When I was in seminary, a classmate shared a story in our Ministry of Writing class. The prompt had something to do with the complexity of people or hard lessons we’ve had to learn. I’ve long-since forgotten what I wrote that day, but my classmate’s story has stuck with me for nearly a decade.

She shared about a grandmotherly figure in her home church who was adored by everyone. She was always ready to volunteer for children’s ministry (and would often give the kids a butterscotch candy from her purse). She always baked things for the bake sale and was incredibly supportive of the church as a whole. She taught through her actions what showing compassion in the church could look like and many learned from her example.

But when a Black family joined the church, she left in protest. So far as I know, the church simply let her do so. My classmate shared how, as a teenager at the time, that rattled her faith. How could someone she learned so much good from hold such hatred in her heart? How could someone so important to the community disappear overnight? Absolutely, we should have clear boundaries when it comes to people who cause harm, and racism is harm, full stop. Is it possible to stay in relationship with them in the hopes to foster change?

Perhaps scripture can provide some insight. This week, the Narrative Lectionary (which guides our worship services at Williamsburg Baptist Church) has given us the story of the calling of Samuel, found in 1 Samuel 3.

Young Samuel is asleep when God calls his name. He thinks that it’s his mentor Eli, so he goes into Eli’s room and says, “Here I am!” Eli tells Samuel that he did not call for Samuel and to go back to sleep. This happens three times before Eli realizes what’s going on. He tells Samuel to respond directly to God next time and to listen to whatever God tells him. The next time God calls, Samuel responds with “Speak. Your servant is listening.”

The Rev. Kali Cawthon-Freels

Most sermons (especially children’s sermons) stop there because that gives us a nice, tidy ending to a story about how God calls all of us. But as we know, life so rarely gives us such tidy endings. The part of the story that often gets left out is what God tells Samuel once God has Samuel’s attention.

“… I will bring to pass against Eli everything I said about his household — every last bit of it! I told him that I would punish his family forever because of the wrongdoing he knew about — how his sons were cursing God, but he wouldn’t stop them.” (1 Samuel 3:12b-13, CEB).

That’s a pretty harsh first message from God if you ask me.

Because we focus so much on Samuel’s call story, we overlook Eli. He had been a priest for a long time. Well before Samuel was born, his mother Hannah came to Eli for prayers for a son whom she’d dedicate to serve in the temple (that son turned out to be Samuel). Eli had sons of his own — and they were less-than-stellar humans. They stole meat from the temple sacrifices and took advantage of the women who served at the sanctuary entrance. Eli was aware of their abuse against both the worshipers and the worship of God and did not intervene. He allowed them to continue causing harm, enabling that harm himself.

Here we see a man who teaches Samuel the importance of listening to God when God calls; this is a good and helpful lesson. But we also see a man who perpetuates suffering by not confronting his sons. What are we to do with this tension?

We all have people in our lives like my classmate’s former co-congregant or even Eli. We have loved people who have both modeled for us compassionate ways of being in the world while also modeling ways of harm, discrimination and injustice. How do we relate with people such as these, especially in a world rife with cancel culture?

Too often, we swing to opposite extremes: either ignoring people’s behavior or cutting them out completely because of it. I wonder what it might look like for us to instead build a culture of compassionate accountability. How could my classmate’s church have been transformed if other members lovingly confronted that matriarch and invited her into hard conversations about repentance?

Similarly, what if Eli had compassionately held his sons accountable for the harm they caused? What might Samuel have learned about being a priest who can both offer kindness and demand safety for those most vulnerable in his community? Eli and his sons were killed in an attack before they repented of the harm the three of them caused, so we’ll never know how such lessons may have been transformative for them as well as for Samuel.

In an age when we are encouraged to end relationships with someone the moment they do a harmful action, I believe a culture of intentional relationship can provide a much-needed balm to our wounded country. We need a revival of accountability rooted in love as well as repentance rooted in humility. Accountability and repentance are only possible if both parties are willing to come to the table. Perhaps if we are willing to come to the table, we can build the redemptive ending Eli and his sons never got — and perhaps we can become a better country because of it.

Kali Cawthon-Freels is a pastoral resident at Williamsburg Baptist Church.

https://www.dailypress.com/2025/10/12/faith-values-moving-beyond-cancel-culture/