Our Gospel reading today chronicles Jesus' call of Philip and Nathaniel, a straightforward encounter. Our reading from Hebrew scripture is quite different: the call of Samuel. The call story is prefaced by the allegation that the Word of the Lord was rare in those times, hence Samuel's confusion when he hears a "call" from God and repeatedly mistakes it for a summons by his superior prophet, Eli. My considered opinion is that there is no time when the Word is rare. God continues speaking. What is rare, I suspect, is our listening. The messages will be there if we prepare ourselves to filter out all the static that our culture of consumerism, greed, imperialism, and military-worship create. Only by filtering out the nonsense that co-opts religion and distorts Jesus' message can we hear the word.
Prophecy had become exquisitely important because the Jewish people had moved from being a nomadic clustre of tribes with a radical social agenda, taking care of the most needy, especially the refugee and foreigner. Now the outsiders are insiders; they have a capital city and have constructed Temple precincts where their God will dwell and receive prayers and sacrifices. Their radical social agenda gives way to cultic casualness, business-as-usual, and oppression of those classes who were once protected. When these things begin to happen you need prophets to call Israel back to her root values. In the same way, in our own time we need the voices of prophets to speak truth to power, to resist bigotry and oppression, to be agents of liberation. Let's look at two such prophetic figures.
Martin Luther King was born into a pastoral dynasty in Atlanta. He went to Boston University, and there received bachelor's and master's degrees, then a doctorate in systematic theology, all with distinction. Wow. He could easily have written his ticket as another flashy pulpit star, confining himself to the vacuous platitudes that inspire people and, more importantly, do not challenge or distress the power brokers. A cushy New England post would have been a huge temptation.
Instead, King chose to take a parish in Montgomery, Alabama, and soon he was widely recognized as a prophetic figure, led the Bus Boycott, and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, going on to be a crucial figure in the Civil Rights legislation of the Sixties. The courage to do that derived from a vision he experienced in his kitchen, with God saying "Stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, and you will never be alone." With the conviction of divine support, King moved forward. As he did, he saw his home dynamited, faced constant death threats, was stabbed and almost died, and would be jailed thirty times. (Does that remind you of Saint Paul?) In lhis ater career, King fought to end worker exploitation and lift the working class. In Memphis, that cost him his life, taken by an assassin's bullet. He was canonized by the Episcopal Church and his feast day is tomorrow.
Stanley Rother grew up in Okarche, Oklahoma and, after high school, expressed a vocation to the Priesthood in the Roman Communion. He went to seminary, struggled with Latin, and after six years was told to withdraw. He then enrolled in a seminary in Maryland and was graduated and, ultimately, he was ordained. He serves parishes in Tulsa and Durant, and then answered a call to Guatemalan missions, where he built a hospital, ploughed extensive lands, and provided for spiritual and physical needs of his people through worship, catechesis, and construction of an educational radio station. He spoke truth to power and, as a result, corpses of his parishioners began to turn up in various places and he learned his name was on a hit list. Father Rother returned to our state for a time, then went back to Guatemala and soon was martyred in his bed. The Roman Church is moving to canonize him and I hope our Episcopal Church will soon do the same. I look forward to celebrating his feast.
These men are wonderful examples of faithfulness to call through many obstacles. Are we listening for what God has planned for us? Are we ready to say, "Here I am, Lord, send me."
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