Rev. George Miller
October 12, 2025
1 Samuel 3:1-11
Legos are a perfect way to teach about
faith- faith in the process, faith in God, faith in yourself.
In the beginning of any Lego project you
have this group of stuff- messy, unorganized, multi-color, multi-shape,
multi-purpose.
There they are. Looking at you while you’re looking at it.
Either your thought is “What to create?”
Or “How do I turn all this into the photo on the box?”
Then…you just do. You gather, you use wisdom, intuition,
logic. Piece by piece you snap snap snap.
Sometimes you hit a roadblock or a dead
end; things get frustrating. You may
want to give up.
Or you give yourself the OK to walk away
and come back later with fresh eyes and new energy.
Sometimes, there is a piece missing. So you make do or find a way to overcome the
obstacle.
But if you are a faithful Lego connoisseur,
no matter the mess, the chaos, the missing pieces…you just keep building.
You snap into place, arrange, you may even
invite others to be part of the process.
You just keep building.
Eventually- finalamente- there it is;
there you are! It is finished and your
Lego creation is beautiful, because you had faith in the process, faith
in yourself, and perhaps even faith in God.
And to think it all started from a mess of
colors, forms, and stuff.
Many ways, this is what Genesis 1 is all
about – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth
was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind
from God swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said ‘Let there be light;’ and there was light.”
So much of the Bible is a retelling of that
creation story, just with people and families facing voids and darkness in
which nothing seems possible.
Genesis 28, with nothing but a rock as a
pillow, Jacob has a dream that assures him God is there.
Exodus 16, the Israelites are hungry and incredibly
angry. God hears them, acts, and blesses
them with daily bread.
The story of Ruth and Naomi, in which they
face death, famine, and no child to carry on their legacy. Somehow, through smarts, logic, and faith in
God, they find a way to survive, thrive, and bring new life into the world.
Throughout the Bible we find a lineage of
hope that says “Even though things seem messy, even though things look like
they make no sense, through our faith in God, by our actions and intellect, we
can make it through.”
This lineage of hope is seen in Sarah, Abraham,
Jacob, and Ruth.
We see it today.
Life has not been great for the Israelites. They have forgotten who they are, ignoring
the instructions from God.
Their religious leaders are too busy stealing
from the offering and having sex in the doorways to do what God has asked of
them.
So times are dark; they feel hopeless; and
they are under constant threat of their enemies coming to attack them.
In this dark time is a woman of extreme
faith named Hannah. She is the second wife of a man who seems to be absolutely
clueless about everything.
She has no child, no son, which means she
has no one to care for her if her husband dies.
Instead of being passive and idle, Hannah
does what she thinks is best- goes to the House of the Lord and prays. She is honest about her feelings of vexation
and anxiety.
Eventually, she gives birth to a boy named
Samuel. In thanksgiving, she raises him
in the faith, having him live in God’s house.
In chapter 2, Hannah offers a prayer to
God that sounds like a mighty warrior, speaking of God as a rock, as knowledge,
who strengthens the weak, exalts the poor, and guards the faithful.
From Hannah’s actions to her prayers and powerful
words, she is a woman of faith.
Years pass. Things have gotten worse for Isreal. At any moment, the Philistines are going to
attack. The priests are still stealing
and fooling-around with parishioners.
It’s as if everything is dark, messy, and could
end at any moment.
But as chapter 3, verse 3 says “The lamp
of God has not gone out yet.”
There’s still hope. There’s still the possibility that the Lego
set will not come undone.
The light of God is still there, even if
it’s just a flicker, even if everyone else has abandoned it.
And that light of God, that still small
voice, calls out to Hannah’s child Samuel, and says “See, I am about to do something…that
will make both ears of anyone who hears of it to tingle.”
God is not done.
God sees the mess of human created,
ego-driven, unethical, behavior that is all over the place.
Instead of walking away or giving up, God
says “I’m going to take these fallen Lego parts, and we are going to put them
back together.”
Notice these words are not spoken to the
priests or local leaders, but to a boy, a child, someone who like Hagar, Ruth,
and Naomi, is among the most vulnerable and unseen.
Into chaos God speaks, and God does what
it takes to resecure the foundation on which they stand.
It takes a boy raised in great faith by a Mom
who knew what it was like to stand upon the Lord.
Samuel comes from a lineage of hope; a
family that had a great faith that they passed down.
A thought- is hope, is faith, something
that can be inherited?
If we are born inheriting our parents’
eyes, hair, skin tone, can we also inherit their faith; their hope; their trust
in the Lord?
If we learn how to act, how to live by
observing our parents and elders, can we also learn from them our faith?
And if we do, what kind of faith is it? Is it the kind that sees the Legos on the
floor and gives up?
Or the faith that sees the pile and says “Let’s
work together and see what we can do.”
Maybe it’s because of his mother Hannah,
that Samuel had the opportunity to hear the Lord when darkness seemed so permanent.
Maybe it’s because of Ruth and Naomi that Hannah
had trust in the Lord.
Maybe it’s because of the stories about
bread from heaven that Ruth knew they could keep going.
Throughout the Bible we see this lineage
of hope, this heritage of faith, which says-
“Even when things are messy; even when
times are dark, God still sees, still hears, and God still acts.”
Perhaps this week we can think of all we
face, and is going on as Legos on the floor waiting to be assembled.
With that image, we can move together to
not live in unproductive fear or frozen doubt, but to find ways to move, to be.
To rely upon the faith that has been
passed down to us from generation after generation.
Faith in the process, faith in God, even faith
in yourself.
You just keep building, until your time to
build is no more.
Amen.
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