Imagine being Samuel. Samuel was a miracle child, born to Hannah, a woman long considered barren. She visited the temple at Shiloh and prayed to God for a child. She even offered to return the child back to God if only she could give birth. Hannah conceived, gave birth, and offered Samuel to Eli, the old, tired, and nearly blind priest. So Samuel became Eli's assistant, helping the old man with many of the labors a priest must do. One job that fell to Samuel was to sleep next to the Ark of the Covenant in order to tend to it. It was holiest of all artifacts, located in the Holy of Holies in the temple. The ark purportedly held the tablets of the covenant as well as Aaron's rod and a container of manna. The ark, literally, was the throne of the invisible God Yahweh. Imagine being Samuel whose bed rested next to something powerful enough to lead armies into battle, to offer burnt offerings to, to sacrifice animals to, to seat the invisible God. In this place Samuel grew and slept. Samuel was never afforded the luxury of being alone with himself. Normal childhood fears were not part of his nighttime landscape. No. Samuel lived in perpetual readiness to serve Eli who, in turn, served Yahweh. And it was in this place that he heard someone call to him in the middle of the night, even though he did not know it was God. One of my favorite preachers once said, "There is more to knowing God, it seems, than being in church." (Taylor, Mixed Blessings)

All of our scriptures today concern intimacy with God. Sometimes God may seem far away or difficult to locate, especially when the rest of the world pushes down on us, pulls on us, and presses in toward us. We may not know how to hear God's voice because so many other voices are speaking to us, telling us who we are, who we aren't, and who we should be. It may even be hard to distinguish God's voice from our own. Life can sometimes seem too boring or too closed in to harbor a holy moment. During the winter when there is so little light it becomes difficult to remember what it feels like to experience God. Some of us find life grueling when there is so much rain. We can't get out and move beyond the constrictions of our own thoughts. Yet God does call to us, just as God called to Samuel, hoping that at some point we will realize whose voice it is that we hear. God is nearer than our own breath, our own dreams.

The psalmist sings:

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

While many of us confess that despite our best efforts God remains elusive for us, it may very well be that we don't want to hear the God who calls us. The idea of an intimate God seems, at first glance, a wonderful image - God with us, Emmanuel, loving, caring, a friend. Upon deeper reflection, though, such a domesticated god is not possible. If God can wheedle and wend around into the deepest hurts of our hearts, certainly God will also know the darkest secrets that we keep. God does not only call to the good and noble parts of us, but to all of us. We do not want anyone to know the wrongs that we have done, the shame that we feel, the shadow side of our souls. We spend our waking hours pretending that we do not have such disturbing features. We spend our night time obsessing on other issues in order to avoid hearing the voice of God. Yet God continues to call. Paul Tillich writes in The Escape from God:

"To fly to the ends of the earth would not be to escape from God. Our technical civilization attempts just that, in order to be liberated from the knowledge that it lacks a centre of life and meaning. The modern way to flee from God is to rush ahead and ahead, as quickly as the beams before sunrise, to conquer more and more space in every direction, in every humanly possible way, to be always active, to be always planning, and to be always preparing. But God's Hand falls upon us; and it has fallen heavily and destructively upon our fleeing civilization; our flight proved to be in vain."

Intimacy is always threatening; intimacy with God is simply the deepest and truest intimacy. Letting anyone in to see our real wounded selves is scary. Realizing that we can't control the Divine Presence is terrifying. It must have been horrifying for Samuel to recognize that the voice calling didn't originate from the kindly, old, tired, blind priest but from the invisible, all-consuming fire of the Holy One, but he stayed and listened. The voice that called to him revealed a future that Samuel would never have chosen for himself or for Eli. God's hand was laid upon him and he responded. Intimacy is threatening because it means that we are honest about who we are and open to becoming something different.

Intimacy also suggests a level of safety. How could Samuel sleep every night next to the ark? How could his ears bear to hear God's voice? Inasmuch as the Divine Presence prods into our most private thoughts and feelings, God also offers grace. The same knowledge that makes intimacy with God scary also comforts us when we realize that God loves us and calls us to holy and sacred work.

139:6 Such knowledge (the psalmist says) is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

Trusting in God's grace is part of an intimate relationship with God. It helps us to hear and respond to the words that God speaks to us, because they will shake us up and tear us away from the best laid plans.

Saints throughout the ages have given in to the persistent voice of God, almost always calling them to lives they would not have chosen for themselves. On this day before we celebrate the achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. I know that he never planned to turn into the national touchstone that he became for Civil Rights and other justice movements. He simply heard the voice of God and responded.

Paul Tillich once said,

"We are known in the depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision" (The Escape from God).

God's voice rattles and disturbs; it takes us from our positions of comfort into scary and unfamiliar places. As a community of faith, we have an obligation to stay our fear and listen for God's voice and to respond as Samuel did, "Here I am." This response, like Samuel's and King's, sets us in the very presence of God, with all of our souls and hearts open for review. This response sets our lives on courses not plotted by us, but coaxed by God. It is a terrifying possibility, filled with horrifying potential. Yet the joy born out of such intimacy is beyond explication. Let us get beyond the fear of being alone and the terror of being known so that we can respond, "Here I am" to the pleading voice of the Holy One.