Tag Archives: attitudes toward future generations

When God spoke to Samuel

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In the bilingual group at the University Church of Christ in Abilene, we’ve started using the Narrative Lectionary to guide our preaching. This lectionary provides a text for each week, which helps those preaching guide their thoughts. This week’s text was 1 Samuel 3, when God calls to young Samuel during the night. I was preaching this Sunday, and some unusual thoughts jumped out at me as I worked with the text.

  • Eli’s physical blindness mirrored his spiritual blindness. As high priest, he led a religious system that allowed corruption and abuse to have a full-time seat at the table. Because of this, he had lost the ability to receive messages from God.
  • Eli had failed largely because he loved his sons more than he loved God. He failed to correct them. He failed to protect the people that they abused.
  • As often happens, a younger person could hear what the older person had lost the ability to hear.
  • As often happens, the younger person needed the guidance of someone with more experience in the faith in order to be able to make sense of God’s words.
  • And as often happens, the message the younger person received wasn’t a new message; the same prophecy had been proclaimed in chapter 2 in even more detail. What was significant was that God was showing how the prophetic voice was passing from one generation to another.

Those were some thoughts that struck me, though I confess that some could be because of where I find myself in my life’s journey. What thoughts strike you when reading 1 Samuel 3?

Standing on shoulders

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s very easy to look at those who have gone before us and feel that everything they did was wrong. Or at least to talk as if we felt that way. As we grow and make our own discoveries, we sometimes look back with a bit of disdain.

And that’s wrong.

I was thinking about the metaphor of standing on the shoulders of those that came before, considering how useful that metaphor is. The fact is, had previous generations not done what they did, we’d have a hard time being where we are right now. We’d have a hard time questioning them had they not prepared us to do that very thing. We are what we are because we stand on the shoulders of those that went before.

So let me offer some thoughts based on that metaphor:

  • There are two mistakes we often make when looking at previous generations. One is to try and tear down everything they did, looking to start over from ground zero. The other is to place them on a pedestal, regarding their work and their ideas as completely untouchable. That also leaves us standing on the ground. The healthy response is to climb up and stand on their shoulders, respecting what they’ve done, but not limiting ourselves to that.
  • As we look at future generations, we need to prepare ourselves to be stood on. We need to stand as tall as we can, yet keep a strong base. We need to accept that being stood on is uncomfortable; it’s much nicer to have someone stand back and gaze at us lovingly. It’s more productive to allow others to reach higher than we ever could.
  • To the next generation, I say, “Stand on me.” Don’t be limited by my mistakes. Don’t overlook my contributions. Use what I’ve done to reach higher. I don’t want to be a memorial, nor do I want to be a pile of rubble. I want to be a ladder, allowing future generations to be better than my own.
photo from www.morguefile.com