You know, I love that Old Testament passage that we first heard, and not only is it a wonderful Old Testament scene but it has a message and a lesson for each of us. It starts with young Samuel. Now Samuel turned out to be one of the most important preachers in the history of Israel and one of the most powerful political “shakers and movers” in Ancient Israel. But when we hear that scene he is just a young boy and it says he’s in a temple. He’s not in a temple he’s at a roadside shrine and he begins to have a religious experience which he has never had before and he doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he goes to his teacher and keeps asking questions and saying “Here I am what you want?” And the teacher finally catches on and says, “Just shut up and listen.”

Then he goes into a religious experience and what he says is a message and a lesson for all of us. He says, “Speak Lord, your Servant is listening. Speak Lord, your Servant is listening.” Isn’t it true most of us when we say our prayers we say, listen Lord, your Servant is speaking? We do just the opposite. We’re called to be listeners and learners willing to grow, willing to change, and that has to be true of our whole life whatever our age. The Gospel scene is similar and the Gospel scene also has a message and a lesson for all of us. The Gospel scene shows three followers of John the Baptist, three disciples following Christ and they follow Jesus and Jesus turns around and says, “What do you want?” And they say, “We want to stay with you.” And they spend the whole day with Him. They spend time with Him.

Now the three people are Simon Peter, who will later on deny Jesus three times. Andrew, who is Simon’s brother, who goes to Peter and tells him about Jesus and brings him to Jesus. And the third one is anonymous. We never have his name but we can figure out who it is. I mean obviously it was a witness who was there, who’s telling the story later on like a Gospel teller, a Gospel writer. So we got a pretty good guess who it is. And all three of them are willing to listen to Jesus to learn and to change and that is a good thing. That is a good thing. Not just for these three but for the whole twelve Apostles. What a motley crew. What a hopeless crew Jesus gathered around him. Kind of like the rest of us. What a motley crew but they need to listen and be willing to learn and to change. I’m going to go through all twelve Apostles because some day you may be on Jeopardy (laughter) or worse yet on something easier like “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader” and I’m going to go through all twelve Apostles. I have notes so it’s easy for me. Can I name all twelve?

First of all, there are three sets of brothers, so that takes care of six of them right there. The first set of brothers is Peter, who along the way Jesus gets upset with him and calls him Satan. “Get behind me you Satan.” Then there was his brother Andrew. Andrew shows up three times in the Gospel. Once when he brings Peter to Jesus; once when he brings the little boy with the loaves and fishes to Jesus; and once when he brings three Greek-speaking Jewish people to Jesus. He sounds to me like a used car salesman who’s out recruiting all the time or really gossiping. But those are the first two brothers.

The second are James and John. James and John we know are quick tempered and hot headed. In fact, their nickname are “Thunder Guns” or “Sons of Thunder”.

And then the third set of brothers are James, the Younger of the James’s. There’s a couple of James, not Jessie. James the Younger and Jude. And the Bible tells us absolutely nothing about them whatsoever. That’s a hint how great they were, or if they were like the others it’s a good thing we didn’t hear more about them. Cause what are the others? That’s the first six.

Then we have Thomas who went down in history as Doubting Thomas, Thomas the Doubter. We have Philip who goes and recruits Nathanial and brings Nathanial to Jesus and Nathanial immediately insults Jesus. He says, “What good can come out of Nazareth?” And Jesus says “You're naïve, you're just naïve.” And then we have Matthew who is a quisling, a turncoat, a tax collector and then we have Simon the Zealot. Now that translates to the terrorists. Simon the Terrorist. And then we have Judas Iscariot. What a motley crew. And yet all of them with the exception of Judas Iscariot listen and learn and grow and change and they make a difference for the whole world. That’s what we are called to do too, to listen, to learn, to grow, to change, and to make a difference in the world.

I’ll give you another example. You probably know this story. It happened about 100 years ago, closer to 110 years ago. There was a very famous man who had made a huge fortune developing weapons of mass destruction. And one morning he got up and opened the newspaper and there had been a mistake, there he found published his obituary and he got to read his obituary which began by saying, “Dynamite King Dies”. And reading about himself again and again they referred to him as a merchant of death. That he had brought death more quickly and by larger numbers to more people than ever before in the history of the world. That changed him totally. He learned and he devoted the rest of his energy and his fortune and his life for works of peace and human betterment. And we think of him now not as a merchant of death but as Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, we can all listen, learn, change and make a difference. But here’s the secret, here’s the secret, you gotta do it before they publish your obituary. Amen.

rjs