Here is where it happens. Where is here? Here is right here, among us. Here is the community of faith, and every local congregation, large or small, is a visible manifestation of that community. The gathered community of faith is the port of entry for the initiatives of God. That is the it, the initiative of God. Does saying that place too high an estimation upon the local congregation?

If your answer is yes, then think about this. The storytellers of the Bible preface pivotal events with scenes that are domestic, institutional and familiar to all of us. What can be more familiar to us than hearth and altar, family and local church? Here is where each of us begins our pilgrimage with God from baptism to confirmation to mission and discipleship. Here is where faith is nurtured and sustained week after week after week. Here is where the lamp of God is tended, however faintly at times it seems to burn. Do not devalue the family and the local congregation, our extended family in Christ. As ordinary as home and shrine may appear, they are vital centers in the Divine/human encounter and dialogue.

Isn't that the sort of thing Luke was saying in his infancy narratives that focus on a fragile little family and wider community of faith and tradition represented by Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, and the teachers in the Temple? Try to tell Luke that hearth and altar are not vital centers where Divine initiatives happen, initiatives that will impact the future.

Recall today's first reading in which we meet the child Samuel serving in the shrine at Shiloh. In fact, some day take the time to compare the first two chapters of Luke's gospel with the first three chapters of 1 Samuel. Note the similarity of focus of hearth and altar, family and institution. Only in the first three chapters of 1 Samuel it is not Mary and Joseph that we meet, but Hannah and Elkanah. Hannah, like Mary, receives a child from God. Hannah, like Mary, sings in exultation. Eli received Samuel in the shrine as Simeon did Jesus. Think of the twelve-year-old Jesus among the teachers in the Temple and Samuel under the tutelage of Eli. The similarities in the narratives are striking. And both narratives stand as prefaces to pivotal events. The story of Samuel's birth prefaces the history of the birth of a nation in which Samuel was a key actor. Luke's infancy narrative prefaces the birth of a new humanity in and through the ministry of Jesus.

In both narratives the bottom line for us is the community of faith as the port of entry for Divine initiatives. What we need to hear is a word about the importance of our trusteeship of the faith tradition in the institutional church, and the vital center of the church as institution is the local congregation. It is in the local church in a local community that the rubber hits the road.

It seems preposterous, doesn't it, to think that in this world filled with shadows and uncertainties, sound and fury, that what goes on in our little church circles can have any impact. We even have trouble believing that what goes on within our little congregations with all their imperfections can have any significant national influence. In a way we can sometimes be like Eli, sort of pooped out and unexpectant. We are told about things in general then that "the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread." The writer's comment about the failing eyesight of Eli is a way of saying that the spiritual bank was pretty much bankrupt.

But here's the writer's point: even in this faith community where the light of faith was waning, it was still flickering. The ever-creating God was about to bring something new into being. This is really a creation story. This isn't an Horatio Alger story about a boy who becomes a successful man. This story is a testimony to the God who calls us into existence and calls to us to enlist us in his service. He makes the barren rejoice and calls into being the things that are not. This story is a reminder to us of the God who calls us into being and in and through our life together calls to us. This is the real drama of life and history. This story was put in its final shape and circulated three centuries after the birth of Samuel. It was written up in a day when the institutions of Israel had lost their credibility. The kings, captains, and priests had made a mess of the heritage bequeathed to them. Disenchantment was in the air. This story proclaims the possibilities of God even in the worst of times.

The story functions also as a critique. The call of God and his claim upon our hearts, mind, and conscience: these are the essentials for a tomorrow of God's own making. Soul, conscience, Spirit, the call of God: these are the raw materials for a tomorrow that has a chance of being something more than the repetition of the same old thing, a tomorrow of God's own making.

I turn at this point to the young people in our midst. This season of the year is also graduation time. We recognize our high school and college seniors who are graduating. We make plans for church school Sunday, distribute Bibles, and present awards. Your years of formal schooling have sought to equip you with skills for tomorrow. And how important that is for you in a world undergoing rapid technological change. But how crucial to that world of tomorrow are the values, loyalties, and convictions that will guide your life. This is where church comes in.

I think here of a story about an old street-wise New York cat who managed to survive in the area around Columbus Circle. He was a veteran alley cat. One day a mouse escaped his claws and hid in a storm drain just under the curb of the sidewalk. The mouse was trembling but remained quiet, knowing the cat was probably waiting for him to exit. Suddenly the mouse heard a horrendous meow followed by an equally dreadful bark. Then there was silence. "Ha, ha," thought the mouse, "that old cat has finally had his comeuppance." After a few minutes, as the mouse cautiously inched forward out of the storm drain, a mean-looking paw suddenly grabbed him. As the cat held him and looked him in the eye, the mouse said, "I thought I heard a dog bark." "You did," said the cat, "but in order to survive in New York you've got to be bilingual!"

Dear friends, young and old and in between, the cat has the right of it. We've got to be bilingual to survive in the fullest and truest sense. We need the vocabulary of this world. We need also the words of the Spirit that warm the heart, inform the conscience, and enlighten the mind. We need the teaching that makes us smart. We need the Word from beyond that makes us wise. We need the skills that help us set up ledgers and accounts. We need also our faith tradition that calls us to be accountable. We need to know more than computer jargon and be familiar with more than the internet. What about the eternity network? Didn't Peter sense this in his own way when he exclaimed, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

I recall my own first days on the college campus. I remember sitting down with my assigned faculty advisor to discuss the choice of an elective course. I thought I would like to take an introductory course on New Testament studies. He shrugged and commented, "It might have some cultural value, but it would have no practical value." Then he went on to share these comments: "It's all a matter of the range of choices you want open to you in later life. Do you, for example, want to be in the position of having to choose between attending a concert or going to a ball game in any one week, or do you want to have enough money in order to do both? In other words, do you want enough money to extend your range of options?" There it was, a vision of tomorrow in terms of what this world has to offer. I confess to heeding his counsel and replaced the proposed elective with another.

But this was wartime and soon I was in the army. I suppose it was being exposed firsthand to the ruin and carnage that humans can inflict on one another that made me doubt my hasty assent to the pronouncement that the story of the man named Jesus had no practical value. In every direction one looked there was the cross. Maybe I was one of the blind being counseled and led by the blind.

So the doubt was sown and it was a good doubt. What happens in us and in our world when the transcendent claim of God goes into eclipse? What happens when intelligence is no longer informed by conscience? What happens when human relations are void of redemptive compassion -- when life choices are based on inadequate definitions of what it means to be a man or a woman? Some doubts are good doubts.

Think again about the community of faith and those who in its midst have been birthed to go forth and make a difference on small stages and large stages. This where we hear God calling to us, calling us by name. This is where it happens -- if we let it happen. Let these words from today's reading form our prayer, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."