Please read this passage before reading this homily.
This passage starts out telling us that revelations from the Lord were uncommon and infrequent. How sad. When we enjoy people’s company, we speak to them and spend time with them. It seems that something was wrong with our relations with God for God to stop communicating with us.
Next, we have an engaging story of how God called Samuel three times before Eli and Samuel conclude that perhaps God might be calling the boy. The relationship has begun to warm: we are told that Samuel listened to the Lord and held God’s with the deepest respect. Samuel, the servant, would listen to the Lord and allow God’s word to be effective in his life.
The rest of the books of Samuel will show how God continually spoke to God’s people even when they did not listen.
The books of Samuel bridge a gap between the time of the judges and the time when the kingship was firmly established in the land.
Hannah, who would be the mother of Samuel, had suffered much abuse for not being able to have children. When she has Samuel, in her gratitude to God, she dedicated him to the Lord and left him in the custody of the priests in the Lord’s sanctuary. Samuel grew up and never allowed God’s word to be walked over: he treated the word of God with great reverence.
This pattern of mother begging for a child, receiving the child and the growth of the child is repeated in the life-history of the Israelites. They wanted a king; they received a king, and, with David, they had a faithful king. The books of Samuel end with the end of David’s reign; the books of the Kings describe the eventual infidelity of the kings and the end of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
For us, the schematic also works. We want, we get, and we react. Hanna conceived a son who would lead God’s people into the age of kings; the people welcome the kings, but both kings and people turned away from the Lord. What do we want out of life? What are we going to do when we receive what we wanted? How faithful will we be with what we have? We are called be Hannah-Samuel, not kings and kingdoms.