A Rare Roll Cloud
For a long time, I have wanted to
see a roll cloud. If you do not know what a roll cloud is, I am not surprised.
It is a rare cloud formation, a horizontal funnel cloud. Unlike its
upright cousin, the tornado, the roll cloud rotates peacefully across the
horizon.
It hurts me to say this, but several years ago a rare roll cloud rolled right over my head, and I did not know it. On the morning of February 5, 2018, a roll cloud graced the skies of Richmond, Virginia. I only found about it weeks later as pictures circulated on social media.[1]
Why did I miss the roll cloud that morning? I cannot remember with any certainty what I was doing that day. What I am more certain about is how I was feeling and in what kind of spirit I was probably living. As it was a Monday, the start of a new week, I was probably feeling hurried. Rushed. For me, historically, Mondays are about productivity. Progress. At the end of the day, I want to feel like a foundation has been laid for the rest of the week. I want to have gotten ahead if possible. Monday has traditionally been my sermon-writing day, and by the end of the day, I like to have a rough draft completed.
What haunts me about February 5, 2018, is not just that there was a roll cloud right over my head and I didn’t know it; it’s not just that I may have missed the one opportunity in my life to see something I desperately want to see. What haunts me is the idea that I may be the least receptive to the presence of God and God’s gifts at the very moment that I am writing about these things. (Isn’t that ironic?) To be clear, my fear is not that my sermon-writing is untrue or inauthentic. My fear, rather, is about the spirit in which I work, a spirit of productivity that might harden my heart and hinder my ability to be present and attentive to God. (I often wonder if “productivity” is not antithetical to presence.) I am more concerned about producing something according to my plans than I am about paying attention. And so God might just roll right over my head.
Rarely
Speaking or Rarely Listening?
Today’s scripture opens with the declaration, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1), before it goes on to tell how God’s word is twice ignored in the temple, the very place where we might expect people would be listening for God. It reminds me of a similar irony in the story of Balaam, a famous prophet and seer, who nevertheless cannot see the angel of God standing right in front of him. Three times his donkey stops in its tracks, unwilling to challenge the angel standing in the way, and three times Balaam strikes his donkey in anger. Only after the third time, when Balaam’s donkey comically speaks up, does Balaam finally see God’s angel (Num 22). Today’s scripture follows the same, third-time’s-charm pattern. Twice, God’s priest, Eli, assumes that the boy Samuel is just hearing things. Only after the third time does Eli wise up to the possibility that God may in fact be talking.
All of which leads me to wonder: why was “the word of the Lord…rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1)? Is it rare because God is rarely speaking? Or because God’s people are rarely listening? Just as Balaam’s donkey makes a fool out of Balaam for his ignorance, I’m inclined to think our scripture today pokes fun at Eli’s ignorance. A priest of God who twice does not consider the possibility that God may in fact be speaking in God’s temple (of all places!). It is understandable that little Samuel would not know any better. The storyteller tells us that “he did not yet know the Lord” (1 Sam 3:7). But Eli is very old (1 Sam 2:22). He’s been a priest for a long time. Why would he, after all his years of experience, not at least consider the possibility that God is speaking in the place designated for God’s presence. It’s almost as if he does not expect God’s word. As if he’s not listening.
“No
Regard”
And it’s not just Eli here in the temple who is not expectant, not listening. It seems to be in the water; it seems to be part of the culture. One chapter earlier, we learn that Eli’s sons “look with greedy eye” on the sacrifices that people bring to God (1 Sam 2:29). They eat the meat that is meant for God, and they also take meat that belongs to the sacrificer. The storyteller explains the root of their behavior this way: “They had no regard for the Lord” (1 Sam 2:12). They are not expectant or listening for God because they are too busy pursuing their appetite and personal gain. As priests, they would surely acknowledge the reality of God’s presence, yet the spirit in which they are living makes God redundant. They may be professional priests, but they are practical atheists, living for themselves.
And it appears that this spirit of greed, this spirit of control and carelessness, is pervasive in Israel, nearly universal. The book of Judges, which sets the scene for the story of Samuel, depicts a people spiraling out of control, with leaders who sacrifice their own daughters and wives and tribes who are quick to take up arms against their own brethren. In the very last verse of the book, in its final words, the storyteller utters this subtle condemnation: “All the people did what was right in their own eyes (Judg 21:25). Which is perhaps another way of saying what was said about Eli’s sons, the priests: they had no regard for the Lord. They were not expectant or listening for God, but rather living for themselves in a spirit of control and carelessness.
Maybe this is why “the word of the Lord was rare in those days” (1 Sam 3:1).
The
People of Israel and the Nation of Israel
The story of Samuel, “a trustworthy prophet of the Lord” (1 Sam 3:20), with whom God’s word is frequent, not rare, is in fact just the beginning to a larger story: the story of the birth of a nation. True, the people of Israel, the children of Israel, are already on the scene, having begun as a family whom God chose to bless and transform all the world (cf. Gen 12:1-3). But as the prophet Balaam declares in Numbers, the people of Israel are not to be counted as a nation among nations (cf. Num 23:9). They are different than the nations. They are a people led not by a king but by God. But in the book of Samuel, the people of Israel will become a monarchy. The children of Israel will become a nation with a human king and a human government. As we will see over the next few months, the results of becoming a nation are…mixed, to say the least. On the one hand, the nation of Israel will prosper under its early kings and increase in security, size, and wealth. On the other hand, greed and power struggles will tear at the social fabric, as the rich exploit the poor and the leaders of the nation turn against one another repeatedly in civil war.
One of our Disciples ancestors, David Lipscomb, whose theology was profoundly shaped by his experience of the Civil War, was very careful to point out the difference between the people of Israel and the nation of Israel. The people of Israel, he said, had been called to embody the kingdom of God, but in settling for nationhood, they became just another human kingdom, just a nation among nations.
Today’s scripture and its surrounding story serves as an appetizer for what is to come. It shows us the corrupt roots from which the nation of Israel will grow. What dooms the nation of Israel is not necessarily having a leader or being organized as a people. What dooms the nation of Israel is the spirit of greed and disregard that we see at the start of 1 Samuel, a spirit of control and carelessness.
The
Kingdom of God
As we embark on the story of the nation of Israel in the next few months, I anticipate that we will have many opportunities to reflect on the spirit in which our own nation is living and how that might on occasion hinder us from hearing God’s word, from recognizing God’s kingdom in our midst. What I survey in this election year is an obsessive spirit of control, which sees before it a battle, not a conversation, enemies, not brothers and sisters; which spawns “[hostilities], strife, …anger, quarrels dissensions, factions…and things like these” (Gal 5:20-21). These last words were drawn straight from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in which he warns that people living in this spirit “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). As though to say, it will roll right over their heads. The word of the Lord will indeed be rare in those days.
Instead of a spirit of control, Paul counsels us to live in God’s spirit of care, a spirit that bears the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). To live in such a spirit is surely to live in the kingdom of God, as Paul implies.
But to put some teeth on this, to give it some real bite, to show what it might actually look like in our world, I suggest: To live in God’s spirit of care, to live in God’s kingdom, is to trust not in the outcome of an election but in the outcome of deeds of love and forgiveness. It is to trust not in the promises of human leaders who fight against one another, but in the promises of a God who comes to reconcile all of us (and all creation) in his peace (cf. Col 1:20). To live in God’s spirit of care is to trust not in one nation counted among many nations, but in a kingdom into which all nations will be gathered (Isa 2:2-4), a kingdom that blesses all the families of the earth.
To live in God’s spirit of care will mean God’s word is not drowned out by fighting words, that it is not rare. It will mean that God’s presence will roll gloriously into our midst, and we will not be too busy, too “productive,” too combative, controlling, to see it.
Prayer
Disarming God,
We see in Christ
That you come not with force
But with presence, companionship, “withness"—
Wean us from our world’s spirit of control
That we might live instead in your spirit of care;
That we might know the nearness of Christ
And live in his kingdom.
In Christ, who does good and saves life: Amen.
[1] See video and pictures of the roll cloud at the
following links: https://weather.com/news/weather/video/a-stunning-roll-cloud-dominates-the-virginia-morning-sky;
https://www.jerseyeveningpost.com/uncategorised/2022/04/01/a-rare-and-unusually-beautiful-roll-cloud-was-spotted-in-virginia/;
accessed May 31, 2024.
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