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March 6, 2005
A Different Way of Seeing
1 Samuel 16:1-13, John 9:1-41
Samuel was what you might call "the middle man." He was a prophet, the mouthpiece of God for the people of Israel. When God had something he wanted to say to the people, God spoke through Samuel. And when the people wanted to get a message to God, they went to Samuel.
Take, for instance, the time when the people came to Samuel to ask for a king (see 1 Samuel 8). They asked Samuel to ask God to appoint them a king, so that they might be "like other nations" (1 Sam 8:5). God, through Samuel, agreed to do this, but not before issuing a stern warning, that a king would take from them—their sons, their daughters, the best of their crops and livestock (see 1 Sam 8:11-18). But the people didn't care. They refused to listen, and insisted that a king was what they wanted.
So Samuel was sent by God to choose a king for Israel. He knew it was going to be trouble, but what could he do? He was the middle man.
God, through Samuel, chose to be the first king of Israel Saul, "a handsome young man" who "stood head and shoulders above everyone else" (1 Sam 9:2). And although Saul was divinely appointed, things never really went well for him. Samuel watched as Saul improvised rather than doing things exactly as God directed him. While Saul may have had good intentions, he was lousy at listening and obedience to God, so God gave Samuel the news that Saul had been rejected. Talk about being the bearer of bad tidings! Samuel had to break the news to Saul that not only had God rejected Saul as king, but God planned to choose another king altogether.
Even though Samuel had never liked the idea of a king, he grieved over Saul. Perhaps it was because, in spite of himself, he had grown fond of Saul. Or perhaps Samuel was wallowing in a bad case of the "I told you sos." At any rate, Samuel grieves, unable to see a way out of the mess of Israel wanting a king.
But Samuel was still on call with God, and God told him to get up and fill his horn with oil, because he was being sent to Jesse the Bethlehemite to choose a king from among his sons. The news left Samuel afraid. Saul knew that God planned to choose a new king, but he had made no move to step down from the throne. Saul would be watching Samuel's every move. Sending Samuel anywhere was a dangerous thing, a red flag to Saul, and anointing someone else king while Saul still sat on the throne was treason. But God said, Don't worry. Take a heifer with you. Say you're just making a sacrifice.
So Samuel did what the Lord told him, but he was still afraid. Fear was in the air. Even the town elders were afraid, because it wasn't always good news when God's messenger came to town.
Soon Jesse and his sons arrived for the sacrifice, and Samuel began doing what he had come there for—looking them over for the one who would be the next king. Israel was still a very young nation, and they still suffered threats from their neighbors, especially the Philistines. Israel needed a king who would inspire confidence, a king who could lead them bravely into battle. Samuel's eyes were drawn to Eliab, the oldest. Eliab was tall and handsome, and looked so much the part of king that Samuel thought to himself, "Surely the Lord's anointed is now before the Lord."
But just because Samuel spoke for God did not mean he saw the way God sees. God had a different way of seeing: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Sam 16:7) God's criteria for what made a good king were different than the worlds.
Samuel looked over Jesse's seven sons, and God did not choose any of them. He asked Jesse, Are these all your sons?
Jesses told him there was still his youngest, but he was out watching the sheep. The youngest son was so inconsequential that Jesse hadn't bothered to bring him along. But Samuel insisted upon seeing him, so Jesse sent for David.
And then in a move that is good news for every kid who was one of the last ones chosen for kickball, God did something surprising for humans, but not at all surprising for God. God rejected the traditional view that says the first-born is the honored one, that the tallest and strongest is the one who is preferred. Just as God chose Abraham and Sarah, a childless, elderly couple to be the parents of a great nation of people, just as God chose the younger Jacob over the first-born Esau, and just as God chose Joseph over his many older brothers, so in this story, God makes the unlikely choice, and goes with David, the youngest, the boy with the reddish hair and the beautiful eyes. This was the one who would inspire confidence in his people and make their armies victorious in battle? God saw what mere mortals could not: in the unlikely candidate of David was the greatest king Israel would ever know.
This story echoes a theme woven throughout the Bible: God finds possibilities for grace in the most unexpected places and through the most unlikely persons.[1] God finds the possible in what humans consider the impossible. God creates a way where there was none. God chooses as leaders those who were looked over and overlooked. God sees what human beings cannot.
I can't help but wonder that even God's middle man failed to see God's vision, at least at first. It seems Samuel lost sight of God's vision because he was too full of fear, too caught up in the concerns of the world to put his trust fully in God. And that is a lack of vision that I can relate to.
Or sometimes our lack of vision is more like the Pharisees' in John. We are so busy preserving the status quo, that we fail to see that God is doing a new thing, right there in our midst.
There are so many ways our vision fails us, so many ways we are limited in our perspective. How do we see the world as God sees it? And how do we change our perspective so that we can see what God is doing in the world?
The fact that we can see at all is a miracle in and of itself. Seeing is a complex process of our eyes collecting the data and our brains interpreting it. Infants are born with eyes, but they spend the first several months of their lives learning to use them—learning to focus, to distinguish colors, to use their eyes in tandem, to see objects at various distances.[2] Perhaps, since seeing is something we have learned to do once already, there is hope for us to learn to see again in new ways. To see as God sees, measuring a person's worth based on who they are inside rather than the façade they present to the world. To see signs of God's hope in situations that are seemingly impossible. To see the workings of God's kingdom in our midst, or at least to catch glimpses of it.
Perhaps what we are striving towards is to serve as God's middle men, except without our fear getting in the way—middle men (and women) who make God's presence known in the world.
As I was spending the last week thinking about seeing, I could not help but look to the time in a few months when all eyes will be on this church. When the renovation is completed around June 1, many people will be anxious to see our new spaces. Initially, our new spaces will be quite a draw—a magnet, if you will. The focus will be on our outward appearance, our new face-lift.
There's a sense in which that's fine. Part of the rationale of the renovation was to bring the interior of the sanctuary into harmony with the exterior of the building. We also believe that renovating the sanctuary was not only to make it more beautiful, but to make it more functional—improved lighting and sound and flexibility. All of those aesthetics are important. But I hope that we do not become blinded by them, worrying so much about protecting the building that we are afraid to use it and open it to others. May we never turn away from new possibilities for ministry because it might cause wear and tear on the new carpet.
By the same token, I expect there will be some people who start attending here because they are attracted by the sheer beauty of this place. And that's okay, except that I hope that they stay with us for reasons deeper than the gothic architecture, the stained glass windows, or the comfort of those new pews. I hope that they see that beauty in this place is much more than skin deep, that it goes to the heart of who we are, in our commitment to serve God through our worship and our outreach, to one another, to the downtown area, to the whole community.
In us, may others catch glimpses of what God is doing in the world.
May we be seen as God's middle men—making God known in this place, trusting in God enough to see the world differently, and to follow Christ into new possibilities for ministry. Amen.
1 Birch, Bruce C. New Interpreter's Bible, Volume II, 1 Samuel. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998. p. 1099 go back
2 "Visual Development in Infants" http://www.vpsd.org/opat/page3.html go back
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First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
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