I Samuel 3: 4, 8-10; John 1: 43-45

Being available

Samuel is available. He is available to his master Eli. He is one of those young people who is eager to learn, eager to please and ready to be mentored.  He is so attuned to serving his master that it does not occur to him that he has a straight line to God.  His master  is  not surprised by that as he directs the young Samuel with the words:” when you hear God’s call, say ’speak Lord for Your servant is listening.’”

There is something so powerful about these words and when we think about it, it is perhaps because the speaking of God is connecting to the servant listening.  God  does not need our permission or our goading to speak of course.  God speaks whenever God wishes to speak.  But it’s the power of the listening servant that makes God’s speaking more meaningful.  Fast forward to the New Testament and there is Jesus calling to Philip and Nathaniel.  Nathaniel is disdainful. We would flinch at his words:” Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Can you imagine that? Think of Jesus coming from Burney and we say about Jesus:”Can anything good come from Burney.”  We’re talking about Jesus here! Next Nathaniel is blown away by what Jesus notices and knows about him.  Where Jesus comes from suddenly doesn’t matter anymore.  Nathaniel goes from barely available to enthusiastically available, because Jesus is so present and available to him.

I saw an interview by Charlie Rose with Bill Murray, the comedic actor, one of the most deadpan people in film.  He starred as a flirtatious scientist in ghost busters, a charming patient with a personality disorder in “What about Bob?,” a washed-up actor who does commercials in Japan in “Lost in Translation,” a business man who hates his entire family in Rushmore, a repentant boyfriend of many women in “Broken Flowers,” and a traveling salesman who by missing a train in a movie, misses the entire movie in “The Darjeeling Express.”   Bill Murray is not a guy has not been very good to women in real life either, but he does appears very involved with his six sons.  Charlie Rose notes about Murray: “that your life does not seem very well-planned, “ and that Murray does not seem to put much thought into it.  And then they get into a discussion about availability.  Murray says he does not want to plan much, he just wants to be available, to movie directors, to his children, to people in general.  He quotes the pastor of the African American church he sometimes attends in Charleston, South Carolina where he now lives who exclaims:” Lord, what do You have for me today?” Murray likes that idea: be there, be present, be available.

Parks and Recreation, now in its final season, is probably the best sitcom on television, although that isn’t saying much these days.  Lesley Knope, city council woman and enthusiastic city bureaucrat in small town Indiana and Ron Swanson, libertarian city employee who hates the government and who only puts steak and whiskey in his mouth, are good and loyal friends. Lesley is the democratic government do-gooder and Ron wants to get off the grid, shrink the governments and make custom chairs. They don’t agree on anything but their loyalty to each other.  They are convinced of each other’s core decency and kindness, even though she wants to turn a local site into a national park and he wants to turn it into a growth zone for environmentally indifferent businesses.  They are there for each other when the rubber meets the road.  Despite their incompatibility, they are true friends.

Friends, availability is an idea we take for granted. It seems so each to attain: being available.  Yet this is not the reality in our society.   People are said to be “romantically unavailable.” I heard a woman minister complain that it is always impossible to find a romantic partner who both listens and picks up his socks.  I have heard it said that for children to flourish, there needs to be one “consistently available parents in their daily lives.  I do believe, friends, that availability is a very important concept in the Church today.  Congregations where people are available to each other are congregations that are more likely to be healthy.  I believe that.  We all need that relative or friend we can call in the middle of the night.  It is people such as these that help keep our faith in God’s grace healthy, for God’s grace works through them.  But are we available to others?  This is different from partying with them, but are we really there?  There may be more than one answer to that question in each situation.

Finally, are we available to God?  Are we ready to hear and to be guided and to pay attention between the lines?  Are we willing to say: “speak, Lord for Your servant is listening.”  Friends, there is a connection between God speaking and our being ready to listen.  “Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening,” paying attention, minding the signs, the opened doors and the closed ones.  May God show that way. Thanks be to God.