Abstract
Numerous themes could link the three readings that are before us on this Second Sunday of Epiphany. Let me identify just one and work a few thoughts around it. My theme is, ‘What are you going to do with yourself?’
So, with that in mind, let’s see what each of the three bible passages have to say. In First Samuel, to begin with, we’ve got young Samuel having been sent away to be brought up by the cleric, Eli. It’s not always been wise for parents to have sent their sons away to clergy for a good and secure upbringing, though in this case their decision seems to have been the right one.
Samuel is obedient to God and is being tutored by Eli. He wants and seeks to do the right thing. Accordingly, therefore, when he hears a voice in his dreams he goes to Eli to check it out. Not once but twice. Then Eli realises that God has a hand in what is happenng and counsels Samuel that, next time it happens, he should simply offer his obedience and listening heart. By this means God would have an entry-point into Samuel’s life and so direct it appropriately.
It’s worth noting that Samuel wasn’t asked to do anything strenuous or intellectual. No yoga gymnastics. No worthy and improving reading. Just to offer his listening heart so that God could speak to it. What needed to follow would then follow and Samuel would be shown what he was going to do with his life.
He might not know all of it all at once, but he would know enough to make the first step along the road he was to go. As things stood he was to find out in real quick time that circumstances were not going to unfold well for Eli’s household. God’s punishment for sins committed was just about to topple off the shelf above Eli and his family with no seeming quarter given for mitigation.
So, for Samuel, and what lay ahead of him, the childlike interplay between him and Eli in verses 1-10 was racing right up to the ‘end point’ marker. From verse 11 onwards Samuel hears God’s call to propel him into mature, grown-up God-initiated and God-directed human responsibility.
Meanwhile, in the gospel account from John, something not dissimilar is put before us. Jesus had called Philip to be a disciple. It worked. Philip then does the same to Nathaniel. It worked. If only conversion and the call to discipleship nowadays were as easy as this for me and the various Philips and Nathaniels that I encounter! In response they both say what Andrew also said at his call, “We have found the Messiah.” Simply put, conversion of one’s heart is coupled with external testimony of that about which one is called and to which one is responding.
It’s interesting to note that this simple invitation to ‘come and see’ has more effect in terms of making disciples and bringing people to faith than any of the other longer discourses in John. By inviting the other person to ‘come and see’ and encounter Jesus one is going beyond an exercise in book learning and study. If you’re the person who might be Philip or Nathaniel in this story you are being directed to listen for the word of faith and for the call to discipleship. By so doing you will meet the person who is both the originator of that faith and the one who calls you into discipleship.
None of this is high-brow, or low-brow, theology. It’s about listening and building a relationship. Having done this then one’s life course is determined. One knows what one is going to do with oneself. Here’s the sequence: Jesus calls. We listen and hear. We meet Jesus and he meets us. We respond. And off we go.
Through all this, the encounter which leads to faith and discipleship is aided by Jesus knowing who Nathaniel is. Woe betide the pastor of today who does not know his flock.
On the basis of what happens Jesus addresses everyone present and says to them that he is like Jacob’s ladder of old, namely the one upon whom God’s angels will ascend and descend. In other words God’s message will move between God and us through Jesus. Because Jesus’ hearers all knew their bibles, they’d recognise the allusion Jesus was making. To my mind it’s doubtful whether, at that precise moment, they understood what it meant.
However, as their lives were to unfold as faithful disciples they would soon enough find out. Just like Samuel of old, their part in discipleship was just beginning.
And so now to the passage from 1 Corinthians, something that Paul could have sub-titled ‘Sex in the Cities’. Although written two thousand years ago it’s bang up to date with where we are now.
Paul’s case is that ‘whilst all things are lawful, not everything is beneficial’. Conventions of Human Rights the world over are asserting the rights of individuals for this or that or the next thing. Much of this is totally appropriate. The right to life, the right to education, equal treatment and so on are all examples of it.
But whilst it may be the case that something is my right, to exercise that right in all circumstances where it may be permissible is not always for the best – whether for oneself or for society. One has, in such situations, a profound decision to make as to what one’s life is for.
In this passage Paul’s focus is on the body, and what it is for. It is perfectly self-evident, he supposes, what the stomach is for. It’s for food. He then asks rhetorically, ‘What is the body for?’ and answers, ‘It is not for fornication. It is for God.’
Clearly for Paul, sexual sins were particularly wrong. And clearly also he was speaking to a church community where it is likely there were such. The sexual sinner sins against the body itself, the body being a temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s fundamental point is that those who have been transformed by Christ (should) have abandoned earlier behaviour and (should) now see themselves as members of Christ’s body. Defilement by sexual sins, and fornication is his present example, defiles both the person and the faith which he or she holds.
There is a perennial moral and crucially Christian issue being played out here. What choice do we make when, following life’s course, we allow sexual pleasure to dominate at the expense of deciding for the common good. And what do we say of ourselves or our faith if we decide for fleeting gratification and in doing so advance the degradation of our own, or another’s, personhood. None of this represents a choice of Christ.
Paul is no more popular an author now, than he was when first he challenged patterns of behaviour that were all too obvious around him. Perhaps his unpopularity was because he said things that touched a raw nerve. It was the raw nerve of a society opting increasingly for a pleasure principle based on what was lawfully permissive and permissible.
The alternative to this permissive state is the more demanding option, shown on the one hand in a discipleship relationship with Jesus (as in Philip and Nathaniel), as well as, on the other hand, a simple waiting to hear the Lord’s call (as in Samuel). Both of these lead to the same end. The decision for what we are to do with ourselves must firmly be with Christ and, accordingly, to comport our bodies, with all their devices and desires, to His will.