Well, as I mentioned in the sermon, what made the call of Samuel so important, plus all the other calls that we see throughout the Bible, is that the person who was called actually listened. Now, we live in a world in which people assume that the idea of God is a funny holdover from an old, superstitious time, and that we have long since outgrown it. As they may. But everyone who claims that the idea of God is just a funny holdover, they've got to come face to face with the idea that, like it or not, if it's a funny idea, it was a popular one. Not only do we here in this place have an idea of God, but so does every single other country in the world. All the people throughout the world have suspiciously enough all come up with the idea of God. Now, you can go one of two ways with that: You can assume that everyone needed an explanation for the way the universe works, and they all happened to come up with a similar ridiculous idea, or you can think that God has called a great many people towards him.
You see, the New Testament is full to the brim of stories of Jesus sharing his message with all sorts of people, and most people getting it wrong. They leave angry, they miss the point of the story, they get confused, and the message of God gets a little bit lost in the shuffle. And the idea is that the message is clear enough if you just stop talking for a while, if you just stop giving your opinion to God, if you stop telling Him how you think things should be, and just let him say what he's going to say. If he's going to tell us how things should be, what he would have us do, or most importantly, what he has done for us, it's only going to work if we listen.
The question as to whether to talk or whether to listen is always a difficult one. We want to talk. We want God to answer to us, we want him to listen to us in a big way, but that's not the case. CS Lewis, in his essay "What are we to make of Jesus Christ" puts it this way:
The question is, I suppose, whether any hypothesis covers the facts so well as the Christian hypothesis. That hypothesis is that God has come down into the created Universe, down to manhood – and come up again, pulling it up with Him. The alternative hypothesis is not legend, nor exaggeration, nor the apparitions of a ghost. It is either lunacy or lies. Unless one can take the second alternative (and I can’t) one turns to the Christian theory.
What are we to make of Christ?. There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.
The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, “This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go”, but He says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life”. He says, “No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me”. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved. He says, “If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away… Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out.. Do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe”.
That is the issue.
PJ.
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