Family Values Part Three: Youth

The New Revised Standard Version Samuel’s Calling and Prophetic Activity

3 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. 16 But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” 17 Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” 18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.”

Intro-

Values So Far

We belong to the family of Christ. We believe and trust in the saving love of Jesus Christ, which unites us all as brothers and sisters in Christ. So we will strive in all we do to support and encourage our families to live in to that calling.

Everyone belongs here. We hold fast to the truth that the Kingdom of God is free and available to all, regardless of whatever dividing walls our world may seek to establish. We will do all we can to tear down these dividing walls, to befriend the stranger, and to provide a safe and casual space for all to experience the healing love of Jesus Christ.

We will invest in the youth of our church. Young people are not only the future of the church, they are the church. We commit our time, our resources, and our energies to ensuring that young people have a seat at the table, a place to call their own, and a voice in our deliberations. We dedicate ourselves to providing opportunities for young people to have vital encounters with Jesus Christ.

Scripture Breakdown

Eli- Not such a great family...

Eli is the priest in Isreal.

This is a family gig in the scriptures, so as Eli has been getting on in years he has delegated out some of the responsibilities to his sons.

And it turns out, they’re not doing a great job.

The bible says “Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord, or for the duties of the priests to the people.”

They were working the system so that they could take more payment than they were owed, essentially a biblical times version of embezzlement.

They were sleeping with the women of their congregations.

And if anyone challenged them on these ideas, they threatened them with violence and death.

So…not the best guys, no.

And for his part, Eli did absolutely nothing about it.

He knew it was going on, but he choose to do nothing.

So God’s a little bit ticked at him.

Dark and Light

The writers of the Bible are great at sneaking in some neat little metaphors.

Eli’s eyes are growing “dim”

Just before we hear about the child Samuel, they say that the lamp of God has not yet gone out.

There’s this compare and contrast between the diming light of Eli and the spark of hope that exists when it comes to this young man.

And we have to be clear, it’s a spark of hope, not realized potential yet.

Young Samuel Doesn’t Know God Yet

I keep coming back to how easy it would have been for Samuel to be ignored.

He’s young.

He was actually dropped off by his mother, who had prayed and prayed for a child, and when one arrived in her gratitude took him to be of service in the temple.

He’s an apprentice.

And what this text makes clear is that Samuel still has a ways to go.

When you work in the temple, or are a prophet, or (for that matter) work in a church, your job is to hear from God.

Our text says that Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

He was a novice at best.

Eli has an opportunity for mentorship

So we get this almost Monty-Python scene playing out in the text, right?

You called?

I didn’t call.

You called?

I didn’t call.

You called?

And eventually Eli catches on, and realizes that he has a tremendous opportunity for mentorship.

Eli knows God.

Eli has heard from God.

Eli has a sense of what you should say and how you should respond when you hear from God.

So Eli has a responsibility, one that he leans in to, to show Samuel how it works.

Let me tell you who this is that’s calling you.

Let me show you what to say.

Let me pull back the curtain a bit on what you’re experiencing.

There is a time honored tradition in our faith of the older generation taking the younger generation under their wing and showing them the ropes of this faith.

It’s why we have Sunday School.

It’s why we have youth group.

It’s why we do confirmation classes with mentors.

So much of what we do in the Church can be pointed back to this calling of the older generation helping the younger generation see and hear from God.

But…a word of caution here.

God tells Samuel something Eli doesn’t want to hear.

Samuel eventually takes Eli’s instruction, and gets to hear from the Lord.

And…God doesn’t have very good things to say to Eli.

All that stuff your kids are up to? I see that, and unfortunately you’re going to have to pay the price.

Now this illustration breaks down a little bit for us here today, but hear me out:

Eli teaches Samuel how to hear from God.

But then God tells Samuel something that Eli isn’t going to want to hear.

In fact, it says (not surprisingly), that Samuel was afraid the next morning to tell the vision to Eli.

This is a message that comes straight from God!

But Samuel so values Eli’s mentorship and friendship, that he’s afraid to tell him what God said because he knows it’s exactly what Eli doesn’t want to hear.

Again, maybe it’s not as harsh as “You and your family are going to face judgement,” but as I’ve spent this whole week thinking about the value of youth in the church, I wonder if we would be as gracious as Eli in the face of our young people telling us what we don’t want to hear.

Every church I know wants to have more youth in their congregation.

But very few churches have youth on their Worship teams, save for the occasional youth Sunday.

Very few churches have youth sit in on their committee meetings.

Very few churches have youth that sit on their leadership.

Very few churches in my experience reach out to actively hear what God is saying to the younger generation, I think in part because we’re afraid that God might be telling them something that we don’t want to hear.

Maybe God’s been telling them that the way we do worship isn’t clicking with this younger generation anymore.

Maybe God’s been telling them that the way they connect with God and the way we do are radically changed.

Maybe God’s been telling them that our priorities need to shift, that our money needs to be spent in different ways.

And maybe we just don’t want to hear all that.

It’s simply not enough for us to mentor young people in how they hear from God.

We need to be active and unafraid to listen to what God is telling them.

How are we going to live in to the value of Investing in Youth?

We will help youth to hear from God

This first part, I have to tell you, whew boy it gets me excited.

I love youth ministry.

I love youth ministry for a whole bunch of reasons:

Teens are weird.

I’ve only been her a little over a year, and yet this youth group has already proven itself to be one of the weird ones.

Here’s just a sampling of the nicknames they’ve given each other:

Penguin

Beef

Yee YEE (you have to say it like that)

Warrant

Toodles

Five

Rami

And these teenagers are delightfully weird and wild and crazy, and as someone who has actively refused to grow up, I so dig that.

Teens are honest.

If you want to know where an adult stands, usually it takes a little bit of digging.

We’ve grown up learning to hide from some of our deeper emotions, or to refrain from asking honest questions, or to (frankly) call BS when we see it.

Not teenagers.

Teenagers will tell you what’s going on, when it’s going on, how it’s going on.

They will not pull any punches either.

I remember a few years ago I was having a season of struggle when it came to writing talks and teachings.

And I knew that it wasn’t going well, and I was trying to turn things around.

But while I was working on that I sat down at our youth group dinner with one of our student leaders who looked me dead in the eye and said “Wow, so like your teachings have kind of sucked lately!”

And that’s harsh, to be sure.

But I so appreciate that honesty.

I actually find it refreshing.

Because it makes the other side of that equation all the more meaningful.

After a few weeks and trying some new things, that same student leader came up to me and said “Man, that was one of the most meaningful teachings you’ve done. Thanks J.”

And you can tell in an instant that the praise is as honest as the criticism.

Teenagers (in my experience) want to experience God.

They may not always call it that, and they may not be able to express the longing in their souls just yet.

But my experience is that teenagers have a legitimate and desperate thirst to experience the divine.

They want to see God in their everyday lives.

They want to hear what God has in store for their future.

They want to know that they are loved, and that Jesus can be the place for them to find that love.

In a lot of ways, my experience with teenagers is exactly like the story.

Most of them hear something calling them.

They might not know what it is.

They might not know how it will change their lives.

They might not know how to respond.

But something is calling them.

So our job as leaders in the church is to do exactly what Eli did.

That thing that’s calling you? It’s called me before too.

Let me show you how I learned to listen.

When we live in to this value, we work as hard as we can to make sure that we can show our teenagers and young people how to listen to Jesus as he’s calling them in love.

We will work to give youth a seat at the table

Admittedly, this can be a hard thing sometimes with the laws of the land.

Believe it or not, in PA you can’t have teenagers on sessions, because that’s technically the board of directors and there are all kinds of laws about that.

So it might take some creativity, but what does it look like to give our youth a seat at the decision making table?

And not just as some sort of Junior member, where they fill a seat.

They won’t show up for that anyway.

What does it look like to give them actual authority and decision making power?

What does it look like to let Teenagers have a say in what kinds of programs we offer here at the Church?

What does it look like to let children have a say in what goes on in Sunday School?

What does it look like to ask youth how we best ought to spend our budget?

What does it look like to ask the young people in our midst what kind of church they would like LPC to be?

And if we’re going to honestly do this, we need to be prepared to get some answers back that we might not like.

Again, I don’t think God’s bringing judgement on anyone’s whole family in here...

But maybe our teenagers need our church to be different.

Maybe our teenagers need new means of connecting with Jesus.

Maybe our teenagers can be the lens through which we see the shifting culture around us, and rather than fight that shifting culture we can work to discern how to minister to them.

So many churches will tell you that they value young people.

And when they say it, they always kind of strike me as saying “well, yeah, it’d be nice to have more young people around.”

I hope and pray we can be serious about this value.

To value youth is to help them see the ways God is speaking to them.

To value youth is to create space where they’re not afraid to tell us what God is telling them, even if it’s not what we want to hear.

To value youth is to give them a seat at the decision making table, to value their input, and to seek out their insight.

To value youth is to be willing to change our church, to experiment, and to see where God will take us next.