Bittersweet to Hear

Bittersweet to Hear--September 7, 2017

"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.  At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; 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. Then the LORD called, 'Samuel! Samuel!' and he said, 'Here I am!' 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. 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.' Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. 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. 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. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before. 'Samuel! Samuel!' And Samuel said, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.' Then the LORD said to Samuel, 'See, I am about to do somethin in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.  On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end..." [1 Samuel 3:1-12]

There are some songs that almost hurt to hear, but which I have to hear.  There are times when the soul needs a sad song, even when you know in advance the music will intensify the heaviness for a while. Or maybe I should say, there are some moments in life that call for music--and the music they call for is necessarily going to bring tears... or sorrow... or a pain in the heart as real as a punch to the gut. 

Call it cathartic.  Call it musical grief processing.  Call it whatever you wish, but in those moments, I know that the right song for the moment will be bittersweet to hear, but I know I need to listen anyhow.

Do you know what I mean?

For me, that list of necessary, hard-to-listen-to songs includes Ray Charles' voice plaintively calling out, "Georgia... Georgia... no peace I find...", or Ben Gibbard singing with resignation, "Love is watching someone die," in the song, "What Sarah Said."  Or it's Chopin's Prelude in E Minor, and the way the pianist's fingers almost feel slowed by pain with each note of the melody.  Or Steven Page singing, "You think we're only here to witness the remains of love exhumed," on "Call and Answer." (Fair warning in case you are not familiar with any of those particular tunes and decide to give them a listen.)

You have your own lists, I imagine.  And if you do, you know, too, what it's like to enter a moment where you both have to listen--to a melody, to a song, to a particular lyric--and that some part of you doesn't want to listen, either... because you know, even with the first measure of the piano, you are about to open your ears, your brain, and your heart, to something that will be difficult to bear.  But I also suspect you will know, too, in that moment, that if you do not close your eyes, hold your breath, and push play, the hurt will linger and drag out longer like a hangnail in your heart... until eventually you give in and make yourself endure the words and notes that are always bittersweet to hear.

This is one of those stories in the Bible that works the same way... even if we don't usually hear it that way.  The story of the calling of Samuel is one of those stories that we tell children, after all.  It's a cheery, even surprising, and uplifting story (isn't it?) about God calling the boy Samuel!  It's the source of that repeated answer, "Here I am!" that has been the model for so many of us who have felt God's call in our lives.  I can remember being a thirteen or fourteen year old boy and first singing out the refrain that has become a well-loved song in our church hymnal, "Here I am, Lord... is it I, Lord?  I have heard you calling in the night..." and knowing that the song was patterned on the story of God calling Samuel by night.  Isn't that idea of hearing the call in the night, hearing the voice that summons you and says, "You've been picked for the team!" supposed to be a good thing?

Well, yes and no.  God's calling, you could say, is always a good thing--but to be truthful, "good" is sometimes not "easy."  Sometimes "good" is not the same as "pain-free."  Like the lyric in Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods puts it, "Nice is different than good."

And God's calling to Samuel is good... but it is a bittersweet calling to hear, to be sure.  God calls Samuel to speak, and the first message Samuel is charged with will mean speaking truth, not only to power, but to his mentor and the spiritual leader of Israel, Eli.  Once Samuel recognizes that it is the living God who is calling him, and once he answers, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening," God's answer is, "I am about to do something that will make the hairs on your neck stand on end, Sammy Boy, and you are going to be the one who announces it."

In particular, Samuel had to tell dear old Eli that his sons were corrupt and that Eli was a coward for turning the other way rather than dealing with their corruption. They were taking advantage of women who came to the temple, and asserted that they could get away with it because they were powerful and influential... and Eli was complicit because he let it happen... because he was not outraged and incensed by their abuse of power and prestige, and he let it go on without consequence.  And Samuel was finally going to be the one to say out loud that this was not okay. Even if nobody else was going to speak up, God was not going to let it stand, and so God called Samuel to be the one to bear the harsh words: "This will not stand."  And so, to hear God call in the night, "Samuel! Samuel!" was a bittersweet thing--it is a good thing, no doubt, to be clear about your vocation and to be given worth, purpose, and direction. But it is a hard thing to know that your calling brings with it speaking an unpopular message, or to challenge the people whom you had looked up to, once upon a time, like Samuel has to do with Eli.

For that matter, there will come a day, much later in Samuel's life, when the people finally come to him and ask for him to get God's permission to have a king--to make them like all the other nations--and Samuel will have to bear the bittersweetness of being rejected, and of seeing the people reject God as their true ruler.  From beginning to end, Samuel's calling will be tinged with bittersweetness--the messages he didn't want to have to speak, the rejection of people who didn't want to hear what he knew to be true, the risk of losing his livelihood, or his life, for saying what God's Spirit drove him to say.

It is not an easy thing to listen to the call of God.  It is always good, but it is not easy... and it is not always pleasant or nice.  The voice of God, it turns out, can be bittersweet to hear.

Sometimes we are Samuel.  Sometimes we hear the call of God, and we know that if we dare to keep listening--if we dare to sit up in the night and answer, "Here I am"--there will be a heaviness we did not want.  Ignorance, after all, is bliss, and we do have such a way of not seeing the things we do not want to see, and of hearing only what we want to hear in life.  And yet, there is something... compelling... isn't there, about the call of God?  Like Ben Gibbard sings further in that sad song from my list, "I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all."  There are truths we would rather hear... and bear... than to never heard, if it really is the truth.

There are times, aren't there, when listening for the voice of God means we run the risk of hearing something back that complicates our lives.  It's the voice that forces us to acknowledge the addiction or the anger or the depression we didn't want to admit was there.  It's the voice that compels us to recognize the prejudice in our own hearts, or to finally hear the hurtful way our words come across to other people.  It's the voice that calls us out of our comfort zones when we would rather keep quiet and not be inconvenienced.  It's the voice that summons up to stand up and say, "This is not okay," even if it has to be said to Eli and his sons, or to the people in power over you, or even to your own erstwhile mentors.

So... today, we listen.  We listen, not because we are fooled into thinking that the voice in the night only says nice and pleasant things, but because we know that nice is different than good, and that the One who speaks and makes us to listen is always that: good.

Today, we listen, knowing that the One who speaks also reserves the right to compel us to hear things about our selves we did not want to have to face... or to listen to words we will be called to speak to others who do not want to hear. 

Today we listen, knowing that some things are necessary to listen to, even if they are difficult to hear.

Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.  Speak, and make us ready to hear what you would have us take in.