Out with the Old, In with the New
1 Samuel 16:1-21
Out with the old, in with the new! This phrase is usually employed at the start of a new year. It brings to mind throngs of people in New York City’s Times Square gathered to watch the ball drop and celebrate the start of a new year. The phrase, however, is not limited to the change of the year. It might apply just as aptly to a number of other events: starting a new career, moving to a new city, or beginning a new relationship. The phrase would also be apropos on Inauguration Day. The outgoing President, along with his or her family, welcomes the incoming President to the White House. Then the former President vacates the premises for the new occupant.

The phrase also summarizes the thrust of this morning’s reading from First Samuel. In order to grasp this, we must set First Samuel 3 in the context of the Book of Judges. Judges is perhaps the most disturbing book in all of holy scripture. The age of patriarchs and matriarchs is long past. The forty years of wandering in the wilderness are ended. Moses and Joshua have long since died. The conquest of Canaan is largely complete. Israel is settled into the promised land. However, it was a time of terrible religious corruption, violence, and immorality. A few examples will suffice.

A thieving Ephraimite named Micah steals his mother’s silver, uses part of it to cast an idol, establishes an alternate system of worship, and installs a Levite as the priest of his shrine (Judges 17). The Danites steal Micah’s idol and priest, take over a peaceful town by putting its inhabitants to the sword, and adopt Micah’s religion as their own. The all-night gang rape and abuse of a woman by some Benjaminite men leads to a civil war in Israel that nearly wipes out the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 19-20). The other tribes preserve Benjamin, but they do so by abducting some four hundred women to provide new brides for the survivors of Benjamin (Judges 21).

The Book of Judges summarizes the times with the recurrent statement, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6).

The priestly house of Eli, who presided over the tabernacle in Shiloh, was part of this corruption too. First Samuel tells us that the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were scoundrels who had no regard for the LORD (1 Sam. 2:12). They treated the offerings of the LORD with contempt by taking the best portions of the offerings for themselves (1 Sam. 2:17). If that were not bad enough, they had unlawful relations with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting (1 Sam. 2:22).

As a result, the word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread (1 Sam. 3:1). The nation was falling apart. The system of judges had failed miserably. Things could not get much worse. Could the nation survive? What did the future hold for Israel?

It struck me that Israel’s predicament is somewhat akin to our own times. We are facing multiple challenges as a nation. The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan has tarnished our international standing with our allies and demoralized our armed forces. China is on the rise, threatening to displace us as the world’s leading superpower. Just this weekend they launched a hypersonic missile that travels at over twenty-two thousand miles an hour. From its orbit in space, the missile is capable of striking any target with a nuclear warhead within minutes, and it cannot be defended against. Our intelligence communities were caught totally off guard by this technological and military advancement. Our southern border is being invaded by hundreds of thousands of migrants from all over the world hoping for a better life for themselves and their children. Our supply chain is failing. Inflation is spiking. The cost of food, gas, and housing is skyrocketing. Our great cities are defunding the police, and violent crime is rampant in them. Large numbers of parents are outraged about the content of their children’s education, masks, and vaccinations. The malevolent influence of social media is dividing our society and damaging our youth. The rise of noxious new ideologies is threatening our institutions and capitalist economy. The country’s leaders are at each other’s throats. Government spending is out of control. The pandemic continues to sicken and kill thousands of our fellow citizens. There is growing conflict about vaccine mandates.

Beyond these particulars, there is widespread moral decay in our society, religious pluralism and relativism, political incompetence by both Democrat and Republic leaders, and a general sense that we are headed in the wrong direction. Things could certainly be worse, but they are pretty bad already. How will our nation survive going forward? What does the future hold for us as a people?

This is where our text from First Samuel brings hope for a new beginning. Out with the old and in with the new! Before there could be a new beginning for Israel, the old, corrupt system had to be reformed and replaced. Samuel was the key. He was just a boy in our passage. His mother, Hanna, had devoted him to the LORD’s service in Shiloh under the tutelage of Eli. The text tells us that Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and word of the LORD had not been revealed to him yet (1 Sam. 3:7) When the LORD called to him, “Samuel, Samuel," the boy thought Eli was summoning him. This happened three times in one night.

Eli was old, and his spiritual senses were dulled, just as his eyesight had begun to grow dim. However, Eli eventually realized the LORD was calling Samuel. Eli instructed the boy how to respond if the LORD called to him again. This time when God called to Samuel, he answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10).

Mind you, this was the very first message Samuel had received from God. It was a hard, abrasive, and devastating word. “Then the Lord said to Samuel, 'Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever'” (1 Sam. 3:11-14). The message was so harsh, Eli was forced to threaten Samuel in order to learn the LORD’s word. And Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you” (1 Sam. 3:17).

It was a tragic word for Eli and his house. Eli knew the day was coming because the LORD had previously revealed it to him by a prophetic word (1Sam. 2:27-36). In this case the sins of the children were visited on the fathers. Despite his wicked offspring, Eli was a model of piety and submission to the will of God. In response to the LORD’s message, delivered by Samuel, Eli says, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him” (1 Sam. 3:18). This is remarkable. People in power do not yield it willingly. Instead, they seek to silence or eliminate their opposition. Samuel was only a boy. It would have been easy for Eli to dispose of him, but Eli, despite his family’s failings, was a true follower of Yahweh. And so, the old order ended, and new era was ushered in.

God had promised, “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever” (1 Sam. 2:35). Samuel served Israel as a judge, military leader, seer, and priest. He anointed King Saul and King David. Samuel became a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.

Samuel was a partial fulfillment of Moses’ oracle in Deut. 18:15. “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” Jesus Christ was and is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise through Moses. Unlike Eli and his wicked sons, Jesus endured God’s judgment. He did so to pay the price for our transgressions. He offered up his perfect, sinless life to atone for the sins of the world. Like Samuel, Jesus was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD. but his was much, much more.

In his first coming, Jesus was the Word of the LORD incarnate. He revealed God’s more perfect way of love and began to usher in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus will come again to create new heavens and a new earth where God’s righteousness is perfectly at home. We are living in the in-between-time, the time between Jesus’ first advent and his return.

In this interim period, the LORD is continually doing a new thing. Despite the current amorality, violence, and corruption, God has the power to usher in a fresh start for us as individuals and families, as well as a nation. As one commentator wrote, “A young boy can receive a vision, an old man can embrace a relinquishment, a surprised mother (Hannah) can sing for joy, the ears of the conventional can tingle, and life begins again.”

We can catch God’s vision of new beginnings, let go of the old corrupt ways, and begin again. While our ultimate hope is in Christ’s return, we can and must seek a fresh start as a people. God works through human leaders in this in-between-time. God can yet raise up new Samuels in our day. Human leaders are always flawed. Samuel was certainly not perfect, but that does not mean that all leaders are equal. Some are much better or worse than others. We desperately need new leadership in our country.

So let us begin to pray earnestly, “Out with the old, and in with the new!” We can pray with the prophet Habakkuk, “O LORD, I have heard of thy speech, and was afraid. O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2). We desperately need God to pour out his Spirit afresh on our nation so that our young people can dream dreams and our old folks can see new visions. We must learn again to love what is good and hate what is evil.

Like ancient Israel, let us watch in hope for the giving of a new start. Let us allow our dream from God to override the sordid realities which the old order has disastrously brought upon us. Let us live faithfully in our time and do our small parts to reform our society. Above all, let us hope in God, for He is the one who says even today, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isa. 43:19).

So, out with the old and in with the new! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Amen.