(Un)cover your tracks
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
June 2, 2024—Proper 4B
1 Samuel 3:1-20; 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6
When Samuel said he had a message from the LORD, Eli knew it was going to be bad news. Sometimes we do, right? Our boss or our spouse or a friend says, “I need to speak to you,” and we are clutched by the fear that the jig is up. That they know what we did, know about the lies, know about the theft, know about the betrayal. Know that we messed up.
It is a terrible, terrifying moment. Which is why our animal instincts might just kick in. Looking for a way out, for a way to escape this danger. Maybe another lie or misdirection will prevent it all from crashing down. Surely that’s what would be best here, right? To minimize the damage? So one more lie, a convincing denial, another deflection, would actually be the right thing to do. It’s just the survival instinct: so that our job, our marriage, our reputation might survive.
But at what cost?
If the reckoning had come from another source, to be honest, Eli might have risked that cost (as we ourselves do, more often than we might like to admit). In fact, when another man had come to him at a previous time, laying these same charges about his sons and their sacrilegious conduct upon him, he did nothing. Fact is, it was something of an open secret around Shiloh, that his sons were abusing the position of priest, taking meat that was supposed to be offered as a sacrifice and eating it themselves. That they were profiting from people’s offerings to God.
As happens so often at the crux of systems that promise to connect people to God, corruption and greed had crept in. And though scripture offers no evidence that Eli was abusing his position in such a way, he was clearly allowing his sons to do so. But when the man came with the accusation, he did nothing. Or perhaps he blustered, “Everyone does these things; it’s no big deal; a man just needs to eat!” Whatever happened, clearly, he was hoping that he and his sons would never be called to account.
But then the LORD called out to Samuel. And Eli knew that the jig was absolutely and unequivocally up. Though the word of the LORD had become rare, we are told, the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Eli KNEW this was God speaking. He could have told Samuel to ignore it. He could have made all kinds of pretense. But he didn’t. He told the boy to answer when God called, and then commanded him to tell him what God had said.
He knew what it would be. And to his credit, he faced into it squarely: “This is from God. Let it happen as God sees fit.”
There is something incredibly powerful, in seeing someone who not only admits what they have done wrong, but accepts the consequences of their actions.
These are what give the story transformative power; they’re what invite the hearer into a self-reflection you just don’t bother with if someone is simply tried and found guilty. As we saw so clearly this past week, following the conviction of former president Donald Trump, a criminal verdict is likely to produce much less enlightened reactions: self-satisfied glee on the one hand, and outraged denial on the other.
Consider, in contrast, our friend Eli. An old man who knows in his bones that God is about to call him to account. And he decides that the time for running is over, and there will be no more denials. He lays himself before God, and we can only begin to imagine the emotions: guilt for all that has been done … fear of what is to come … relief, one might wonder, because he can finally stop pretending. He must be SO tired. And it’s his calmness that strikes me. Even knowing the punishment he might well face (and the sentence is indeed death for him and his sons), it seems that “God and consequences” brings him more peace than “no God and impunity.”
Because there is always a price to pay for living in ways that are untrue. Even if we aren’t caught, there’s a toll it takes on our spirit, on our body, on our relationships. And part of us always longs to get beyond it, to break free, but we are afraid of the consequences.
One of the only things I know that helps break through that fear, is hearing other people’s stories. Listening to someone else who has struggled with the same demons, and has been freed by their willingness to admit it, face the consequences, and do what’s necessary to move forward. Scripture is full of such stories. Though, admittedly, they stand alongside stories like Adam’s, and his choice to say “It was her!” But that’s because scripture is truthful about us humans. We are a mixed bag of good and bad intentions, of spiritual growth and selfish stagnation.
Which is why it’s so striking to hear someone speak truthfully and bravely about themself. That’s the power of the 12-step recovery meeting: hearing people get up and admit that truth. And speak of the consequences of their past actions (because there are indeed consequences), and what’s happening now that they’re finally facing them. And to a first timer, who is still mostly hiding, the ability to tell the story can seem like a magic trick. But one after another, they do it. And some of the stories are terrible, and none of their stories sound easy. But still, there they all are. Facing up to it, and living to tell the tale.
It is profoundly healing, in a way that seeing someone tried, convicted and punished will never be. Hearing someone bring a story out of the shame they’ve shrouded it in for all these years … it’s an invitation. And I believe that any time you bring a story out of your depths like that, you are placing it in the hands of the God who knit those depths together in the first place. So it is a holy invitation.
It needn’t be public declaration. It might just be told to your family, your spouse, a trusted friend. A trusted acquaintance might be good, to keep a little protective distance. Or perhaps you just need to whisper it to yourself, and to God (who, let’s face it, already knows, and I’m fairly sure nothing shocks him…). And the freedom that admission brings might just start to un-kink things that have been twisted up inside you for years.
Most of us have something. Something that would make our gut clench with fear, if the wrong person said, “We need to talk.” But perhaps Eli’s calm courage in facing his consequences can invite us to do the same, rather than ducking and diving. Or maybe he could even lead us out ahead of that confrontation. Might encourage us to bring our story out of the fear and the shame, to make right what needs making right, and start living true. May it be so, Amen.