Hinnini!
Hinnini! It's Hebrew for 'Here I am.' Hinnini! Of all the Hebrew
that I have learned, this is the one phrase that touches me
and has remained with me in my everyday awareness and vocabulary.
We are going to conclude our worship today with the singing
of a fairly recently written hymn with that same phrase, Hinnini,
which has become a favorite of many, "Here I am."
Hinnini,
Saying yes - what does that mean? Our Hebrew reading from First
Samuel explores this.
I offer a little bit
of background for us:
This part of the history of the people
of Israel takes place when Judges ruled. The affairs of the
people start to unravel. We hear a little in the biblical texts
of the debate going on: to change the kind of leadership from
judges to more like that of the surrounding nations; there is
a desire to have kings. Having judges was proving to be inadequate
in attending to the needs of the people and the rule of God.
We hear murmurs of that in the opening lines, 'The word of the
Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.' So
there was movement to consolidate the peoples under the rule
of a king who would be anointed. We also hear in this reading
the development of a prophet: one hears and speaks God's word.
In the midst of the unrest and inadequate leadership, we find
Eli, an older, almost blind priest, and Samuel. Samuel, a child,
has been given to the temple to serve God under Eli's tutelage.
Eli who is a helpless, wizened, disillusioned priest, places
his hope and salvation in the boy's, Samuel's, learning holiness
and of God's ways. Certainly, Eli knows that he has failed with
his own sons; their criminal behavior is notorious.
That's the
setup.
Now hear a little bit more as we take into account some
of the Hebrew that is being spoken. There is humor and a play
on words that we often miss when we hear and read the English
translation of Biblical texts. Eli, the old priest: his Hebrew
name, Eli, when it is translated from the Hebrew means My God.
You remember Jesus saying on the cross: Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani?
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Each time Samuel is
beckoned by God, Samuel goes to the priest named My God and
answers, Hinnini. Each time Samuel is beckoned by the voice
of God, he goes to the wrong god and answers, saying here I
am. Add to that: when we look at the name Samuel, in Hebrew
Samuel means: God has heard. So God is speaking out, calling,
saying to the young one, God has heard. And in turn, Samuel
mistakenly runs from the very One who is speaking and who has
heard the need of the people.
Back and forth the game is played.
I can't help but say that this scripture might speak to us,
our times. How many times do we just not hear God? How many
times do we go running in the wrong direction, ready to respond
to the wrong person, event, opportunity, or project?
Back and
forth the game is played, until finally Eli the priest realizes
something more is going on here. After all, the third time is
always a charm. Indeed, as the reading's introduction indicates,
the lamp of God may not yet have gone out. 'My hope,' Eli tentatively
thought, 'possibly is bearing fruit.' Sam-u-el, God has heard,
the priest says to the boy.
And so, the next night, the fourth
time, God calls out, Sam-u-el, God has heard; Samuel responds,
Saying yes at last to the God who speaks. And God hears, 'Hinnini.'
How
many times do we wonder, as Eli must have wondered, if things
can unravel anymore, what is going to happen to our country,
to the world? This must be the answer. We look for quick answers
in a loan, a bail out, an economic stimulus package. We look
to our new leadership who will solve everything in the other
room and then report back to us that we're back on track. Similar
to this piece in Samuel, we are the brink of a leadership change.
Will this make a positive difference?
Eli must have slept better
thinking he had given Samuel good advice. This picture, this
story is a wonderful way to describe saying yes. It makes us
feel good. There is none of the hesitation or the excuses we
hear from Isaiah, or Moses, or Jeremiah, or the rich man who
came to Jesus, or Peter when he was asked of his acquaintance
of this one named Jesus. There are only clumsy missteps we can
relate to. Clearly, this young boy, Samuel is eager and ready
to say yes. We like that. But ….
Saying yes isn't just being
eager and ready. There are consequences. I don't think Samuel
fully realized what was about to happen to his life and the
choices he would have to make. Having said yes, Samuel listened
further, it was then that he heard what God had in mind. Saying
yes meant he had to speak honestly, openly facing Eli's questions
and telling his mentor and priest, that because of his sons
actions they would die and because of Eli's inactions, he also
would die. Can you imagine telling someone who has raised you
as his/her own hearing from your mouth, that your own children
are scoundrels and you really didn't help them be any other
way? Saying yes meant listening to God, and telling the truth
no matter how hard it might be.
Saying yes, I am not so sure
Barack Obama knew the kinds of things that would be unfolding
so quickly before him. Oh, I am sure he was not wearing rose-colored
glasses but with so many crises at home and abroad and developing
so quickly, this Tuesday's receiving of the mantel of commander
in chief of the US brings with it not only historic significance
but also comes laden with a great sense of gravity. In listening
to a recent Bill Moyers' interview, author and historian Simon
Schama said we are on the brink of either the dismantling of
our country/ and the world or a great transformation of our
country and the world. Which will it be for us? Eli saw hope.
Saying yes to a marriage proposal, I am not sure that at twenty
three years of age we take into account the possible consequences
of that affirmation. Saying yes may be easy; living out that
pronouncement is where the rubber hits the road, is the challenge.
When we
respond we just don't know what will happen, what will unfold.
Tired, Rosa Parks responded and dared to sit down on that bus.
Martin Luther King rallied folks together, spoke out and took
steps along the lines of Mahatma Gandhi in order to give folks
a place at the counter, at the drinking fountain, in the voting
booth. 'I have a dream' rang out from the Capitol. Could Martin
Luther King possibly have known where his yes would lead? Who
would have dared know where Martin Luther King's saying yes
would lead? Could the injustices throughout a country's history
be turned around? Could the injustices described by Kevin Boyle
in the Arc of Justice to a young black, professional
family newly arrived to 1925 Detroit be made right?
Could Archbishop
Cesar Romero or Dietrich Bonhoffer or Nelson Mandela possibly
have known where their yeses would lead?
Some of
you have read the recently published biography of Mother Teresa
of Calcutta : Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light by Brian
Kolodiejchuk. It has stunned you; it has stunned the world to
hear of this woman who lived most of her vocation as a Sister
of Charity (over forty years) with a profound sense of God's
absence. After her initial feeling of 'call', her experience
was, for all intents and purposes, abandonment by the very One
she sought to serve. Unlike Samuel, Mother Teresa heard no sound.
Throughout her years of starting and leading a chapter of sisters,
and doing good to the very least of these in India, she felt
alone, she questioned, and she continued her work with the poorest
of the poor. We just don't know what answering God's call will
bring.
I do need to say that it is not unusual for 'religious,' for
folks on spiritual journeys to experience at one time or another
the dark night of the soul where God seems distant, God seems
absent, and God seems unapproachable. Our Methodist founder
John Wesley writes of his experience of it. By accounts I am
aware of, Mother Teresa lived in that place an extremely long
time. Nevertheless she continued living out her response to
God's call.
Today 25 year old Delia Ramirez lives in Chicago.
For the first six years of her life she lived in the homeless
community that is the ministry of a United Methodist Church
in Chicago. Today she is the executive director of the Center
for Changing Lives. She conducts business in the same room her
parents used as a bedroom when they lived in the facility and
exchanged work services for rent. Delia says, 'I have always
known my calling in life was to work with the oppressed. Our
Human Relations Day offering helps make church-based community
developers work in racial-ethnic minority communities possible.
If we can't say yes like Delia and be in the trenches, we can
help yeses happen. Delia says, 'My passion for this work lives
because I understand I cannot call myself a Christian if I live
blinded by the situations that surround me.' I wonder where
God's call will lead her.
Each of these examples where folks
have said yes, responded to a call that I have raised are counter
cultural to our increasing worship and tendency toward individualism,
and me-centeredness. Each response of yes to God's call was
not a neat package of knowing fully what the implications of
that yes would mean.
Samuel's response, scripture is clear,
there is no such thing as a free agent in God's commonwealth.
We exist in and for community and the common good. The consequences
of our knowing and our actions have an impact well beyond our
own selves.
So as we
sing this last hymn together, a favorite for many. Sing it fully
realizing you are singing, Hinnini. You are saying, not in a
sentimental, inconsequential way, Here I am. You include yourself
as one with Samuel, Dietrich, Teresa, Delia, Martin, Rosa, Dr.
Ossian Sweet and his attorney Clarence Darrow.
