Re-charge: Samuel - Leadership through listening

 

 

The Full Monty:

1 Samuel 1, 3, 7-10, 12-13, 15-16

To read if you have time to take in the whole story: a lot of text but worth it to get an overview of Samuel’s life.

The Continental Option:

1 Samuel 3:1-21 Read this if you only have time for one significant episode.

One Shot Espresso: 1 Samuel 3:10 ‘And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.”

Frank Skinner’s 2008 memoir On The Road, his second volume of autobiography, is regarded as one of the best accounts written of the life of a working comedian. A recovering alcoholic, Skinner returned as an adult to the Catholic faith of his childhood. In this volume he also returns, after ten years in television, to live comedy. One of his most intriguing revelations is the role that the Bible plays in his life. Skinner describes his discovery of ‘Lectio Divina’, an ancient method of engaging with scripture that has helped him to read the Bible, sustaining him in his life on tour. He cites an example from Mark’s Gospel, explaining how the phrase ‘a voice of one crying in the wilderness’ in Mark 1:3 gripped him.

‘I read the phrase a few times’, he writes, ‘memorised it, spoke it, felt it in my mouth, completely focused upon it.’ Seeking the meaning of the phrase in context, he found himself confronted with the wild prophet John the Baptist, who ‘wandered the back roads like a wild-eyed homeless man; drunk on prophecy; indifferent to threat. He baptised people - not white-shawled babies at an ornamental font, but adults, pulled roughly down by his impatient right arm and submerged deep in the river, then thrust upward, gushing and gasping, rewired and reborn.’

Through the different stages of Lectio Divina, Skinner explains in detail how this ‘scary and strange’ text speaks to him about his own life, reflecting on the ‘flickering flame’ of God’s voice ‘crying in my internal wilderness, like a lost-in-the-background, crackly radio-announcer; significant-sounding but indecipherable amidst the swirls of commercial pop.’

In the maelstrom of a busy schedule, a nightly battle with stage-fright and the overwhelming fear of being rejected by a new, younger audience, this reformed alcoholic and would-be disciple of Jesus wrestles with what it means to hear God’s voice: not in the crafted, religious confines of a Cathedral, but in the real world. This, surely, is the greatest challenge we face in a frantic and noisy age: to hear God’s voice. And this, above all else, is the meaning of the life of Samuel. 

Samuel is born in miraculous circumstances and is dedicated in childhood to serve as assistant to the Priest, Eli. He learns early to listen to God and is later accepted by all Israel as a prophet (1 Samuel 3:20). From this beginning he becomes the nation’s judge (1 Samuel 7:15), a kind of king before Israel had kings, and he also functions at several key points in the priestly role Eli has trained him in (1 Samuel 2:18, 7:9). His life bridges the important period between two political systems. He is the last of the judges, and he personally selects and anoints both Saul and David - the first two kings. In a time of transition and turmoil, when the people are desperate enough to name their children ‘Ichabod’ because ‘the Glory of Israel is gone’ (1 Samuel 4:21), Samuel shows that the lessons he has learned in childhood are the key to moving forward. It is by listening to God; by discerning his wisdom in the midst of confusing circumstances, that the people of God will be sustained and the purposes of God fulfilled. A night-time adventure in his early teens, when Samuel first learns to hear God’s voice, will prove decisive in his adult life and in the history of Israel. Even in old age, when Saul has fallen from grace and a new king must be found, it is Samuel who comes out of retirement to act. And it is still the gift of hearing God that sets him apart.

What lessons can we learn from this complex life in our own efforts to hear God, and to help others do so?

 

Learn early.

The Priest Eli is not portrayed in this story as a hero. In many ways he has failed. But in one task he is a resounding success: he teaches the teenage Samuel to hear God. This is not an automatic process. It requires learning: but in due course the boy comes to recognise God’s voice. Before long he is confident in this gift of discernment, and his adult life will wholly be built on it. This single gift will be the source of national renewal in Israel, and will play a significant part in the chain of events by which salvation history unfolds. All because of a childhood spiritual experience! What foundations have been built for you in childhood that, even now, you can build on? What foundations are you building in those you lead? Will there be national and international leaders 20 years from now who will record the fact that you taught them how to hear the voice of God?

 

Keep going.

We could perhaps forgive Samuel were he to leave the ‘childish things’ of hearing God behind when the complexities of the adult world engulf him. He does the very opposite. At the epicentre of politics and power in Israel, he continues to seek wisdom and to exercise discernment. He warns Israel of the dangers of asking for a king; a unique appeal to the rule of law centuries before such a concept was widely understood. He understands when Saul’s actions are indicative of an unfaithful heart (1 Samuel 13:13-14 / 1 Samuel 15). In his decline, he discerns, against all evidence to the contrary, that the shepherd boy David is called to be king (1 Samuel 16:1). From his early experiences to his last breath, Samuel has continued to develop and use the gift God has given him. His prophetic insight is sharpened by the passing of time. The drama of David’s anointing, with the more suitable brothers passed over one after the other, is perhaps the prophet’s finest hour: but it is also the furthest removed from his childhood lesson in listening. Whatever else Samuel has done in his life, he has kept alive his capacity to hear God. What are you doing to stay sharp in the gifts and facilities God has given you? Are you still able, with simple faith, to hear his voice?

 

Adapt freely.

There is an attractive simplicity to Samuel’s faith. He hears God. He obeys. But simple faith should never be mistaken for simplistic faith. Samuel lives in complex times. The nation is in transition, with pressures and issues on every side. There is the ever-present threat of annihilation. Samuel adapts to changing circumstances; he changes his mind; he is unafraid to go back on earlier decisions even though they seemed right at the time; he is forever seeking God’s ‘now’ word. The anointing of Saul as king is a compromise in the face of a determined people. The later removal of that anointing is a response to the fresh urgings of God. Even his role in Israel changes with the seasons. He is trained as a priest, acknowledged as a prophet, called upon to function as a judge. His leadership is by turns spiritual; military; political. Like Jesus, recognised as prophet, priest and king, Samuel refuses to be boxed-in by the preconceptions of others. The voice of God, for him, trumps all other voices. And what he hears, he obeys, even when that means an unexpected U-turn. Are you defined by the preconceptions of others and hamstrung by your own? Or can you hear the voice of God clearly enough to obey, even when obedience breaks the mould?

Samuel’s long and dramatic life takes him through a series of high-stakes scenarios. He is decisive in the shaping of salvation history. But through all his drama, in every episode described to us, the lessons of his childhood are his treasure. Taught young to recognise God’s voice, Samuel never loses the capacity to tune-in to its world-changing sound.

TAKE AWAY Two easily-digestible tweet-sized bites

THOUGHT: In a complex culture, many voices call for my attention. How can I learn to identify the voice of God, and having heard it once, to tune in more?

PRAYER : You are found in stillness God. In silence your voice rings clear. Still us, noisy as we are, to know you.