“God’s choosing”
1 Samuel 15:34 - 16:13 (June 16, 2024)
I have strong memories of being chosen – or not chosen. Have you experienced this? A group of friends gets together to play ball. And the question is, who’s going to be on which team. You don’t want one side stacked with all the best players and the other side to have none.
So you start by naming captains. They’re typically players with the most ability. Then those captains take turns picking others for their team. You know how this goes. The good ones are chosen first. And with each subsequent choice the talent pool gets thinner. So by the time you reach the last couple of players … Well, it’s important to include everyone, isn’t it?
Were you the first to be chosen, or the last? Were you the one with chest puffed out, proud to be recognized by your peers? Or were you the one with a deflated ego, praying that someone would have compassion and pick you before they get to the end of the line?
What we have in our scripture reading today is one of these moments of choice. And this choice comes as a surprize!
✠
These last few weeks we’ve been following a series of readings from the books of Samuel. First, we listened as God called Samuel in the night. Then, we heard how Samuel received the people’s request for a king.
In today’s reading, Samuel will anoint another king. That’s because things have not been going well. Didn’t God predict as much? “You can have your king,” said God, “but there will be trouble ahead.” Israel’s first king, Saul, had a serious shortcoming – namely, disobedience.
Our passage today tells us that “Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.” Oh dear!
✠
So now it was time to move on.
We don’t find change easy, do we? But God says, It’s time to move forward, Samuel. “Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”
We grieve. We hesitate. We get stuck. We don’t want to leave what has gone before. And we can’t imagine what the future will be. We’re so caught up with what we’ve lost that we become trapped there.
But listen to this! God has already devised another future. If one path has come to an end, God will provide another way. The future is always open, never closed.
God’s purpose for the people of God will not be thwarted!
✠
Now the plan for all this is tricky. Samuel is meant to anoint a new king while the present one, Saul, is still living. This is dangerous business. If Saul catches wind of it, Samuel’s life will be forfeit.
So the LORD instructs Samuel to take with him an animal for ritual sacrifice. That way, if anyone asks, he has a valid reason for being there. “Just going to church!” he can say.
We all know there’s more to it than that. Samuel is actually engaged in high treason. His mission is to secretly anoint a ruler of God’s choosing. Just don’t get caught!
When the elders of Bethlehem come out to meet him, you can tell they are nervous. They’ve heard that Saul and Samuel have had a falling out. “Do you come peaceably?” they ask.
“Oh yes,” says Samuel, keeping his cards close to the chest. Then he invites them to the sacrifice, along with Jesse and his sons.
✠
And this is where things get interesting. Remember I told you that God’s choice will be a surprize? This is the centre of our story, so listen to how it unfolds. It’s a story of high drama and suspense!
The first son of Jesse that Samuel meets is Eliab. And he’s a fine-looking candidate for king. Samuel goes through his check-list and Eliab ticks all the boxes. He is the eldest son, the favoured one, the first in line. It looks like Samuel has his man.
But not so fast, says God. “Do not look on his appearance,” which must have been striking. And “do not look on the height of his stature,” which also must have been impressive. “Because I have rejected him,” says the LORD.
What! Samuel must have wondered what the LORD was playing at. Samuel was sure this would be God’s pick.
But “the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”God is not impressed by superficial things. God sees deeper, often hidden, more important things.
Specifically, it says that God can see the heart. When we hear that word we think of emotions, like love. And certainly a heart that loves the Lord is an important starting place. But there is more to it.
For the Hebrew people, the heart was the centre of our human lives. More than emotion, the heart signifies will and purpose. The heart directs our actions. The heart is the home of obedience. Which is the very thing Saul was lacking.
✠
So then, candidate #1 – no.
Candidate #2, Abinadab. Jesse made him pass before Samuel. And, once again, the LORD turned him down.
On to candidate #3. What do you think? Will Shammah pass muster? No, he will not!
Are you detecting a pattern here? It’s all rather puzzling, since God had told Samuel that one of Jesse’s sons will be chosen.
And it must have tested Samuel’s faith. Really Lord? I was sure you said I’d find a king here today. I don’t understand what is happening.
Sometimes, we just don’t know. We believe we’re being faithful. We do the best we can. But God’s answers don’t always come quickly.
Samuel could have packed it in. But he persevered, through all seven of Jesse’s sons. And seven is a significant number. Because in the ancient world seven signified perfection or completeness. The seventh son meant that Samuel had seen them all. He was at the end of the line.
“What now?” he wondered. “Are all your sons here?”
✠
There is one more – the youngest, the smallest, the last, the least. The one that Father Jesse never thought to bring. Because … “someone’s got to mind the flock, you know.”
So Samuel gives instructions for him to come. As soon as he arrives, Samuel takes one look at him and gasps. “Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.”
Hold on! I thought we weren’t supposed to pay attention to these things.
Samuel cannot help but notice. This last fellow – whose name, by the way, is David – captures the attention of the entire room.
Still, we must wait. What will the LORD say?
Finally, the LORD gives the stamp of approval! David, the last and least expected, will be the one of God’s choosing, Israel’s brand new king. And, as it turns out, he will be the best-loved king that Israel ever had.
✠
I want to make sure we see the stunning significance of it. Because this is what I understand to be the point of the whole story.
“The LORD does not see as mortals see.”
Eldest, first-born, tallest, privileged, first in line. These are not the criteria that God employs. All through scripture we find God going against the grain of our very human, very earthly, way of choosing.
God’s prophets demand attention to the least privileged and least likely to be chosen. We’re told, throughout the Old Testament, to care for widows and orphans and strangers in the land. People with no family connections, no means of support. Migrants who come seeking shelter.
So also, Jesus cared for outcasts and lepers, the ethnically and religiously impure, people who were sinners, pushed aside and forgotten. Excluded even.
In God’s kingdom, the first shall be last, said Jesus. He promised a divine reversal in our status. So all of you multi-talented people who get picked first – be careful. And those of you who hang your heads in shame and embarrassment – rejoice!
✠
Like Samuel, we still get caught up in these cultural norms that are deeply ingrained in our society. How do we judge? Who do we choose?
I told you this passage has surprizes to offer. God’s choosing and our choosing are not the same! How do we look upon others? And how do we look upon ourselves.
Sometimes I think we sell ourselves short. We don’t recognize the gifts that we’ve been given. We don’t imagine that God could be calling us, inviting us to give ourselves to something greater.
Imagine David at the end of our story, standing in front of his family– his seven older brothers, his father, the elders from his village – while Samuel poured anointing oil on his head.
Looking after sheep had uniquely equipped young David, in the eyes of God, to be a shepherd-king, the leader of God’s people – protecting them from danger, tending them with care. Even as God cares for us.
Where would Israel have been without David as their king? Where would we be without this writer of Psalms? This forebear of Jesus the Christ – God’s anointed.
God does not see as mortals see. Could you see yourself – even your lowly, humble, last-to-be-chosen self, as a person of God’s own choosing? The right person for what is needed by God and others?
This morning we’re invited to look at others, and even ourselves, with different eyes. With God’s eyes. And let me say – you may be surprized at what you see!
✠