No turning back

For Samuel, one could say that it began that night at Shiloh, when he heard the Voice calling him by name. One could also say that it began years earlier when his mother Hannah brought him there, a little toddler of a boy. “I have lent him to the Lord,” she said. Or one could say that it began in the mind of God before the foundation of the worlds, when he predestined Samuel to be among his children (see Ephesians 1:3-5).

The point is that God has been calling us, and preparing us for the call, for much longer than we have known of it. But for all of us, there comes a time when we hear the Voice, in one way or another. And we are free to walk away from it. Most of us do, at first.

But he is patient.


For me, I first heard the call at age twelve. Keith, who was a neighbor and my friend, invited me to the Vacation Bible School at his church. That week they talked about some of the parables. I was blown away; I had never heard any of these stories, and they were like nothing else I had encountered. A half-century later, that is still true.

In today's Eucharistic lessons, we heard about Samuel, and about some of the disciples. For most of them – for pretty much all of us now – someone told them about Jesus, and said “Come and see.”

Who is waiting for you to say “Come and see?”

We sang the little song “I have decided to follow Jesus” at the contemporary service this morning, and I improvised on it. The song is usually done in a cheerful up-tempo manner: I don't see it that way, and I certainly didn't this morning. Part of it, probably, was my concern for one of our young choristers, who has been very ill this week and is not altogether out of the woods. But that is just a reminder that following Jesus is not an escape from troubles. It takes you deeper into troubles, because you begin to share some of the way that He sees people, and loves them.

But, as the song says, “No turning back.”