I first felt God’s call to ministry around the age of ten. I cannot explain the reasons that I felt a pull to the ministry and I told my mother that. What would you do with a young lad who says that to a parent or a mentor? In my home and with the pastor of our church that “call” was basically ignored.

In today’s lesson, a young Samuel had been sent by his mother to live with and be mentored by Eli, the priest. Eli was nearing the end of his life and ministry. Eli had turned in for the night to his own room and Samuel was asleep in his own room.

Samuel heard his name, “Samuel, Samuel” and assumed it was Eli calling. Samuel answered, “Here I am” and ran to Eli to see why he had called him.

Eli denied it was him and told Samuel to go back to his bed. Samuel wasn’t aware that it was God calling him. But, God didn’t give up, God kept calling. The third time Samuel heard his name called. Samuel kept going to Eli, making the wrong assumption about who was speaking his name. Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy and told him if he heard his name again to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

From Samuel, we become aware that God is searching for us first. It is not us finding God, it is a matter of the many ways we tune into God’s movement toward us.

How do we become aware and respond to God’s search for us?

The story in John is the third story of Jesus’ calling his disciples. Jesus traveled to Galilee and encountered Phillip, who, being from the same hometown as Peter and Andrew, had heard about Jesus before he arrived. Jesus’ identity as the Messiah was spreading from one person to another. Jesus simply asked them to follow him and that required Philip and Nathaniel to consider who Jesus was and what he might have to offer.

Jesus calls Phillip and Nathaniel to be disciples. Phillip accepts first and encourages Nathaniel that they have found the Messiah, Jesus, who is the son of Joseph of Nazareth. Nathanial wonders if anything good can come out of mundane Nazareth?

When they meet Nathaniel asks Jesus,”Where did you get to know me?”

Jesus replied, “I saw you sitting under a fig tree.” Nathanial is called into discipleship as a result of that interaction that began with “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

This talk of fig trees and hometowns seems like a commonplace conversation and yet there is such a depth not readily apparent. Philip and Nathanial did not fully grasp who Jesus was and what they were signing up for. In this everyday encounter was hidden the remarkable depth of Jesus recognizing Philip and Nathaniel and calling them to a life of discipleship.

How do we recognize that God is calling us and how do we respond?

From these scriptures, we might learn that finding God is not one dimensional nor something we do in isolation, but we have a responsibility to others in their search for God.

We listen to God when we read the Bible. We hear God as we walk through our neighbourhood. We experience God through relationships. God meets us in a multitude of ways. When we are searching for something, like our keys or our glasses, we often miss seeing them right in the midst of our searching. If we are so focused on finding God, and we limit how we are searching for God, we often miss God’s attempt to see us under our own fig trees.

Searching for God is something that we don’t do in isolation. Eli recognized that it was God who was calling Samuel and encouraged him to respond, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Philip told Nathaniel about Jesus, it wasn’t something that they did independently of each other.

I wonder if our searching for God is so private and so self-serving that we never consider how others search for God. More importantly, what is our role in helping others search for God? Do you think we realize that a person finding faith or not may depend on what we do or say or do not do or not say? How might that inform our interactions with others?

Do we ever say anything about our faith, about our struggle with God, our questions for God, or ways that we have found God in our own narrative this week. We often think that Christian discipleship is someone else’s responsibility and that someone else must step up rather than all of us taking a unified approach to helping one another find God.

Consider hospitality or coffee hour and the number of people that it takes for scheduling, for preparation, for serving, for clean-up, for welcoming. There is an outpouring of a collective effort to make sure that coffee hour happens.

How do we expand our role of helping others so we become aware that God is searching for us first. It is not us finding God, it is a matter of the many ways we tune into God’s movement toward us. How do we become aware and respond to God’s search for us?

Searching for God and recognizing God is searching for us is not something we do independently of each other. We have a responsibility for others. How do we do that?

On a recent Sunday, a young person visited and we knew she was interested in making online videos. She wondered about the microphones and cameras around the sanctuary. Jerry took the time to explain to her how the service is recorded and enhanced on the computer screen for others to participate online. In this seemingly commonplace conversation, we might not recognize that God is present when we acknowledge another person’s needs and interests. Jerry made an imprint on this young life and showed her that she belonged in this community of faith.

How will we become aware that God is searching for us? How do we expand our role of recognizing God in one another?