Let us pray: O God, may the words that I speak and the thoughts and actions of all our lives be acceptable to you and may they lead us to know you more clearly, and follow you more dearly. Amen.

    I suppose we are not too far into a new year to engage in speculation about the time that lies ahead of us, and some analysis of the time that has now passed. I wonder if we can resonate with the phrase we heard in the reading from the first book of Samuel a few minutes ago? My NRSV translation puts it something like this - the word of God was rare in those days, visions were not widespread. Does this statement about a time long past have some connection with the way we are feeling about our own time? Do any of us feel the same way about the year just completed or do we look forward apprehensively with similar thoughts to the year that lies ahead?

    Certainly, using just my own experience, I would say that I’ve had more concern expressed to me about the state of the world over the past year than I can remember ever having heard before. The mood of any particular era is hard to judge, resting as it does on so many factors, but if I were asked to name a present sentiment, it would probably not be too far from the one described by that phrase in Samuel, although I might put it slightly differently, something like this: It is rare for people to confidently express what God is saying, and a time when people are lacking in vision.

    Such thinking comes to mind not simply because we are in the midst of an election campaign, although what better time is there for us to be presented with visionary thinking? When people are seeking our support for them as leaders - in the places we live whether it be community or country, you might expect them to engage us with ideas about where we are and where we would like to be, and what it will take for us to go from one to the other.

    I’m sure you noticed the subtle change I introduced when I reworded the phrase for today. The original sentence went like this: The word of God was rare in those days, visions were not widespread, but I reworked it this way: It is rare for people to confidently express what God is saying. The difference of course is that one might presume in the first case that it is God that is being taciturn - God did not have a lot to say, while in the second case, it is the reluctance of the people to express what God is saying that is paramount.

    In fact, I interpret both versions in the same way. It is my basic belief that God is never taciturn - that there is always a message from God to be heard and expressed. It is not the word of God that is rare, but rather people who are willing to confidently express what God is saying.

    I say this with some trepidation - for I’m sure you are all thinking about people who quite confidently express what they hear God saying, and that you are quite possibly cringing at the thoughts that such experiences  leave you with. Perhaps those very experiences are the reason that others show such reluctance!

    The good news is that the passage from Samuel went on to answer its’ own concern. The word of God was rare, visions were not widespread it stated, and then it told a story about how one such vision occurred anyway. And the point it went on to make is that preconceived notions about who would experience the vision, about who might be asked to interpret the vision were simply that, preconceived and narrow minded notions. God was not about to be confined. The people may have had trouble understanding what God was saying, but God is persistent. The wisdom of an aging cleric and an obedient youth finally connected with God’s intention. Can you ever be too young or too old? Can you ever be unworthy? The point of this and many other stories told in the scriptures of the Hebrew people, in fact, it might even be the most important point of the stories told in the Hebrew Bible, is that God does not choose the most obvious candidate and that fresh insight and new perspectives can come from the most unexpected places.

    Preconceived notions are also a part of the gospel passage we heard this morning. It is not just age that can limit our own understanding of who is asked to bring new ways of seeing. What possible good could come from Nazareth, Nathanael asks with obvious disdain for this Galilean backwater, thus showing us up for the ways in which we engage in exactly the same kind of thinking. And in typical iconoclastic fashion, Jesus ignores the rebuke and instead treats him, as we can best determine from the story, without any kind of prejudgement at all - inviting him to be one of his followers simply because he spied him sitting under a fig tree. What we are left to conclude is that Jesus could see through Nathanael’s snobbery to a more open spirit that was waiting to be discovered below the pretentious surface.

    If we are to believe then, that our present day and age is a time similar to the time described in the passage from the Hebrew Bible this morning, what can we learn from the readings from First Samuel and John’s gospel this morning? They certainly remind us to put aside our stereotypes and prejudices, and be open to the ways in which God is calling to us from unexpected places and through unexpected people. Those very actions in and of themselves are expressions of our own sense of God’s calling. Do you understand the point I’m trying to make - that the very act of allowing ourselves and inviting others to be open to the possibilities that new visions might be coming from unexpected people and places is itself a vision of the way that God is working in and among us.

    I also believe that it is this spirit of openness that we are being asked to share as our vision of God’s way in this world. It is actually a vision that runs counter to some of the visions of God’s way that others are expressing in our world, ones that invite people to be closed to certain possibilities and understandings of whom God calls, and who is worthy in God’s eyes.

    The ability and call to share God’s way is not limited by age and circumstance. We are the ones who impose limitations, we are the ones who confine our perspective within certain understandings and expectations. It is not the word of God that is rare, it is the courage to confidently and boldly share that word that is rare. God’s vision is wide and broad, it is our own narrowness and reluctance, that limit vision. God chooses people without partiality. May we be followers of that way. Amen.