In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“ In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”

 The London Free Press conducted an informal poll this week. And it revolved around the question, “How often do you attend church?”  I assume it was offered in relation to the recommendations that are currently before the Roman Catholic Bishop concerning the closing of some parishes and the amalgamation of others due to a drop in attendance and finances.

If you saw the results I am sure they did not come as a surprise. Sixty percent of respondents said they didn’t attend church at all. Twenty-seven percent said once a week. The other thirteen- percent was divided between once a month and I think every six months.

Now from these responses we could assume that people in London and the surrounding area are a lot less religious than they used to be even a couple of generations ago.
It is this opinion that I frequently here as a minister when people are trying to make some sense of our situation. That the world is stripped of God’s presence in a way that makes unbelief a very real and concrete reality. A blasé default mode for a culture that has found that it can get along very well without God. Our world has become disenchanted.

When we are sick or our children are sick we first call the doctor not the minister. When we want to understand human behavior we consult a psychologist. In looking to our future we look to our investment counselor.

When we want to understand our world we look to physicists and biologists. The only time that God is invoked is in times of death and disaster. But perhaps one day even these final frontiers will be bridged.

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer described our disenchanted modern world as one that had “come of age.” And that the great mistake we make as Christians was to try to convince our world that deep down it is still secretly religious. Bonhoeffer felt we must take people at their word when they say that the existence or non-existence of God is of no concern for them.

Now on the other hand there are people who do feel the loss of God, and who feel it most acutely, who find the task of filling the God shaped hole with meaning an overwhelming task. Perhaps you are one of them. The everyday experience gives little evidence of God’s presence.

“ In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”
These words open our reading from 1 Samuel. We find Samuel asleep in the sanctuary in the predawn hours. He is startled awake by a voice calling out his name and because the word of the Lord was rare he does not recognize who is calling him. Three times he is called, three times he runs to Eli the priest. Twice he is told to go back to sleep. By the third time Eli is aware that something extraordinary is happening. Eli tells Samuel what he must say if he is called again: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”
These words capture in many respects our “world come of age” but they also speak to us of God. They speak to us of God’s divine freedom to choose not to respond, to be silent. Only an idol always answers. The God who keeps silent is beyond anyone’s control for God knows that nothing gets to us like the failure of speech.

The Anglican priest Barbara Taylor once wrote, “Very few people come to see me because they want to discuss something God said to them last night. The large majority come because they cannot get God to say anything at all. Their wish to hear God speak is not unfounded. The Bible they read portrays a God who not only speaks but who also acts.”

So where is the God of the burning bush? Where is the God of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night? Where is the God who incinerated a whole bull on Mount Carmel even after it had been soaked with jars of water? One answer and perhaps the most obvious is that we have turned away. We do not want a direct encounter with God. Well, we want it but we do not want it. We want to be warmed not burned.

However, the beginning of our reading would indicate that God has turned away as well. Unfortunately this divine game of hide and seek often backfires as the following story indicates.

A rabbi’s grandson was once playing hide and seek with a friend. He found a great hiding place and waited for his friend to find him. And he waited and waited. But his friend never came. In fact his friend had never even started looking. He had gone home.
With tears streaming down his face the little boy ran to his grandfather and told him what had happened. His grandfather also broke into tears and said, “God says the same thing,
I hide, but no tries to find me.”

And yet as we move further into story we find that God does finally appear calling to the boy Samuel. But it is in the quiet, in the midst of sheer silence that Samuel first hears a voice. Perhaps nothing more than whisper calling his name. It is only in the midst of silence that the hidden God speaks the word so that Samuel can hear it

But silence is unnerving perhaps even frightening to us who live in a world surrounded by “white noise”- that stream of electronic blather, which fills our lives from morning till night.
Is it any wonder that we have trouble listening to God? Many of us prefer to speak in order to break the silence. Our prayers are filled with “Hear us, O Lord” or “Lord, Hear our prayer as if it was God’s responsibility to listen and not ours.

Today, at this time in the life of the church it is time for listening. Just as the Lord promised Samuel that he would do a new thing in Israel, God is doing something new in our midst. Of course we do not know where this is leading, our situation looks painful and messy. A particular way of being the church in Canada is coming to an end. The signs are all around us. But now it is time to turn the process around. Naming our concerns of course but asking God what to do about them, “Speak Lord for your servants are listening”

An answer will come but not until the silence is complete. And even then the answer will be given in silence. God has provided us with two events that defy all our efforts to control or domesticate them- the cross and the empty tomb. Before them all of our words are simply turned to dust and we can only utter in a whisper,
“Speak Lord for your servant is listening”
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.