Narrative Sermon: Could My Kids Really Do This?

Could they really be doing this? Eli had two sons, Hophni and Phineas, not very common names today. Like many of us, his sons grew up in church. They went to Sunday school, worship services, and all of the potlucks! The boys played football and basketball with a bunch of friends from the neighborhood. Of course, things were a little different because their dad was the pastor, priest in the Old Testament. You know what they say about preachers’ kids.

Unfortunately, Hophni and Phineas could not stay young forever, like we, parents, wish they would. We could correct and care for them when they were little, but the boys grew into young men and began to serve alongside their aging father in the church. They handled much of the ministry because their father’s eyes were growing dim. He needed their assistance.

What went wrong? Eli started hearing rumors from people. When he would walk up to a group talking, they would suddenly stop talking or suspiciously start a new discussion. The rumors persisted — until Eli finally heard that his boys were stealing offerings and seducing the young women who came to serve at the church, and that was just the beginning! Great! Another sex scandal in the church!

His boys are good-for-nothing and ignorant of God (1 Samuel 2:1)! How can this be? Eli feels a sense of shock and betrayal. He asks himself and God, like many of us would, “Where did I go wrong?” He assures himself, “Train up your child in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Surely there’s hope! His heart breaks over his boys. He cries out to God over them.

Eli tearfully confronts them (1 Samuel 2:25)! He tells them what he’s hearing and warns them, “It is not a good report that I hear spreading among the LORD’s people. If a man sins against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?” It doesn’t go well. Eli’s warning was right on the money! Without God to mediate for us, what would any of us do?

How did they respond? When Samuel, if it was him, wrote down this story, he adds, “His sons, however, did not listen to their father’s rebuke, for it was the LORD’s will to them to death” (1 Samuel 2:25). In the Hebrew view, God is sovereign over all things, including Eli’s sons ignoring their father’s rebuke, but this does not negate personal responsibility for one’s decisions. You might ask, “HOW?” And an honest man would have to answer, “I don’t rightly know.”

So, they ignore their “old man”. He’s just out of touch with the way things are — If you want something, you have to take it. Otherwise, you won’t get anything in this life. They decide that they can’t live without things, like they did growing up. I mean, just because they are pastors doesn’t mean that they should go without the pleasures of life: food, wine, and women. They deny themselves nothing. Afterall, young men sow their wild oats. Right?

Hophni and Phineas are causing more problems than they realize. They dishonor the LORD and disrupt God’s community. They’ve gone too far! Eli attempts to comfort himself, “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). Eli hopes, “Maybe, it will all work out for us! God is patient and loving. He wants us to repent and return to him (2 Peter 3:9). Yet, God has determined that he will judge them, and they will die (1 Samuel 2:25). It doesn’t sound like the God that we think we know? Does it?

It only gets worse! Not only will his sons die, but Eli too will perish because of them (1 Samuel 3:13). Could Eli have done more to stop them? The only one who could truly know the answer to that question is God. God alone knows what “could have” been done. AND, God says, “Yes, Eli could have stopped them.” God holds Eli responsible for his sons because he did not do more to restrain them. The senior pastor could not fire his own sons –

How can this story have a happy ending? Some stories, like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, are tragedies. Tragedies just don’t end right! Do they? This one may well be a tragedy. At this point, our story is bleak, dark, and if it ends here, utterly depressing! Yet, we love happy endings! As Christians, we believe that ultimately there will be a happy ending because God will make everything right.

What about for Eli and his sons? Could there be a happy ending for them? I would love to tell you that his sons repented, God forgave them, and they served Him faithfully for the duration of their lives, but unfortunately, some stories do not end that way. Some are tragedies. God does use the Philistine army and the news of the loss of the Ark of the Covenant to kill Eli and his sons (1 Samuel 4).

Yet, even in the darkness, a small light did appear. In the midst of God’s judgment, a flicker of redemption for Eli and Israel appears. Before God brings his judgment against Eli and his sons, God sends Eli another son, born by a miracle of God, but not born of Eli’s flesh, yet his son none-the-less. His name is Samuel. Hannah, Samuel’s mother, pledges Samuel to God if God will give her a child (1 Samuel 1:11). Once Samuel is weaned, she brings him to Eli to raise him.

In his old age, Eli takes Samuel and raises him as his own son (1 Samuel 1:24-28). He didn’t make the mistakes with Samuel that he made with his flesh-and-blood boys. Samuel came to know God. Through Samuel, the Word of the Lord will return to Israel (1 Samuel 3), and he will faithfully serve Israel his entire life (1 Samuel 12). God’s honor and people will be restored through Samuel.

Just as God sent Eli another son, who would faithfully serve God and restore Israel, he sends us a son as well, his only son, Jesus Christ, to restore our lives and families, and to form his people (John 3:16). We pray for our children and trust that God will work everything out, but the only real redemption that we may experience in this life is our own redemption in the Son that God sends to us and works after us. God sent his Son to restore His honor and His people on earth.

Sometimes, our children, like the Prodigal Son, will realize their sin against God and against us. God shows patience with them and allows them time to repent, and so should we. They return to Christ, his church, and their Christian upbringing. The joyful parents, God and us, welcome them home again. We rejoice over their return! We throw a big welcome home party for them!

Other times, God works all things together for good in a different way, than what we wanted. Eli and his corrupt sons die, but Samuel lives and faithfully serves God and Israel for many years. God allows Eli to have a part in bringing up Samuel to become a priest and prophet, who is a faithful servant and restores his people.

Things do not always happen exactly the way that we would have wanted, but God works through them, instead of through us, or our children. Ultimately, good is accomplished, but it is on a larger scale; corporate, not personal. Our hope for redemption and restoration is for the larger group.

Sources:

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version.

Lowry, Eugene. The Homiletical Plot: the Sermon as Narrative Art Form (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001).

Lowry, Eugene. Website: http://www.eugenelowry.com/


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