The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

 4^th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6B

June 16, 2024

 

        Samuel is stuck.  And God knows it.  He hadn’t even wanted Israel to have a king, but the people clamored for one.  God tried to convince them, through Samuel, that it would be bad; that things wouldn’t turn out like they wanted or hoped.  But the people insisted, so God said, “OK, but remember when it turns out badly that I told you so,” and God gives them the king they want in the person of Saul.  And things with Saul are ok-for a while.  Saul and Samuel work together to force the other tribes out of their territory.  Until one day, Saul disobeys God, and God decides to be done with Saul and to find a new king for God’s people. 

        Samuel hadn’t even wanted a king, but now he’s invested in Saul, so when Saul turns away from God, and God turns away from Saul, Samuel grieves.  He mourns what they had; he mourns what could have been.  And Samuel is stuck.

        But then God says to Samuel, Sam, you are stuck.  “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel.”  It’s time to get up, dust yourself off, because I have a job for you.  Fill up your horn with oil and set out on a journey because you’re going to anoint a new king for me. 

        God is hopeful that this new king will be the answer.  Spoiler alert:  It’s David, and he is and he isn’t.  But I appreciate how God doesn’t give up on Israel or the kingship because Saul was a disappointment. 

        And maybe Samuel is inspired by God’s hope, too, because Samuel shakes off his grief and his stuckness, and he does what God asks, anointing David as the new king.  Samuel has grieved for what was lost, but in order to move forward into God’s future, he must let go of the past, of the failures, of the disappointments, and maybe even of the comfort of the “devil you know…” so that he can move forward into the future and the task that God has set for him. 

        As humans, we, too, get stuck.  Things change around us, and we can be reluctant to even recognize the change, let alone embrace it.  Or sometimes, change is thrust upon us in a way that we cannot deny, and we can get mired down in our grief or our apathy or our hopelessness.  We know it is important to mourn what is lost or changed, but how do we know when it’s time to move on?  To look toward the future so we can be ready to embrace something new?  And why is it so hard for us to let go?  To change?  (I have a friend who likes to regularly rearrange all her furniture in her house, and I never understand it. Seriously, why?)

        One of our Wednesday congregation described that moment of getting unstuck, of letting go of the past and looking toward the future like being on a trapeze, when you’ve let go of the bar you’ve been hanging onto, but the one you’re jumping toward hasn’t quite yet arrived.  So you find yourself suspended in mid-air for a moment-between what has been and what is yet to come.  And several others reflected on the freedom that they finally found in letting go of the old and learning to trust again.  Often in order to really let go of the old and move forward, we have to forgive—forgive one who hurt us, forgive circumstances for not turning out how we wanted, forgive ourselves for our own mistakes or bad judgement.  I wonder if we can ever be ready for change if we haven’t forgiven? 

        What’s most helpful to me about this interaction between Samuel and God is that it’s a reminder to me that most of the time, we need God’s help to get unstuck.  Getting unstuck isn’t a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps kind of activity.  Our gospel parable is a helpful reminder of this.  No matter what the farmer may do to prepare the field and sow the seed, it is God who gives the growth.  The farmer is God’s partner, but at some point, the farmer recognizes there are things beyond his control.  And so it is with us. 

        This stuckness isn’t limited to individuals.  Families can get stuck; churches get stuck and even the big C church gets stuck from time to time.  I watched a webinar last week titled The Role of the Diocese in a Changing Church that was a panel interview of several Episcopal bishops who are trying to lay the ground work in their partnership with God to get the church in their dioceses unstuck and moving into the future.  One bishop pointed out that the structures of our church were built to accommodate the baby boom in the early 20^thcentury.  Our church has been in decline for at least the last decade, probably longer, but still we cling to these structures, whether they are buildings or administrative structures, that were built to support the church in a very different time.  You can see that here in that we have an entire building devoted to a way of offering Christian education this is no longer relevant to us or our culture.  And so we’ve tried to lay the groundwork of offering more creative ways of using that space to do the work of God.  You can see it in all the ways that we are trying to figure out how to engage the community around us, and in the ways that we are wrestling with how to create new pathways of belonging for the new people who are joining us.  We are in that gawky, awkward phase similar to adolescence, where we haven’t yet grown into the new creation that God is calling us to be and that the Holy Spirit is creating among and through us.     

God has not and will not abandon us.  Perhaps God is saying to us, how long will you mourn the loss of what is past?  I have a new task for you.  Go do this new thing to which I am calling you.  And it feels like we are mid-swing on the trapeze, floating in the air between what has come and what will be.  Our own diocese has just begun a strategic planning process which you’ll hear more about in the coming months.  It is my hope that this is our attempt in the Diocese of Georgia to begin to do the work we need to do as partners of God, so that when the Holy Spirit shows up with our new task, we are ready to follow. 

        Can you think of a time when you had to let go of something old to be able to embrace something new?  What might God be inviting you to let go of now in order to embrace something new?

        In closing, I’ll offer a prayer from Bishop Steven Charleston that may speak to us as we open ourselves to becoming unstuck.  Let us pray.  “Spirit, watch over us, please.  We are feeling a little anxious, a little uncertain, as if something was hanging over us, something beyond our control.  Give us your confidence, Spirit, let us feel your presence among us, for when you are by our side, fear cannot be found. Amen.