“The sensation of being alive in the early 21st Century

consisted of the [distressing] sense that our ability

to pay attention was cracking and breaking…like our

civilization had been covered with itching powder

and we spent our time twitching and twerking our

minds, unable to simply give attention to the things

that matter.”

When I read those words in Johann Hari’s new book

Stolen Focus, it was as if the author had been peering

over my shoulder for the last three years. Perhaps you

feel the same way hearing them now. Hari introduced

me to the concept of the attention economy—

the notion that human attention is the scarcest

commodity, the limiting factor in our consumption of

information, and the object of intense competition.

That is, as the demands on our attention have grown

in scope and complexity, the bitter contest for our

attention has grown fiercer. Perhaps you’ve noticed.

Prioritizing what matters and maintaining focus are

profound challenges in our time. We are a distracted

and preoccupied people, often overwhelmed by the

sound and fury of information assaulting our senses at

all hours and on every inch of the globe. I remember

hiking at the top of Scarp’s Ridge in a remote part of

western Colorado. I was nearly 13,000 feet up. Not a

soul in sight. And my phone began to buzz. A phone

call. Would I like to participate in a survey? There is

truly no escaping the attention economy.

The word of the Lord was rare in those days.

That’s how this morning’s scripture begins. God’s

voice rarely heard. Visions of the sacred not often

reported. This story in First Samuel, it’s one of our

oldest stories, and it might just be our very best one. I

love it. It describes a relatable experience for some of

us. It is happening with great regularity in our house

these days. Middle of the night. Fast asleep. Sudden

awareness. A small person standing there, staring at

you. “Dad, I can’t sleep. I had a bad dream. I heard a

scary noise. I need to sleep in your bed.” And, perhaps

we try the same thing old Eli did. Three times Samuel

wakes him having heard a voice in the middle of the

night, and twice Eli tells Samuel, “Go back to bed.”

And why not? Afterall, the word of the Lord was rare

in those days. Who would have expected it to be the

voice of God?

Samuel and Eli are literally living in the temple, but

even there this is no exception—no expectation of

a divine voice or a holy vision. Until finally, the third

time God calls, the old priest perceives a different

possibility. Eli instructs Sam on how to respond if it

happens again.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

When the child does this, the course of his entire life

is set, radically changed. He will be a seer. A leader.

A prophet. A kingmaker. A voice of the divine. Once

God gets Samuel’s attention, his vocation comes

into clear focus. Once Samuel speaks those words,

your servant is listening, God’s call.

What are we to make of this ancient story of a child

hearing voices in the middle of the night? How do

we apply the call of Samuel to our own lives and

our stories?

Often it seems that what was spoken in the time of

Samuel is true of ours as well. The word of the Lord

is rare in these days. God’s voice not often heard.

Visions of the sacred not often reported. And, when

they are, we tend toward justifiable skepticism. You

heard what? You heard who?

Whenever I consider the assumption of God’s silence,

I’m reminded of just how loud my life is, just how

intense the fight for every ounce of our attention.

Consider this: if God were speaking, how would we

ever hear? How would we ever perceive this voice

in the cacophony of contemporary culture and the

endless onslaught of streams of information?

Two of the reasons I love the story of Samuel’s call

are (1) the voice is not immediately recognizable and

(2) the boy does not (cannot?) discern it on his own.

These are valuable lessons for those of us who long to

listen for God.

It takes God four times to get through to Samuel.

And so it is for most of us, I think. We may envy

those who have heard God speak in such a clarion

voice that they need no repetition. They know

immediately what’s on God’s mind. No need to ask

for confirmation.

But it’s not that way for most of us. Most of us require

steady, patient repetition, a refrain of providence. The

first time we experience a nudge that might just be

divine, we can easily dismiss it. Coincidence. Chance.

Accident. Something I ate. Certainly no reason to get

all excited. No reason to change the course of my life

or ruffle any feathers. But what about the third time,

the fourth time, the fifth time?

I have a friend who has recently made the risky

decision to change career paths from a safe and

profitable trajectory to one that offers no such

guarantee. When I asked him why, here’s how he

responded: “I want my life to count for something more

than money. I tried and couldn’t shake the nagging

feeling that I could achieve by every measure and still

feel empty inside.” God’s call is patient but persistent in

getting our attention. Where might God be waiting for

you to make a change or answer the call?

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Still, it is not repetition alone that gets Sam’s attention.

Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And without the

presence of Eli, he may never have. For many of us,

the voice of God is heard in the voice of other human

beings. People who know us. People who love us

enough to tell us the truth about our lives, to shine a

light of revelation, to open a door to a new epiphany,

to point the way to God’s call. It strikes me that Eli

knows Samuel. It strikes me that Samuel trusts Eli.

Who has been Eli for you? Who has perceived the

possibility that God might be speaking?

Who has been your Eli? Urged you to listen?

Encouraged you to pay attention? Guided you to a

new direction?

Who has been your Eli? Who has affirmed your gifts

and your talents, the nudges of the divine in your life?

Orval Wintermute was a professor of Old Testament

and Semitic Languages at Duke University. He

translated the Dead Sea Scrolls. He contributed to

ground-breaking work in understanding the ancient

world in which many of our biblical texts were written.

But that’s not why I’m thinking of Orval this morning.

After a career teaching for forty years, Orval retired

and began a new stage of his life. Since he is an

ordained Presbyterian minister, he decided he would

return to the parish. Specifically, he became pastor of a

fifteen-member congregation an hour north of Duke’s

campus. When he had to be out for the summer with

knee replacement surgery, the church asked a college

freshman to preach and visit and teach for that small

church. But before he would let me loose on the

congregation, Orval and I traveled up to Warrenton

several times together. Over the next three years, we

traveled that road weekly together. Through personal

crisis and community concern, deaths, illnesses, and

all the issues of congregational life, we traveled that

road back and forth. We conversed about theology

and scripture, about how to care for a congregation.

We discussed the academy or the parish, the parish

or the academy. He listened. He encouraged. And

in his voice, I began to perceive my own call. In the

years since, I have taken many wonderful courses and

read many books on ministry, but not one has taught

me more than what I learned riding in Orval’s car or

watching him pull his chair right up next to a dying

person so that he could hold her hand and look in her

eyes while he prayed. In the corner of that hospital

room, a college student was watching, listening,

feeling the tug toward a life of ministry.

What I mean to say is that we all need Orvals—Elis—

people who point the way toward God’s call in our life,

and we can all fill that role for someone else.

You see, in the church, we have a unique call to be a

listening community, to listen to each other’s lives, to

listen for the voice of God, to affirm and celebrate the

gifts of God that are given to each and every one of

us. In a time when our attention is commodified and

our distractions are multiplied, we must set time aside

to listen prayerfully and well.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening—the wisest

advice the old priest ever gave his young apprentice,

because it opened a new world. And because Samuel,

whose name means “God has heard,” listened to Eli and

to God, this child found the courage to embrace his call.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

A powerful prayer. A risky choice. If we open our

ears to the voice of God, we will be challenged, and

we may be changed. Our priorities realigned. Our

attention redirected. Our relationships reset. Our life’s

purpose rediscovered. It’s probably easiest to just

ignore it. Coincidence. Accident. It’s probably best to

drown the voice in a flood of excuses and distractions.

To dismiss, demean, tune out, and turn down. After all,

the word of the Lord is rare these days.

Except. Samuel! Psst…Samuel!

Listen. God is calling.