, “come and see!”

It’s not unusual for us to hide ourselves from God – by focusing on other things, by trying to hide our true selves, or pretend we are someone we are not, or by making jokes or happy words to cover up what’s really inside.

But God seeks us – God seeks us all.

Jesus said, “I stand at the door and knock.”

Have you ever seen “Big Bang Theory”?  (video clip - first 50 seconds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKV4XYD3xK4

Now, in all the images I’ve seen of Jesus, none of them imply that Jesus looks even remotely like Sheldon Cooper…. but does he?

But we do know that Jesus knocks. Persistently. Persistent, but never annoying. Knocking, and speaking our name, and waiting for us to open the door and let him into our lives and hearts.

God is seeking us always, and God doesn’t give up on seeking us.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the real point of the story is not that the son is prodigal (which means, extravagantly wasteful), but that the Father is prodigal – extravagantly wasteful – as he runs down the road to embrace his returning son, as he puts a warm and beautiful robe around his shoulders, as he throws a huge party to welcome him home, and even as he tells his other son, who has been the dutiful one and is now feeling slighted, “all I have is yours”. How many of us are ready to be so extravagantly wasteful with our adult children, whether they are dutiful or they are lost? Yet God is this way with all of us – abundantly generous and loving despite our continuing habits of turning away from God – and we all do that, we all turn away from God, every day.

God doesn’t give up on any of us, no matter what.

God eagerly seeks us.

As the Psalmist reminds us, God has searched us, God knows us. Even as God seeks us, God has already found us. God knows all about us, even before we know. And yes, this is knowledge that is way beyond us, beyond our comprehension. But oh, so important to us.

Because we can rest in the assurance that God knows all about us, and God still loves us, we do not have to do anything to earn God’s love. We can rest in the assurance of God’s love. We can trust in the assurance that God will always be with us, and will never let us go, even in the darkest times and the scariest places of our lives. We do not have to fear, because God has already found us. It’s the kind of seeking that always turns out well. If we eagerly seek the Lord, we will find him.

So with God, we can stop playing Hide and Seek. We can know that God sees where we are, no matter how hard we try to hide. We can step out from our hiding places. We can abide in the redeeming light of Christ, in the never-ending love of God, in the true wisdom of the Holy Spirit, all our days. Thanks be to God! Amen.