We are told that visions were not widespread.

But the very choice of language, and the unfolding story of Samuel's call, makes clear that God was still speaking.

This raises the question of whether or not the people were really prepared to hear from God.

One has to wonder how many times God may have called to others in the middle of the night, only to be brushed off as a figment of imagination, or the stuff of dreams. Then again perhaps the challenge of the word of God was too much for some to contemplate delivering.

What a long walk it is from the cool of the evening in the garden of Eden to the dark night of Eli's temple.

What a lonely and terrible distance we human beings can create when we follow our own ways too much and listen to our God too little.

Things looked gloomy and grim in Israel,
and Eli had neither energy nor vision.
But the lamp of God had not yet gone out.
The voice of God was not silent.
Samuel heard his name in the middle of the night, and finally, with Eli's help, recognized, on the third try, that it was God who was speaking to him.

It was not an easy thing to hear the words that God spoke
It must have been even harder to repeat them in the morning.
Eli had raised Samuel, and now Samuel had some very difficult words to deliver to Eli. The word of God does not always bring comfort, but the vocation of the messenger is to deliver the message.
Samuel was a prophet
and prophets are to speak the word of God -
no easy task at any age, but Samuel was only a boy.

I remember when I was a boy.
It was a time of doubt in much of America.
Reason was held to be of higher value than faith.
It was not popular to speak about belief in God.

I don't remember anyone even talking about the idea of visions, much less the possibility of having them.

The word of God was rare in the days of my youth, too.
I am sure that it was being presented, somewhere, but I wasn't present to hear it.
And no one I knew was listening, either.
Our eyes were not on God. We were watching Ed Sullivan or the nightly news.
It was a time when television was still young but gaining in power.

It was a time when America's vision of itself was presented in black and white. The screen was small, but it was a window through which the whole world could end up in your living room.

And so it was that one day I turned the set on
and saw the marble buildings of Washington,
a gray sea of faces, and a black man standing on the white stairs;
and I heard him shout: "I have a dream!"

In that moment I saw a messenger in action.

He painted the vision of how things were and how they might be. He did not shy from exposing the worst that was in us, or from proclaiming the best of which we were capable.

When he invoked the name of God, something inside me believed that he knew something important, which I could not yet even name. When he handed down the sentence which held his hope for the future, I stood riveted and I wept. I was fifteen, then, but those words still hang in the air, for me, after all these years.

I have the language and experience, now, to say that the word of God was spoken from the steps that day. I believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet in our time, and I believe that the work he began is not yet finished.

In the years that have passed since Dr. King was assassinated, technology has marched on. Televisions are as large as freezers used to be. Hundreds of channels present images in vibrant color.

We do not have segregated water fountains, or restaurants that say "whites only." Many things have changed for the better. But some things have not. No matter how we might attempt to adjust our television sets, we still see far too many pictures in black and white.

No matter what race we may be, we still fall prey to emulating Eli's energy and eyesight rather than choosing to embrace, with vigor, the vision that was King's.

What a lonely and terrible distance we human beings have allowed to remain between us.

What a long walk it is from the steps of our capitol to the Kingdom of God. I still hear with wrenching irony that portion of our pledge of allegiance that proclaims, "with liberty and justice for all;" for these words are not yet true. I still weep with longing when I hear King¹s words of hope;

for these words are not yet fulfilled

This is not Old Testament Israel, and time has moved on from the 1960's. But we still need to be open to the uncomfortable word of the Lord and the disturbing visions which God may send in these days.

It is good that we have decided to remember Martin Luther King, Jr.

by establishing a national holiday.

Remembering the man may provoke us to continue the work.

God means for all of God's children to find life, love and the light of truth.
No one is to be held down or held back.
We are to encourage and support one another.
We each have work to do ­work in the world and work in ourselves.
Continued enmity and estrangement among races keeps us all in bondage.
Racism hobbles us and slows our collective progress. We need to be rid of it.
We have many more miles to go before we reach the New Jerusalem.

But even if the way of change is an uphill journey, it will be worth walking.

I long to arrive at a different set of stairs, to hear the familiar messenger once again.

But on that day I hope to hear every voice present join, with his, in a triumphal chorus:

"Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I'm free at last"