Jana Childers - "With Both Ears Tingling" (December 13, 1998)

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-	I have only been in North Carolina	0:21
	a scant 13 or 14 hours and let me say that already	0:22
	I have been fussed and puttered and clucked over	0:27
	by Ken Nelson and his very helpful staff	0:31
	here at the Duke University Chapel	0:34
	and I've begun to remember what it is,	0:36
	what is meant by that famous phrase,	0:39
	Southern hospitality.	0:41
	I appreciate it.	0:43
	I am grateful for the way that you have lavished it	0:44
	upon a Californian.	0:46
	"As an example of suffering and patience beloved,	0:53
	"take the prophets," the epistle of James says,	0:57
	and we are taking his advice this morning.	1:01
	We are taking a page from the story	1:04
	of the prophet Samuel and his mentor Eli,	1:06
	people who knew something about waiting out	1:10
	God's long, long silences.	1:14
	People who knew something about preparing	1:18
	to receive the Word.	1:20
	Let us pray.	1:24
	Lord, be in our words and in our understanding.	1:30
	Be in our hearts, and in the loves we bring.	1:35
	Be in our lives, and set us to praise	1:39
	for we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.	1:43
	Like a guy in a pornographic t-shirt carrying a boombox	1:50
	through a crowded street.	1:54
	Like a young woman in what used to be called polite society	1:59
	using language that used to be called shocking.	2:02
	Like the king of trash talk radio	2:08
	emitting bodily functions sounds into his microphone	2:11
	and broadcasting them at 50,000 watts,	2:14
	I guess it would make your ears tingle.	2:17
	I guess it would make your ears tingle	2:22
	if the Word of the Lord came to you and said,	2:24
	"I'm firing good old what's his name,"	2:27
	Mr. Dithers, Professor Whitehead,	2:30
	Reverend Trueblood, President Smith.	2:33
	(laughing)	2:36
	"I'm firing good old what's his name,	2:41
	"he's weak and he's fat and he can't keep	2:43
	"his own kid's hands out of the offering plates,	2:45
	"this is it for him, out with him, in with you."	2:47
	I guess it would make your ears tingle.	2:54
	If the Word of the Lord, having been scant and scarce,	2:57
	having been searched out and strained for in vain	3:00
	for all of the advents that you knew anything about	3:03
	suddenly spoke up.	3:06
	If the Lord God, Jehovah Godself	3:09
	suddenly stood up and said,	3:11
	"I need someone to speak for me here,	3:15
	"now after all these years of silence,	3:19
	"all the waiting,	3:22
	"I need someone during this leaderless time,	3:23
	"I need someone, and you're it."	3:27
	I guess it would make your ears tingle	3:33
	and your toes twitch.	3:35
	I guess it would make me do more than tingle and twitch.	3:38
	I don't know about you but I guess I'd be at the library	3:40
	fortifying myself with textual commentaries.	3:44
	I'd be hunkering down in that small pool of light	3:48
	in the middle of my desk,	3:51
	searching out the jots and tittles,	3:52
	reading between the lines and behind the text,	3:55
	looking for something to clear my ears	3:59
	and calm my feet,	4:03
	looking in short for an out.	4:06
	Not that there aren't worse things	4:13
	than receiving a word from the Lord	4:15
	in the wee small hours of the morning.	4:17
	Not that there aren't worse things	4:19
	than what happened to the young boy Samuel in this story.	4:22
	Actually, I've come to recently realize	4:29
	that someone who has officially crossed	4:33
	that ugly black line in the sand called 40,	4:35
	can't go on just indefinitely reading this text	4:40
	and identifying with a 12-year-old fledging prophet.	4:44
	In fact, interestingly enough,	4:49
	I noticed this year out of what is certainly many years	4:51
	that I have consulted the same commentary,	4:55
	that 40 is the dividing line for those of us	4:58
	who are reading this text	5:01
	and identifying with its characters.	5:02
	You see, the word na'ar used to describe Samuel here	5:05
	is the Hebrew word for a male of any age	5:10
	between infancy and 40.	5:14
	So, even though we don't know that Samuel	5:19
	was 12 years old that morning	5:21
	when the voice of Yahweh woke him up before dawn,	5:23
	that's Josephus' idea.	5:26
	We don't know that he was 12 years old,	5:28
	we do know that he was younger than I am,	5:30
	younger than we, well some of us are.	5:33
	We do know that he was the student in this story	5:37
	and that Eli was the homiletics professor.	5:39
	Actually, you know once you get used to the idea,	5:46
	you have to admit that the role of Eli	5:48
	is an easier fit for a lot of us.	5:51
	Regardless of our role in our particular church community,	5:56
	it is just easier for us to identify with Eli	6:02
	than it was ever for us to identify with Samuel.	6:06
	It's just not the case for most of us,	6:10
	as it was for the young prophet Samuel,	6:12
	that, as First Samuel says a little further on,	6:15
	quote, "God has never let one of his words fall	6:18
	"to the ground."	6:23
	I know a lot of preachers who would like	6:27
	to be able to say that about their preaching,	6:28
	but identifying with Samuel is just not easy for most of us.	6:31
	We're more like the poor old well-intentioned Eli.	6:35
	Eli, whose worst fault was not being able to control	6:39
	what the text calls his greedy-eyed children.	6:43
	Eli, who cared about the temple and the ark,	6:49
	who died grieving for the captured ark,	6:53
	who wanted to defend it,	6:56
	but who was prevented from doing so	7:01
	by the fact that he was too overweight,	7:03
	as the NSRV comes right out and says.	7:07
	Well, it's probably the case that	7:15
	both Elis and Samuels	7:19
	occur in every congregation.	7:21
	Maybe both, even in the breast of most seminarians	7:25
	or Div School students, I don't know,	7:29
	but I'm interested in what we can learn	7:31
	from the original models whose story is told	7:34
	in today's text,	7:37
	what we can learn that might help	7:38
	the next generation of the church,	7:41
	that might help our children and our grandchildren	7:45
	avoid living out this old, old story	7:48
	of spiritual drought.	7:52
	You have to hope, don't you,	8:00
	that the next nameless generation,	8:01
	you know, the one that follows the Boomers	8:04
	and the Busters, the Challengers and the Calculators,	8:06
	Generation X and what's now being called Generation Z,	8:08
	what's just starting to be called the Millennials,	8:12
	people born after 1982, the Millennials,	8:14
	you have to hope that this next generation,	8:18
	whatever you call them,	8:21
	might indeed actually be a Samuel generation,	8:22
	a speak-Lord-for-thy-servant-heareth generation,	8:29
	a be-it-unto-me-according-to-thy-Word generation,	8:31
	a Lord-speak-to-me-that-I-may-speak generation,	8:36
	that has the ability to hear	8:43
	and pronounce God's Word of wholeness	8:44
	to the fragmented world that we are leaving them	8:49
	in our wills.	8:51
	Lord knows we could hardly have done a better job	8:54
	setting the stage,	8:57
	the Word of the Lord was rare	8:58
	at the close of the 20th century,	9:00
	there was no frequent vision.	9:02
	I have heard it said that the two millennia,	9:09
	which followed Abraham, belonged to God.	9:12
	The two millennia which followed Christ,	9:16
	belonged to him,	9:19
	and that the next two millennia,	9:20
	the two millennia on which we have our toes,	9:21
	might very well be the era of the Holy Spirit,	9:25
	the era of the one who speaks God's Word	9:31
	and spreads abroad God's visions,	9:34
	maybe it could be.	9:37
	The next generation could indeed	9:40
	be a generation tuned to the voice	9:42
	of the Holy Spirit.	9:44
	A generation of Samuels.	9:47
	You have to hope so if there's anything in you	9:49
	of the fond old indulgent heart of the teacher Eli,	9:51
	you have to hope so.	9:57
	Of course, it's not necessarily easy to picture.	10:02
	There's a trend building in the media	10:06
	these last couple of years.	10:08
	It's as if a number of essayists and pundits	10:09
	have conspired to tag this generation of American life	10:14
	with the less than flattering nickname	10:18
	of the Whatever Generation.	10:21
	Some speak of the 90's even as the Whatever Decade.	10:26
	It's not hard to imagine how the powers that be	10:32
	have arrived at such a nickname.	10:35
	Whatever.	10:37
	You hear it on radio talk shows,	10:39
	sports shows, and college class streams,	10:41
	and on Saturday Night Live,	10:43
	complex, conceptual thought,	10:45
	whole philosophies and passionately held positions	10:48
	laid out in detail to be dismissed by three syllables,	10:52
	whatever.	10:57
	Time Magazine's Richard Rosenblatt calls it	11:02
	the word of the decade.	11:04
	James Morris of the Woodrow Wilson Center	11:07
	and columnist George F. Will are also interested	11:09
	in the subject.	11:12
	"We," they say, "who live out of a dread of hypocrisy	11:14
	"and a love of self-expression,	11:18
	"we are becoming slaves to the tyranny of nonchalance."	11:22
	Whatever.	11:28
	Morris warns, "The word draws you in like a plumped pillow	11:32
	"and folds around your brain,	11:35
	"it's all capitulation."	11:37
	No one wants to make a judgment,	11:39
	to impose a standard, to call conduct unacceptable.	11:41
	Dennis Rodman's America, some have called it.	11:47
	"We have become a nation," as one commentator said,	11:53
	"chatting away on cellular phones in public,	11:56
	"unconcerned for privacy or dignity,	11:59
	"where the future stares blankly at us	12:02
	"through the eyes of fragile young men/women	12:04
	"in Calvin Klein ads."	12:08
	Whatever.	12:12
	What would it take, I ask you,	12:19
	what do you suppose it would take	12:22
	for the Whatever Era to become a	12:24
	speak-Lord-for-thy-servant-heareth era?	12:28
	To turn the generation known for their shoulder shrugs,	12:32
	all flinging out and pushing away,	12:35
	to a generation known for bowing their heads?	12:38
	To turn those known for their vituperative language	12:43
	for what's called, in my husband's college classroom,	12:46
	running the numbers,	12:49
	to preaching the Word?	12:53
	What would it take to turn the generation	12:56
	that is staying away from organized religion in droves	12:57
	to a generation that would get behind you in line?	13:02
	Whatever does help people to hear the Word of God	13:11
	and pass it on,	13:15
	what helped Samuel?	13:18
	What helped Samuel?	13:22
	Well, the fact is that when the Word of God came	13:24
	to the next generation in today's text,	13:27
	when the Word of God came to the na'ar	13:30
	it's interesting to note that it did not go straight	13:35
	into Samuel's ear, enlighten his mind, purify his heart,	13:37
	and come out his mouth.	13:41
	It did not send him straight to seminary.	13:43
	It did not set him praying.	13:46
	It did not start him preaching.	13:47
	It sent him back to sleep.	13:49
	Maybe there's an encouraging word here	13:54
	for those of us who are concerned about this particular	13:56
	peculiar era in the church's life.	14:00
	When the Word of God came to Samuel,	14:02
	it had to come repeatedly.	14:05
	When the Word of God came to Samuel,	14:08
	it had to come repeatedly,	14:10
	and it had to be interpreted by a weak and fat old teacher.	14:13
	I asked a very close friend of mine	14:24
	who teaches public speaking to 19 and 20 year olds	14:26
	for a living and who happens not to be weak or fat,	14:29
	what he thought was peculiar and particular	14:34
	about this generation,	14:37
	about what they seem to need?	14:38
	This man, who has given the last 20 years of his life,	14:42
	including more than half of its weekends	14:45
	to coaching the young to find their voices	14:47
	and their feet, paused.	14:49
	"The problem with the kids I teach," he said,	14:54
	"is that they've been beaten down,	14:56
	"instead of lifted up."	14:57
	But what they need is not so much praise,	15:01
	not so much what we call	15:03
	in the California public school system,	15:04
	"self-esteem building."	15:06
	What they need is someone to sit down with them and say,	15:10
	"This is what I see in you.	15:13
	"This is what I see in you and here's a place to start.	15:17
	"This is what I see in you and here's a place to stand.	15:21
	"This is what I see in you,	15:26
	"it's essential, unique, precious.	15:27
	"This is what I see in you,	15:33
	"and it is not a whatever thing."	15:37
	Maybe the thing that this flailing generation needs	15:44
	is an Eli to say the very thing that was said to Samuel	15:50
	every day of his life from the day he was born,	15:54
	"This is what I see in you."	15:57
	This is what I see in you, Tom,	16:01
	you have a sharp mind and a quick intuition,	16:03
	a gift for storytelling.	16:07
	This is what I see in you, Linda,	16:10
	you have a deep heart, the gift of empathy,	16:12
	an ability to draw people to you.	16:16
	This is what I see in you, Steve,	16:19
	you have the gift of comforting,	16:21
	leading, making your own fun.	16:23
	This is what I see in you, Sam.	16:27
	Barbara Brown Taylor, a preacher that I know	16:36
	that this congregation is familiar with,	16:38
	tells in her own story of coming to faith	16:41
	that she was not a child raised in the church.	16:45
	"At 12," Barbara says, "I took to organized religion	16:50
	"like a pig to mud,	16:53
	"which makes me wonder if puberty does not unlock	16:56
	"some doors of the soul along with the doors of the body."	16:58
	She gives most of the credit for her epiphany	17:04
	to a single, young pastor who, as she says,	17:06
	"became a regular guest at our dinner table.	17:12
	"He was vital and funny and could catch an airborn fly	17:14
	"with one hand.	17:17
	"He listened to me when I talked	17:20
	"and let me lead him on tours of my projects	17:22
	"around the house.	17:24
	"He seemed able, when he looked at me,	17:25
	"to see a person and not only a child	17:29
	"and I loved him for it."	17:31
	This is what I see in you, Barbara.	17:37
	I knew a college professor once,	17:42
	who every June would sit in a circle	17:43
	with his graduating seniors,	17:45
	the ones that he had mentored.	17:48
	There were rituals, remarks, and goodbyes,	17:51
	and the circle ended with the old Eli	17:55
	looking briefly into the eyes of each student	17:57
	and leaving them with one word.	18:01
	This is what I see in you, Debra,	18:04
	you are ebullient.	18:07
	This is what I see in you, Mark,	18:09
	you are courageous.	18:11
	This is what I see in you, Jenna.	18:13
	We may not, of course, always like what our Elis tell us.	18:20
	The Word of God is not always easy on the ears	18:25
	or the ego, but we need it.	18:27
	So many of us need it.	18:30
	Most everybody needs it.	18:32
	We need somebody to say to us,	18:33
	"This is what I see in you."	18:37
	Maybe when the family gathers for Christmas this year	18:42
	and you see those teenagers that you only see once a year,	18:45
	maybe when the youth group comes caroling	18:50
	or the paperboy is lingering on your doorstep	18:52
	for that extra moment to get his annual bonus,	18:55
	maybe then, maybe you, like Eli,	18:58
	could move this old world	19:01
	an inch farther through its long advent.	19:03
	An inch closer to the day when God's Word explodes	19:11
	across the screen of a new generation.	19:17
	In his new book, the eminent psychologist James Hillman	19:25
	makes the case for what he calls	19:28
	the Acorn Theory of Human Development.	19:29
	"Each one of us," he says, "embodies something essential,	19:33
	"some seed, some acorn, from which our lives will grow.	19:38
	"At a single moment something calls us to a particular path,	19:45
	"something like an enunciation takes place	19:50
	"and we begin to put together the pieces of our lives	19:53
	"into a basic coherent plot."	19:56
	The idea is not original to Hillman, of course.	20:03
	Plato's version has each soul	20:05
	choosing its lot in life from heaven	20:08
	and then passing through the Plain of Lethe,	20:11
	the Plain of Oblivion or forgetfulness,	20:14
	so that the destinies they had chosen for themselves	20:17
	would be forgotten by the time they arrive on Earth.	20:20
	Luckily, in Plato's version, each soul	20:26
	is accompanied to Earth by a demon	20:28
	whose job it is to remember and goad that soul	20:31
	towards its appointed path.	20:34
	Maybe you don't particularly care to think of yourselves	20:39
	as a demon in the lives of the young people	20:42
	of your community of faith.	20:45
	There is another version of the myth,	20:51
	one that's a bit easier on the ears,	20:53
	one that's more congenial with First Samuel sensibilities.	20:55
	It's a Jewish legend that claims that the evidence	21:01
	for the soul's prenatal forgetting	21:04
	is pressed right onto your upper lip.	21:06
	According to this version of the story,	21:13
	the crevice below your nose	21:14
	is where the angel pressed its forefinger	21:17
	to seal your lips.	21:20
	That little indentation is the only thing left,	21:25
	according to the story,	21:27
	to remind you of your pre-existent life	21:29
	and your own unique mission.	21:32
	So it is, the legend claims, that when we conjure up	21:36
	insight or are lost in thought,	21:39
	our fingers go up to that significant dent.	21:44
	Children are not born knowing, the legends tell us.	21:53
	They need to be told.	21:58
	The next generation of God's people stands before us,	22:03
	ears ringing, shoulders shrugging,	22:07
	fingering their upper lip.	22:11
	Let us not leave them wondering.	22:14
	Let us tell them every chance we get	22:16
	what we know is true about their soul's predestination,	22:19
	that they are made by God, for God,	22:22
	and that they should expect to be awakened	22:26
	at any hour of the night by that God's voice.	22:28
	Let us tell them that they can expect a call	22:33
	that will put a vision of the future in their minds,	22:37
	a word in their mouth, and set both ears tingling.	22:40
	My brothers and sisters, let us remember	22:48
	that we believe it ourselves.	22:51

Item Info

Title:

Jana Childers - "With Both Ears Tingling" (December 13, 1998)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:21. Sermon end time: 22:53.
The preacher discusses the apathy and decrease in faith of teenagers and encourages listeners to share their faith with younger generation. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: Children are not born knowing, the legends tell us. They need to be told. The next generation of God’s people stands before us, ears ringing, shoulders shrugging, fingering their upper lip. Let us not leave them wondering. Let us tell them every chance they get what we know is true about their souls pre-destination, that they are made by God for God, and that they should expect to be awakened at any hour of the night by God’s voice.

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ff3md9w

Date:

December 13, 1998

Speaker:

Childers, Jana

Liturgical Calendar:

Advent

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0936
ref10023_pxx
uachapelsermaud
duke:320854
dcrau001580
ark:/87924/r4ff3md9w
83987a56-6871-4868-af0d-196d298756b4

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

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United States
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Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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