If this gospel scene we just heard were a Hollywood movie, with these first two apostles suddenly dropping everything and knowing they just had to follow Jesus, we know how it would look. Jesus would appear on the scene and immediately we’d know who he was, there would be something mesmerizing about Jesus, probably very handsome, certainly more handsome than anyone else in the movie. You’d be able to tell from hundreds of feet away that there was something powerful about him, he’d look like he was calm and composed and somehow not of this world, with a far-away look. His eyes would lock onto these two followers of John the Baptist, and there’d be this immediate recognition and attraction. They’d look at him as if they had been hypnotized, and walk off to follow him almost in a trance, and leave John the Baptist just standing there. There’d be no doubt in this movie that what they saw that day was God, right in front of them.
But in fact, if we know anything, we know this isn’t the way encountering God actually works. It would be nice if these opportunities came along, where it was immediately obvious that the divine presence was right in front of us. A miracle, for example, or someone we can believe and trust who mysteriously finds us one day and tells us exactly what to do next with our lives. But in fact we have to get along mostly without any of those things. And without them, it’s not so easy to notice God, is it?
In fact, the first reading from the story of Samuel is a lot more what it’s really like. Here is Samuel, who has been living in the temple since he was a baby, living in it, sleeping in it, serving the priests, preparing to become one. Some commentators think he had been there 12 or 13 years at the time of this story, living in God’s house constantly, but apparently never once experiencing the presence of God. This was during a miserable time in Israel’s history when many people felt that God had stopped speaking entirely. In fact, there’s a wonderful line in the introduction to this story that I’m sorry our lectionary leaves out, it says that The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. It sounds a little like the way people talk about our own time, when it’s not so evident that God is speaking to anyone, much less to us. And even here, when God really is speaking, three times Samuel thinks it’s simply a human voice, he thinks it’s his boss, Eli the priest, calling to him in the middle of the night. But, no, it turns out that it is God’s voice, and once Samuel gets the advice from Eli that maybe he should listen and pay attention to it, he hears words that will change the rest of this life, words that it was worth 12 or 13 years of waiting to hear.
How do we know when something that’s happened to us, a person that we meet or know, or something we read or see, that it is really God whispering to us, not just some everyday human voice? We don’t have John the Baptist pointing to someone walking by and saying, “that’s the one.” Instead, it comes down to that question Jesus asks today when those would-be disciples walk up to him: “What are you looking for?”
We don’t get to hear how those two answered that question. But it doesn’t matter what they said, it’s what we say that matters. We don’t hear God’s voice, or know it when we hear it, unless we are looking for something. Are we like those first disciples, following John the Baptist around, waiting for something big to happen, and ready to do something when it does? Are we looking for good news, or for a chance to work for justice, or for a chance to love our neighbor in a way that would be very unusual for us? Are we looking for insight into what God is really offering us, or to really understand the value of the gifts we already have? Or, on the other hand, are we really just not expecting or hoping for very much, from God, or from life generally, just hoping that we can get through as best we can with whatever cards have already been dealt to us in life? If we’re not looking, if we’re not wondering, if we’re not desiring it, we will never be aware of God looking for us.
It’s one of the reasons we try to stay close to God in prayer, prayer every day, putting ourselves in the position of asking for what we want and need, trying to put into words what we are looking for even when it’s hard to know what that is, trying every day or every night to remember all the people we’ve met that day and the words we’ve heard, trying to examine the feelings that are calling us towards something or away from something, asking God to give us insight into where, in all that happened, God was that day for us. That kind of trying to pray is our equivalent of sleeping in the temple every day for years like Samuel, a discipline that keeps us close to the whole idea that God can and will and does speak to us, but only if we are there, present, open to hearing it and seeing it, wanting it, wondering if we are being called to.
If you want a moment like that, when it becomes as clear as it eventually was to Samuel that God does find ways to speak to us, to call to us in a way that we can’t resist, then it’s time to tell God every day that is what you are looking for, and be ready and waiting to hear the answer God will give you.