Speak, Your Servants Are Listening

Message for worship at West Richmond Friends Meeting, 13th of Seventh Month, 2025

Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-15

1 Samuel 3:1–15, NRSVUE: ¹ 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.

² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; ³ 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. ⁴ Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. ⁸ 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. ⁹ 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.

¹⁰ Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” ¹¹ Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. ¹² On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. ¹³ For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. ¹⁴ Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

¹⁵ Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.

There’s a question that I dread, as a pastor, which is, “What do Quakers believe?” I actually don’t get asked this as often as you might think, and that’s one reason I dread it. Because it doesn’t happen all that often, I don’t always have a well-practiced answer in my pocket, ready to present and—no doubt—impress the inquirer. My first impulse, of course, is to ask a question in response: “How much time do you have?” Because really, I could talk about what Friends believe for hours, if you let me. Sometimes you folks do let me, but most people who ask a question like this are not looking for a lecture. They want the short version, what is sometimes called the “elevator pitch”; a few sentences at most. And that’s the reason I really dread this question: it’s not easy to distill our faith, my way of life, a tradition that I have been part of since my childhood, into a few sentences. We don’t have a creed or a statement of faith that we can pull out, the way that many Christian traditions do. What are the two or three most important things to convey, when asked, “what do Quakers believe?”

Probably each of us would answer this question differently—and so really, the question any one of us might end up answering is, “What does this Quaker believe?” Nonetheless, I would hope most of us would find ourselves in similar territory. Today, this is how my elevator pitch starts:

Christ is present in each one of us, and we each have the capacity to respond to that presence. That means that we each have the potential to minister. When we worship, we wait upon God and listen together, expecting that God may lead any of us to share what we have heard as ministry.

OK, so that’s already three sentences, and clearly inadequate. All I’ve talked about is worship and ministry. I haven’t said anything about the Bible, or the testimonies, or our beginnings in 17th-century England, or the fact that some Friends call pastors and some don’t, or any one of about seventeen other really important things... You see the problem.

Obviously my pitch still needs work. Perhaps some of you have thought about this, and have one that is better-developed. Perhaps we can make time to share them, at some point. What I want to focus on today is that aspect of waiting upon God and listening together, for these really are important. So much so that Quaker spirituality has been described by some as a “listening spirituality.” Listening is integral to our individual lives, when we pray privately, but especially in the way that we worship communally.

And listening shows up in the Scripture passage that we’ve heard together today. This passage, from the third chapter of the book of First Samuel, gives us one scene from the childhood of the prophet Samuel, who plays a key role in the lives of Israel’s first two kings, first Saul and then David. We need to know a bit of the context: Samuel is the son of Hannah, a woman who had been barren, but who prayed for a child and promised God that, if she were able to have a son, she would dedicate his life to God. God responds and grants her request, and so Hannah follows through, giving her son to service in the house of the Lord at a place called Shiloh, where Eli is the priest. Note that this is before Jerusalem became the center of Jewish religious life, and before Solomon built the grand temple there. At this point in Israel’s history, the temple at Shiloh is where the ark of the Lord is kept. You might remember that the ark is the moveable seat where the presence of God would rest when the Hebrew people were wandering in the wilderness, before they came into the land of Canaan. Now that Israel is a settled people, the ark has come to rest at Shiloh, and Samuel is allowed to sleep where it lies, close to the holiest object of Jewish religion. One other thing we need to say is that things are not well with Eli—his sons are also priests, as would usually have been the case, but they are abusing their office. They take the meat of the sacrifices for themselves to eat before it has been offered to God, and they take advantage of women who serve at entrance to the temple. Eli has already been warned about this by a messenger from God.

So with that background, we read of Samuel’s first experience hearing from God. The description is quite simple: Samuel simply hears someone calling his name. The narrator has told us that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days,” (v1), so it’s no wonder that Samuel thinks that Eli is calling him from the next room. Rather than something he hears inwardly, he assumes it’s an outward voice. As with many Biblical stories, the call is repeated three times, and three times Samuel goes to Eli. I think it’s interesting that it’s Eli who figures out what’s going on—even though he himself has perhaps never heard from God in this way, even though his ministry as a priest has been compromised, he still has the wisdom to perceive that Samuel must be hearing from the Lord. And so he gives Samuel the words to respond: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (v9). And sure enough, when Samuel responds to the voice in this way, God speaks further, delivering the first of what will be many messages to Samuel throughout his lifetime.

Now, it might be a bit too easy to draw parallels between Samuel’s experience and our own, so I have to acknowledge that there are many differences between what this story describes and our spiritual lives. Samuel was a set-apart person, dedicated to God’s service from an early age. Few of us have such a status. And yet the life of the Spirit requires that we dedicate ourselves to the Divine in some way, that we each turn towards God, not in the same manner as Samuel, but with a similar purpose. So here are a few things I observe about the passage that might relate it to our experience:

First, Samuel doesn’t get it right at first. As I’ve already said, he’s never heard God call his name, so he assumes he’s heard an outward voice, rather than an inward one. My guess is that most of us have never heard God call to us audibly; when I hear from God, it’s most often through an inward sense that aligns with my emotions in some way. And because this is often subtle, it can take years of repeated experience for me to be clear—oh, wait, that was God speaking to me. So it only took three times for Samuel to learn this; it may take us much, much longer! And I trust that God is patient and continues trying to break through.

Second, hearing God aright requires receptivity and retirement. In Samuel’s case, it’s simply lying back down, there beside the ark of the Covenant, and saying, “speak, your servant is listening.” But for us it likely requires more. It is not for nothing that visions and voices sometimes come at night, when our minds and bodies are (ideally) at rest. During the activity of the day, we are so caught up with things coming at us, from so many different sources, that unless we purposefully turn aside, it is very difficult to focus on the One who calls us from outside and beyond everything. The early Quakers, when they purposefully turned aside from the world, called this a “time of retirement:” a time in which they retired from things without so that they could be receptive to God within.

Third, interpreters often observe that there is a give and take here between Samuel and God, and that this is what prayer is all about: when we speak to God, we must also listen. I have to confess that my own prayer life is often all give and no take—I pour out my anxieties and concerns and cares for myself and for others, I plead for forgiveness or this or that other need; and then, far too quickly, I get up off of my knees. I don’t often tarry in the quiet of that moment, expecting to hear from God. But in Samuel’s case, God says much more than Samuel does! What if, the next time that I pray, I were to wait twice as long to listen as I did to speak?

Now, of course, the first encounter between Samuel and God is a one-on-one, which is why we usually find lessons about prayer and individual listening in it. But as I said a few minutes ago, our spiritual lives as Friends involves communal listening in addition to the individual. When we worship here at West Richmond, we listen in various ways to various things—we listen to music skillfully and beautifully played; we listen to one another, when we share joys and concerns; we listen to the words of the Scriptures; we listen to a message that someone has prepared; and then we listen together for God in the quiet. Each of those kinds of listening requires something different; our hearts and minds are engaged differently depending on what it is that we are listening to.

But especially when we listen together in open worship, I think that the lessons of Samuel’s story apply—taking them in a different order: first, when we listen together, we need to turn aside from the burdens that we carry, and the distractions that vie for our attention; seeking to retire from these things, we become receptive.

Second, we need to bear in mind that we won’t always get it right: sometimes we will be mistaken in what we hear. Sometimes, like Samuel, we might hear God’s voice, and mistake it for someone else’s. More often, it seems to me, there are many other voices, sentiments, and feelings that need to be sifted through, and let fall away, before we can truly say we have heard from God.

Third, we must listen first, last and always. If we feel we have been given something to share, we must listen to be sure—listen, and also probe ourselves. Some of you have seen a chart that originally came from the Friends pastor Stan Thornburg, who is now deceased. It presents a series of questions that we can ask ourselves when we feel led to speak in open worship. Stan’s questions are arranged in a circular diagram, a kind of flow chart, that goes around a center that represents the heart of the worshiper, receptive and listening. When the answer to any question is “yes,” we are invited to continue to the next question. If it is uncertain, or clearly “no,” then we are to “return to the center” and continue listening for God.

Rather than focus on that in detail now, we’re going to put a link to it in the chat for the Zoom folks, and there are copies here in the worship room for anyone who would find this useful.

Finally, it is important to say that this practice of listening in worship is a communal act—it’s not simply a bunch of individuals, listening individually in the same room. For Christ is present in our midst, drawing us together, calling each of us by name, inviting us into his body. The Quaker minister Patricia Loring put it this way:

To be truly together, we listen for what the Spirit is bringing forth from us as a body, for what new thing God is bringing forth within us corporately, for how our communal life may be of service to God. (Listening Spirituality vol ii, 23)

Our listening, Friends, is not for us alone, individually. When we listen in the quiet, we are listening for God, on behalf of one another. We are listening as Christ calls us each, and calls us all. We are listening for what new thing the Spirit is bringing forth from us as a body. Let us, like Samuel, say together, “Speak, for your servants are listening.”

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons license, available at . You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform this work, as well as to make derivative works based on it, as long as: 1) you attribute whatever part of this work you use to the author, Brian C. Young, by name; 2) you do not use the work for commercial purposes; 3) you distribute your resulting work only under the same license or a license similar to this one.