Biography
Gracia Grindal is a seminary professor, hymn writer and author. Formerly on the English Department faculty at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Gracia has had a distinguished career as an educator. In 1984, she was appointed Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Ministry at Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she now serves as Professor of Rhetoric. Gracia Grindal has a deep interest in the connection between theology, culture, and hymn writing, and is the author of several books on the subject, including Singing the Story. Her hymns and hymn translations are published in the hymnals of the Lutheran, Episcopal, Mennonite, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Words that Fall to the Ground" 
    "And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground."
    [I Samuel 3:19]

The story of Samuel, Judge of Israel, is one of the first stories we read to our children. The young boy brought to Eli by his grateful mother, Hannah, hearing the voice of God, but thinking at first it is Eli, the priest. Most of you remember the story, but it's fun to hear it again. Remember the boy is sleeping, and he hears his name being called. He assumes it's Eli and runs to ask what he wants. After the third calling of his name, Eli tells the young boy that it is God who is speaking to him and that the next time the voice calls to him, he should say "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth." That is the end of the story for most of us. But it goes on—God tells the young boy what he intends to do to Eli's son's because they have been flagrantly disobedient and dissolute priests. It is only with difficulty that the young boy tells Samuel what God has told him and Eli listens intently and commends the young boy. None of Samuel's words fell to the ground, Scripture tells us.

The phrase brings to mind the notion one reads in the Greek epics—Odysseus and his confreres speak with winged words. These are the words that people hear, that they pay attention to, that come to pass. Here, Samuel's words are said to be effective, meaningful, powerful because, as the story goes on to show us, they turn out to be true. God's words do not fail. And the next chapters of First Samuel show us how true the Word of the Lord which Samuel spoke was.

You may have forgotten it: it starts with a battle. Eli's sons, Hophni and Phineas, desecrate the Ark of the Covenant by bringing it with them into the battle so they will receive its magical power. This brings fear to the Philistines, but Yahweh is not amused—because of this sacrilege, the Israelites lose the battle, the Ark of the Covenant is captured and Eli's two sons die. When Eli hears the news, the Bible says, he falls over, breaks his neck and dies, because he was old and very fat.

Hophni's wife is giving birth about this time and she names the child she brings forth Ichabod because the Glory of the Lord had departed from the people. "Ichabod!" she cries, "The glory of the Lord has departed from among us."

After some time, the Philistines begin to suffer tumors and plagues of mice. They blame it on the Ark and resolve to return it to the Israelites. Choosing two young heifers, they put the Ark on a wagon and the heifers come into the land of Israel, the Word says, neither looking left nor right, bawling and creating quite a commotion. The people rejoice to see that the Ark has returned and the Levites chop up the wood of the wagon in which it was sent and burn it. At the celebration, the men who had looked on the Ark die.

Samuel who has related these events to Eli before they happened is proven to be right. His words do not fall to the ground. They speak the truth and the truth he speaks is terrible and wonderful. People listen to him, he speaks the word of the Lord.

The word of the Lord is not just about sweetness and light—it is like a fire, the Psalmist says. It melts the earth if it must, it abides forever, it creates weal and woe, it is what will never fail. Against it, who can stand? Today in our culture we are saturated by words, words that fall to the ground, and scatter about, filling the air with white sounds that mean little, or worse than that, words that deceive and betray, words that mean only whatever the speaker means and not what the hearer hears.

We are awash in words—commentators tell us what all the other words mean, until we don't even hear them anymore. Because so few people even know how to use them well, we hardly notice that the truth is missing, truth told in words well wrought, truth that points to the glory of the Lord. Because we have corrupted words, used them only to create the appearance of value or glory, we can't even speak of the losses we feel. Tornados, hurricanes, violence, suffering sweep through communities and when the microphone is thrust into the face of a victim, we hear banal chatter—no Bible verses, sentences from Shakespeare, just incoherent mutterings on the surprise and the loss. No mother names her child "The glory of the Lord has departed," Ichabod, because we can hardly feel it anymore, we have so little to say about our lives.

God comes into the selfishness and dissolution of the Sons of Eli and says, "I will not have it this way. I will not bless your wickedness. My Ark of the Covenant is not a magic totem for the spoiled priestly class to use for their own ends."

God is a jealous god, we know that, from the language of Deuteronomy. But the God of Samuel and Eli and Eli's sons is not here showing us a temper tantrum. Rather, we see here in this story what happens when people follow their own ends and not the will of the Lord, who wills that all be saved and come to the knowledge of salvation.

The life of faith is one of constantly giving our wills over to our Creator, the one who made every sacrifice, even to death on the cross so that we might have an abundant life.

If the sons of Eli had lived justly and obediently to their father and his God, life would have been different for them and their people. It is in this simple obedience that we see the glory of the Lord.

And it is usually only in the most desperate straits that we are shown the glory of the Lord, or come to see it most plainly, as though our filled hands cannot receive it—we must be empty.

Ole Rolvaag's novel, Giants in the Earth, tells the story of a pioneer woman on the edges of the frontier in the late 19th century. The bleakness of the environment, the ghastly struggle simply to survive against the elements, have finally destroyed her sanity. She is beside herself with grief and guilt for leaving her homeland, for sinning against her parents by leaving them, she is appalled by the excesses of the American life—and simply cannot endure her life. When the grasshoppers come flying out of the west and devour everything, she takes her youngest child and buries herself in the emigrant chest which is her one link with home. The Glory of the Lord seems to have departed from her life, she has nowhere to go, to flee from the terrors of her mind. After some time a pastor finds the small settlement and realizes that she needs forgiveness to heal. He ministers to her with a good sense for the situation and intends to preach a great sermon to these people struggling to keep life going. He struggles to preach on the glory of the Lord -- as he preaches, he feels his sermon seems to get worse and worse, he cannot find a way to convey to them the glory of the Lord who gave all so that we might live. Then he looks at the young mother nursing her child and remembers a story he heard some years before—in which a young emigrant mother in an effort to keep her children together, tied all nine of them to her with a rope so they could walk safely through the city and keep together. There he says, is the glory of the Lord—that if a mother could love her children so much to bind herself to them in this way, how much more did the Lord Jesus love them to give himself for them today. Here, in this simple sod house, was the glory of the Lord.

The Gospel of John paints for us a picture of the glory of the Lord which confounds all reason: the crucified Jesus. On the cross of Jesus we see the glory of the Lord revealed, which all flesh shall see, as we hear in the great oratorio of Handel, the Messiah.

This puts the cry of Ichabod in a new place. Has the glory of the Lord departed from your life? Do you think or feel that the Word of the Lord is not coming to you, that the words you try to speak of life and truth simply are falling to the ground, glancing off you like so much seed against a wall?

Do you cry, "Ichabod!" as you simply try to live through your daily life? Are the demands on your life and time beyond bearing? Can you find no refreshment for your day in what you are doing?

Let us remember who it is assuring us that Samuel's words do not fall to the ground: it is the Lord of Hosts. It is the Lord who gives his words life by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead, and it is the Lord who will give the poorest words you speak or hear, new life within you. Because the Lord is with you, your words will not fall to the ground. Do not look for it in the thunder or lightning, but in the simplest moment—all of a sudden you watch the glory of the Lord be revealed among you. Revealed because the Lord Jesus, God's word, is with you, seeking to reveal to you his great work in saving you from sin, death, and the power of the devil.

Friends, look at this glory and lift it high upon the cross. The glory of the Lord: look at it, kneel before it, and cry, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears you!"

Interview with Gracia Grindal 
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Gracia, a compelling message about Samuel that you bring to life. You say, "Do not look for the presence of the Lord in thunder or lightning, but in the simplest moment." How was that first revealed to you personally?

Gracia Grindal: That's a good question. I think it was one day when I was in the emergency room with my father and mother after they had both been in a terrible car accident. I was old enough to know better, but a pastor came in and said, "Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."

Talbot: Have you ever cried, "Ichabod!" as loudly as conveyed in the story?

Grindal:  Yes. Maybe not that loudly! I feel it right now. Life seems hum-drum. Life seems hard, difficult, and mundane. I want to see the glory of the Lord. But then I realize that it's not in the thunder or lightning, it's in the small, still voice. It's in the quietness and even in the pain and suffering.

Talbot: You say "in the simple obedience." Now pain and suffering is something you know a great deal about. Your father died not long ago. Can you tell us how he, a Lutheran pastor himself, impacted your life and what that loss means to you now?

Grindal:  As I was telling you before and I tell many people, it was a thrilling death because he taught me in his dying how a Christian faces up to the powers of darkness, death and evil. He was very badly hurt in this automobile accident and for ten years it had made him worse and worse mentally. But he gathered and summoned up his strength so that the very simplest moments became powerful illustrations of God's power in his life. For example, in his very last days, when there was a nurse who was with him through the night, all he could do was sing and point to Bible verses. In the morning the nurse said, "I have to attend to this!"

Talbot: And so a transforming moment of ministry even in his final moments.

Grindal: Yes.

Talbot: You mention words and singing. Singing the faith is something you know a lot about,
Gracia. You are a poet yourself, you have the mind of a poet, you translate hymns and music, and you are an English teacher. Tell us how all that fits together—words and music.

Grindal: They say that the one who sings a hymn prays twice: when you hear the tune and your body is involved in this response to the rhythm that comes from outside of you and then when you sing these words that have been given to you that speak now suddenly of this moment. The very last thing my father did was sing a hymn, My Song is Love Unknown, because he loved to sing, "Frail flesh, that Christ would take frail flesh to live among us." He couldn't say the words any more but because we knew the words to that song, we knew what he was telling us. "Here might I stay and sing this glory so divine." I think he thought of that beforehand. When he no longer can speak, the words will be in those tones. This was a powerful witness.

Talbot: Your work in hymnody links together the core of the faith. You are working on some very exciting things. Can you give us a glimpse?

Grindal: One of the things that I have really come to love is working with words and music in opera. I've translated a Norwegian opera about the great saint of Norwegian life, Hans Nielsen Hauge. That was an experience likened to none other when I could tell a story about the faith and a martyr for the faith. He died after being very badly treated by the Norwegian government and church, this very simple farmer who changed Norway. He gave them the strength to get up and do what needs to be done, just as Garrison Keillor says about the Norwegian bachelor farmers! They wouldn't have been able to do that without him. And to have thousands of people at this event hearing that story because the words were in a form that thrilled them and moved them even more than just words.

Talbot: Words to lift your hat to, as poet Emily Dickinson might say. In your spiritual pilgrimage, Gracia, when was the moment for you that you decided to go in this direction and ultimately convey your faith in these places?

Grindal: Those things happen little by little. One day a former teacher of mine called and said that they were working on a Lutheran Book of Worship and needed a poet on the hymn text committee. They called me to go to St. Louis. I was a young thing, about 29 years old, sitting with all of these older saints of the church. We started to put these words to the music and I understood that I had a calling. Then once I arranged a service for the kids at Luther College in which we did a Dixieland band version of some sacred music. I saw the faces of these kids in the front row and it was as though they were in another world. I said, "Lord, let me do this forever!" And, you know, I got to.

Talbot: A dream fulfilled!

Grindal: Oh, yes. And a dream I hadn't had until that moment and suddenly I felt the call that I could do this. "Let me do it, Lord. Let me do it."

Talbot: What a gift! Gracia Grindal, thank you for your authentic message and for bringing stories and faith to a new level of understanding for us.