Surprise! Surprise!
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In this week's Old Testament passage the Lord sends Samuel out on a secret mission to anoint a new king of Israel to replace Saul, whose rule has grown stale and fossilized. It's a risky business whose dangers Samuel clearly understands -- Samuel tells the Lord, in words that could just as easily come from the mouths of the throngs of protesters in the Arab world who have risked their lives, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me." God gives Samuel a suitable cover excuse to explain his visit to the wary Bethlehem city elders, and the prophet proceeds to pass over seven of Jesse's sons before the Lord indicates to Samuel that the youngest (and therefore the most unlikeliest) candidate -- the shepherd David -- is the one whom he should anoint.
This story of fresh, new leadership arising out of the most unexpected circumstances certainly has a strong parallel to recent events, as a series of ragtag protest movements have spread throughout north Africa and the Middle East -- even leading to the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt (with the possibility of Libya following suit). Though discontent has percolated underneath the surface for many years, most of the turmoil has seemed to arise almost out of thin air. Even as an international coalition intervenes in Libya with the stated intention of preventing the Qaddafi government from slaughtering its own population, western authorities are still trying to figure out exactly who the Libyan rebels are, and who might be the leadership of a new regime if Qaddafi is overthrown. And perhaps there's no better symbol of just how unlikely an individual can emerge to change history than Mohamed Bouazizi, the anonymous Tunisian fruit seller whose protest against perceived mistreatment by a government inspector became the spark that set off a revolution and made him a national martyr.
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Roger Lovette discusses what makes the ancient biblical story of Samuel's anointing of David so relevant to us today -- namely, that we should always expect the unexpected, and that new leadership arising out of the most unlikely circumstances is just one of the many surprising signs that God is at work in our world. Indeed, this is among the ways that the Good Shepherd provides us with his presence and comfort in the darkest of times (as the psalmist so poignantly reminds us). Given the way kings were (and are) typically groomed and chosen, what more unlikely leader is there than a young shepherd boy -- or the itinerant rabbi who will soon arrive in Jerusalem astride a donkey on his way to the cross? Who could have imagined such a thing? It sounds almost as improbable as rank outsiders like Butler and Virginia Commonwealth crashing college basketball's Final Four party this weekend. How astronomical would the odds have been on that turn of events just two weeks ago before the tournament commenced?
Team member George Reed shares some additional thoughts on the gospel text. Jesus' healing of the blind man raises the hackles of the Pharisees, who are scandalized by the healing occurring on the Sabbath. George notes that the Pharisees' slavish devotion to rules and regulations -- and the roadblocks that creates for dealing with human need -- is eerily reminiscent of the attitude of many levels of the Japanese government. Despite the continuing privation of large numbers of people in the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami, it seems that bureaucratic red tape is severely hindering many efforts to get aid to where it is most needed. It's more than mere logistics -- just as with the Pharisees, an excessive adherence to the usual way of doing things keeps people from receiving what they desperately need. George suggests that while we often think of the Pharisees as villains of sorts (a view encouraged by Jesus' occasional inflammatory language), they were actually the good religious folk of their day (much like many of the folks in our congregations). George points out that when viewed from this perspective, the story of Jesus healing the blind man serves as a cautionary warning to the church -- and to us.
Surprise! Surprise!
by Roger Lovette
1 Samuel 16:1-13
THE WORLD
The Final Four of college basketball is giving us a brief respite from the aching problems of the world. Our planes still fly over Libya as people ask if this could be another endless war. All over the Middle East, kings (or dictators who behave like kings) are being toppled, or at least are being challenged as never before. This must be a hard time for citizens of Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Bahrain, not to speak of Iraq and Afghanistan. Under fire, the Japanese emperor Akihito has said, "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times." Meanwhile back in Washington, nobody seems to be addressing the nuclear power issue that Japan is still going through. And protests continue in Madison, Wisconsin, with 85,000 being the lowest estimate of the turnout on March 12 and 13. As many as 100,000 showed up at the state's largest demonstration since the Vietnam War. One of our problems is the challenge of instant communication. Every age and every country has had recurring troubles -- yet today we know instantly about any crisis anywhere. It makes us wonder if the sky really is falling. We need some word to put all this in perspective.
THE WORD
The Bible keeps telling us that all this barrage of reality that surrounds us may not be the last word. On almost every page of the scriptures we confront surprises of faith that ought to give us heart, even in hard times.
Like Mubarak and Qaddafi, King Saul had lost his effectiveness. The first king of Israel had made a mess out of things, and the country needed new leadership. The prophet Samuel was told to go to Bethlehem -- an out-of-the-way place five miles from Jerusalem -- and anoint a king. This itself was a surprise. Samuel did not want to carry out this assignment. If King Saul heard that his kingdom was to be threatened by a prophet of all people, he would have had Samuel's head. Yet Samuel reluctantly found his way to that tiny place that was hardly on anybody's map. If that wasn't enough, he was to find Jesse, leader of the smallest clan of the smallest tribe in Israel. This seemed no place to find a new king. Yet Jesse had eight sons. Surely, Samuel muttered to himself, out of all these sons perhaps he would find a king. So Jesse called his oldest, because the oldest had more clout in Israel. Strong, strapping, good-looking Eliab came forward. He had all the qualifications -- he even looked like a king. But God whispered no. And so Eliab was followed by son after son... good men like Abinadab and Shammah. God still said no.
Then Jesse impatiently brought out three other sons and each one was rejected. Samuel asked him, "I thought you had eight sons." Jesse laughed, "You have seen the strongest and the best men in my family. The other boy is just a shepherd out tending his sheep." Samuel asked to see the boy. We know the rest of that story. This little adolescent, this sheepherder -- the last of the litter, eighth in line for the inheritance -- was anointed to be king of Israel. Surprise! Surprise! Long after Samuel or Jesse or even little David were gone, the history of Israel would record that the measuring rod by which every king was judged was the little boy that once had been a shepherd in out-of-the-way Bethlehem.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Often they schedule an appointment to talk. Sometimes it is marriage and sometimes it's a personal failure. Often they are depressed about the world situation; occasionally someone has lost a job. But they come in and sit down, wringing their hands. They don't see any way out. All the doors seemed to have closed, one by one. Whatever hope they had, most of it has faded.
You could tell them the story of Samuel anointing the most unlikely candidate as king of Israel. You could say that faith reminds us that at the heart of every dilemma there is usually a door opening where we never expected a door at all. You could tell them that over and over, the faith of our mothers and fathers says there is a surprise lurking in the strangest of places.
David's story was Israel's story. And Israel's story was in reality the church's story. And the church's story is our story. Who would have ever believed an old man named Abraham and his aged wife Sarah would bear a son? Who would have believed that a bush would burn and God would speak to Moses, a man with enormous frailties? And as if that were not enough, who would have believed that a little cluster of slaves could wander in a wilderness for 40 years only to come out as God's chosen people? Later, much later, in that same little place where David was anointed we would read of a manger and a star and peasant parents and at the center it all a tiny child: the King of kings. The channels of grace really do flow outside the usual canals of power, influence, and success. We read story after story of God's surprises -- and it underlines that if it could happen to a group of slaves, perhaps it could happen even in Egypt or Libya or to a powerful nation that is beginning to fear that its best days are over.
But what does this have to do with us? Everything. Put that story down beside your life or your marriage or the worries you have about your children. Faith says that all the doors are not closed; all the avenues are not blocked. The Good Shepherd cares for all of us -- even the most unlikely of the sheep. Remember Jesus' story of the lost sheep? There were a hundred sheep, but the Shepherd went after the one lost sheep until he found it. That's the kind of surprising God we have -- a God so powerful that he would rub spittle on a blind man's eyes and the man could see.
You could even talk about the reaction of the Pharisees -- the best that God had -- to this healing. Reason said this couldn't happen; reason said there must be some catch; reason said even if it were true, surely the blind man must have done terrible things to be sightless. Jesus brushed all their doubts aside when he healed the blind man. You might point out that once Jesus' hands were tied and he could do no miracles. And Matthew would write: "Jesus could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).
The point is that God has great things in store for us all. God is not finished with this world -- even with nuclear meltdowns and destructive tsunamis. Weeks ago Reynolds Price died in North Carolina at the age of 77. He was a writer of many books and received a multitude of awards. But in 1984 he discovered a thin eight-inch malignant tumor wrapped around his spinal column just below his neck. Several operations and aggressive radiation therapy left him with unremitting pain. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He told his remarkable story in a book he wrote several years after his surgery, A Whole New Life (Scribner, 1995). Through therapy, hypnosis, and faith, he discovered a whole new life. He said that he had written more than 13 books since his painful ordeal. He wrote that we all have to choose life and not death. At the end of A Whole New Life he penned these lines:
"I've long since weaned myself from all drugs but a small dose of antidepressant, an aspirin to thin my blood, an occasional scotch or a good red wine, and a simple acid to brace my bladder against infection. I write six days a week, long days that often run till bedtime; and the books are different from what came before in more ways than age. I sleep long nights with few hard dreams, and now I've outlived both my parents. Even my handwriting looks very little like the script of the man I was in June of '84. Cranky as it is, it's taller, more legible, with more air and stride. It comes down the arm of a grateful man."
You might remind your congregation that the great vision runs counter to everything in our predictable world. Water can turn to wine. Lions really can lie down with lambs. Swords really could be turned into plowshares. And maybe the greatest dream of them all is that we just might sit under our own vines and our own fig trees and no one will make them afraid ever again (Micah 4:3-4).
Now, that is a far cry from what we read in our newspapers. So we put all the troubled news down beside our leather-bound book, and listen closely. If we listen long enough, like all those others along the way, we too may find surprise after surprise.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Red Tape Forever and Ever... Amen
John 9:1-41
by George Reed
THE WORLD
In the midst of Japanese efficiency, highly centralized government, well-developed infrastructure, and a work ethic that makes Puritans look like pikers, reports are emerging that the goods and services desperately needed by the Japanese people who have been so hard hit by the earthquake and tsunami are being held up by bureaucracy and red tape. Doctors who have arrived from other countries are allowed to do only the simplest of procedures because they do not have a Japanese medical license. Trucks filled with needed aid are not allowed to be used because they do not have the proper credentials for such work. Medical supplies are not allowed to be distributed to the elderly because the drugs that have been shipped in have not been through the Japanese regulatory agencies.
THE WORD
In this week's gospel story of Jesus healing the man born blind, we encounter the resistance of the Pharisees. Like the Japanese bureaucrats, these folks just cannot get over Jesus working outside the established rules for healing. This is the Sabbath -- and there is to be no work done on this day, including the healing of a blind man. Their single-minded focus on the established guidelines for Sabbath behavior has blinded them to the wonder of what God is doing in their midst.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
This story raises for me the very clear warning that the "good religious folk" of any day can get so focused on the "way it is supposed to be" that they (we) develop tunnel vision and end up not only missing what God is trying to do but actually opposing it.
My first goal would be to help the congregation understand that while the infant church was struggling against the Jewish people during the time of John's collecting and writing these gospel stories, Jesus was actually dealing with the "good folk" of his day. The Pharisees were trying to live in harmony with God by following the law in daily life and not being so focused on the sacrificial requirements of going to the temple in Jerusalem. They were good, honest, religious folk who were trying to please God -- but they came down with a terrible case of tunnel vision that put them in opposition to Jesus and what God was doing through him.
Having made this point, I would move to us with a little humorous sarcasm -- perhaps with a statement such as, "I am so thankful that no one in the Christian faith has ever succumbed to this ailment." The laughter (or lack of laughter) would let me know how much work I had to do with this congregation on recognizing their (our) own sense of humility and introspection.
For me, the question revolves around the issue of what God wants to accomplish through us. What is God calling us to do and to be? What is our unique mission that fits within the universal mission of the church -- i.e., of making disciples and welcoming/bringing the reign of God on earth? This seemed to be the focus of Jesus. When the rules and traditions helped that happen, then he followed them. When they got in the way, he ignored them. There was no time to argue about the proper location for temple worship (as the woman at the well raised) or who was the greatest disciple or what day of the week it was when someone needed help. Do we allow questions about using drums in worship, the color of the carpet, the ethnic origins of a person, or anything else to become roadblocks that keep us from doing the work God has called us to do? Do we take out of our storehouse those good things that assist us in our mission while finding new treasures to use as well? Or do we insist on placing new, still-fermenting wine into those rigid old wineskins we have come to worship?
ILLUSTRATIONS
The story is told of ten-year-old Tillie, whose parents had decided to take her to the beach for an exotic Christmas vacation.
On Christmas morning she and her mother went out on the beach to wade and collect shells, and Tillie noticed that the sea looked different than it had the day before -- flatter and frothier. The water, she joked to her mother, was having a "bad hair" day. Then it dawned on Tillie that she had seen a picture of the sea that looked just like this in her world studies class at school. It was a picture taken in Hawaii years earlier, just before a tsunami crashed ashore. Tillie told her mother -- and her mother, seeing the fear and urgency in Tillie's eyes, believed her. Together they went to the lifeguards, who took some convincing but eventually agreed to clear the beach and tell people to move inland.
This was Christmas 2004, and nearly a quarter million people died as a result of that earthquake and tsunami -- but hundreds were saved because they recognized leadership in a ten-year-old girl and were wise enough to follow her.
* * *
We tend to think of the greatest leaders as alpha males who are Olympian in stature -- Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte. Plutarch's Lives and Thomas Carlyle's Great Men seem inevitable, and we hold such great leaders up as models. Yet caution against easy generalization is advised, for the evidence of history also reveals a surprising array of unlikely individuals who rose to the top. One thinks of Moses. He started life out as a slave and lacked confidence because of a speech impediment; yet he grew in strength of character and for four decades led a disheartened people out of Egypt to found a nation in the Promised Land. Even more mine-boggling is the example of a 12-year-old shepherd in the thirteenth century named Stephen of Cloyes -- he somehow inspired tens of thousands of children from across France to join him on a crusade to Jerusalem. Other unlikely leaders have been Cleopatra (who turned on her own brother-husband); Emperor Claudius (who used his disability -- a stammer and a club foot -- to advantage); Joan of Arc (a teenage girl who heard voices in her head); Queen Elizabeth I (who was long considered illegitimate and thus not an heir to the throne); Mahatma Gandhi (small of stature and humble in bearing); and Presidents Abraham Lincoln (considered intellectually inferior to his many rivals), Ulysses Grant (an alcoholic who could barely get a command at the beginning of the Civil War), Harry Truman (a haberdasher without a college degree), Dwight Eisenhower (whose army career almost ended on the eve of World War II), and Gerald Ford (who never sought the Oval Office).
-- http://www.gvsu.edu/hauenstein/effective-leaders-494.htm
* * *
Just how far can machismo take you? It has been discovered on the mountainous battlefields of Afghanistan that even the hardiest of souls succumb to the natural elements. Soldiers who parachute into the upper altitudes of the Afghanistan mountains, absent of the time to acclimate their bodies to the thin air, instantly suffer from altitude sickness. This leaves them with headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue. Some soldiers have trouble standing; others are unable to stand at all. Their unit becomes immobile and unable to complete its mission. At 25,000 feet, 25% of the troops are ineffective. At 11,500 feet, 50% of the troops are ineffective. At 14,800 feet, 100% of the troops are immobile.
The US Army is spending $2.5 million in research on how to overcome this problem. Rod Allen, an Air Force veteran whose special-operations unit was dropped into a high altitude combat zone, said of the soldiers and airmen involved: "These are all young, strong, type-A personality guys, and they think they're just going to gut it out. They believe they are bulletproof. But at 20,000 feet, it hurts just to think."
The psalmist speaks that "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil." Dark valleys come in many forms. It can be an illness. It can be marital discord. It can be problems at work. It can be parachuting into a high-altitude combat zone. In any of these cases there is fear if one feels abandoned and hopeless. But the fear can be alleviated if you know you are supported by others who care and are working with you. The presence of the Lord goes beyond just a spiritual presence, but it is also manifested in a cadre of people who care. Just as the military's special-ops group knows researchers are aware and addressing a great fear of theirs -- high-altitude combat -- we know our Christian brothers and sisters are caring for us.
* * *
Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois just signed into law an abolishment of capital punishment for the state he oversees. He intently listened to arguments for both sides of the issue. But when the arguing ceased, he then reviewed the number of capital cases whose verdicts were overturned from the admittance of new DNA evidence or because of judicial error. Humans can make mistakes in judgment. Then Quinn turned to his Bible and a passage in 2 Corinthians about human imperfections. Then he prayed. Then he signed the piece of legislation.
Quinn's entire political career was also guided by a book written by Chicago's Cardinal Bernardin titled The Gift of Peace. In that book Bernardin discusses ethics as a "seamless garment" or a "consistent ethic of life." Quinn realized that permitting capital punishment would put a tear in his "seamless garment" of ethical beliefs. Quinn maintains that one's religious beliefs are inseparable from one's political practices. He said, "I think it's indispensable. When you're elected and sworn into office, that oath really involves your whole life experience, your religious experience. You bring that to bear on all the issues."
Samuel was told that others "look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." Quinn chose not to look upon a man in prison garb, but to see the soul of a man who could be innocent as a result of human misjudgment. Let us be careful how we judge, always being certain we are looking at the humanness of the issue.
* * *
This week's Old Testament lesson addresses the question of what role physical appearance played in the selection of Israel's greatest king, David. The short answer to that question is... none whatsoever.
The story begins when the prophet Samuel receives a message from God to take up his horn of oil and anoint Israel's next king. The only problem is, the Lord doesn't tell Samuel exactly who the next king will be -- just that he's going to be one of the eight sons of a certain Judean farmer by the name of Jesse. Samuel travels to Jesse's homestead, assuming that he'll recognize the new king when he sees him. But he doesn't -- seven sons of Jesse walk by, but not one of them displays that inscrutable aura of holiness Samuel figures will be just oozing out of the man God has chosen. "Is there no other?" he asks.
"Well, there's little Davy. If he were a sheep, he'd be the runt of the litter. We didn't even bother to invite someone so lacking in aristocratic refinement to this casting call -- we figured that would be cruel and unusual punishment."
"Send for him," says Samuel, doing a slow burn. When David finally does come forward, he's not wearing a tailored robe, Gucci sandals, or a pinky ring. His hands are calloused from gripping a walking stick, and he stinks of sheep. Yet this youngest son has a down-home, wholesome attractiveness. He's "ruddy," has "beautiful eyes," and is "handsome." There's no contrivance about him -- David is comfortable in his own skin. He -- not one of his more cosmopolitan brothers -- is the one God has chosen.
How does the Lord do it? How does the Lord select David? First Samuel provides an answer: "The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (16:7). There's tremendous hope in those words for those of us who are not accustomed to thinking of ourselves as "beautiful people." The Lord has not created us to be beautiful -- the Lord has created us to be good.
* * *
It's hard to imagine a candidate running for president today without a veritable army of style and grooming consultants, which is even more remarkable considering what some of our greatest presidents have looked like. George Washington was physically strong and -- at over six feet tall -- had an imposing presence. Yet he wore a set of wooden false teeth that gave him tremendous pain and led him to adopt a grim, tight-lipped expression that made him look perpetually angry. Abraham Lincoln was well-known as being one of the homeliest men around. He had a huge mole on one cheek and was so tall and awkward that some historians think he might have had a mild case of the pathological condition known as giantism. Franklin D. Roosevelt spent much of his time in a wheelchair due to polio. In those pre-television days, FDR's political handlers worked hard to keep newspaper photographers away from his wheelchair, crutches, and leg braces -- although in this age of television that level of protection would be unthinkable.
Yet where would we be today as a nation without Washington, Lincoln, or FDR? The simple truth is that if today's obsessive interest in physical appearance had prevailed back then, none of these three men would have made it to the presidency.
"The Lord does not see as mortals see," says Samuel. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
* * *
Motivational speaker Doug Dickerson (www.dougsmanagementmoment.blogspot.com) tells the story of a beauty products company that asked the citizens of a large metropolitan area to send them letters about and pictures of the most beautiful people they knew.
Of course thousands of letters came in, but none so intriguing as the one from a little boy that said: "A beautiful woman lives down the street from me. I visit her every day. She makes me feel like the most important kid in the world. We play checkers and she listens to my problems. She understands me, and when I leave she yells out the door that she's proud of me." He had enclosed a photo of a toothless old woman, her face wrinkled by age, her hair pulled back in a bun.
The president of the cosmetic company thought for a minute and then rejected the letter and picture. "If we use this," he said, "people will realize that you don't need our stuff to be beautiful."
* * *
Remember Archie Bunker, that curmudgeon of curmudgeons, and his ditzy wife Edith from the old television comedy All in the Family? In one episode, the two of them are attending Edith's high-school reunion. Edith runs into an old classmate of hers by the name of Buck. In his younger days Buck had been very handsome ñ but now, decades later, he's put on a lot of weight and is no longer what anyone would describe as good-looking.
None of this matters a bit to Edith, who's having a great time visiting with Buck and laughing about the old days. Through it all, Edith doesn't seem to notice how extremely heavy Buck has become. Later on, when Edith and Archie are talking, she remarks in her whiny voice, "Archie, ain't Buck a beautiful person?"
Archie looks back at her with his trademark curl of the lip and replies: "You're a pip, Edith. You know that. You and I look at the same guy -- and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp."
Edith suddenly loses the smile from her face. She displays a puzzled expression that slowly turns into sadness. "Yeah," she says wistfully, "ain't it too bad."
* * *
The Smithsonian Institute is preparing to place Thomas Jefferson's Bible on display this coming November. It is a cut-and-paste Bible of a mere 86 pages. After retiring from public office in 1820, Jefferson sat down with two Bibles, a razor blade, and some paste, and began to create his own Bible. It would contain only the words and actions of Jesus -- nothing miraculous or mysterious would be entertained. The result was what Jefferson referred to as The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Jefferson maintained that Jesus "was the first of human Sages." Jefferson considered himself to be a devout Christian. After completing the micro-testament, Jefferson wrote to a friend, "It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Part of Jefferson's Bible is a reflection of his attitude toward what he called "pseudo-Christians." These were Christians who were more concerned about doctrine than teaching and actions. They were preoccupied with abstract theorizing rather than the actual implementation of the teachings of Jesus.
When the blind man was healed, the Pharisees were unconcerned about the new life that was restored; they could only focus on the religious doctrine of Sabbath regulations that were violated. The Pharisees were more concerned with theorizing about religion rather than practicing the tenets of religion. An 86-page Bible may be more than sufficient for us, if it causes us to refrain from theorizing and instead calls us forth into action.
* * *
Habits are things we do because we can't stop doing them. Biting fingernails, smoking, swearing, and cracking chewing gum are all habits. There's no reason for doing them -- it's just that those of who do them can't seem to stop.
Customs are things that we do because we've always done them. The hymns we sing, the rituals we employ in worship, how we celebrate holidays -- these tend to be customs. There isn't a lot of meaning attached to how we do them; we've just always done them that way.
Traditions grow out of our core values. They are re-enactments. They remind of us of who and why we are. The sacraments are traditions in the church.
The church finds itself in trouble not because it has traditions, but because it has habits and customs that it treats as though they are traditions.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Come into the presence of our God.
People: We come to worship and to be blessed.
Leader: God may have other ideas in mind.
People: But this is what we have come to expect.
Leader: Open your eyes see things anew.
People: We come to be surprised by our God.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"God of Many Names"
found in:
UMH: 105
CH: 13
"I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord"
found in:
UMH: 540
H82: 542
PH: 441
NNBH: 302
NCH: 312
CH: 274
LBW: 368
"I Stand Amazed in the Presence"
found in:
UMH: 371
"In the Cross of Christ I Glory"
found in:
UMH: 295
H82: 441, 442
PH: 84
NNBH: 104
NCH: 193, 194
LBW: 104
"Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service"
found in:
UMH: 581
H82: 610
PH: 427
CH: 461
LBW: 423
Renew: 286
"Make Me a Captive, Lord"
found in:
UMH: 421
PH: 378
"O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done?"
found in:
UMH: 287
"Seek Ye First"
found in:
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
CH: 354
CCB: 76
"All I Need Is You"
found in:
CCB: 100
"We Are His Hands"
found in:
CCB: 85
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who works in ways that surprise us: Open our eyes that we may see the things that you are calling us to do and be, and give us courage to be faithful disciples of Jesus and blessed children of you; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to worship you, O God, and to be equipped for the work you have for us to do. Help us to so focus our lives on you and your mission that we are always ready for you to reveal yourself in new and wondrous ways. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially the ways in which we are blind to your gracious acts.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have become comfortable with our religious experiences, and we no longer anticipate your coming among us in new ways. We have come to believe that our experience of you is the only true one, and so we cut ourselves off from our sisters and brothers who have been visited by you in different ways from us. Forgive us, and replace the hardness of our hearts with an eager anticipation of your surprising, gracious work among your creatures. Amen.
Leader: God's desire to bring salvation to the creation never wanes or varies. God forgives us and regenerates us whenever we are open to God's presence.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We bless your Name, O God, because our salvation is your greatest desire. Your heart is ever tender to your creatures and your creation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have become comfortable with our religious experiences, and we no longer anticipate your coming among us in new ways. We have come to believe that our experience of you is the only true one, and so we cut ourselves off from our sisters and brothers who have been visited by you in different ways from us. Forgive us, and replace the hardness of our hearts with an eager anticipation of your surprising, gracious work among your creatures.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you come among us and work in, through, and for us. Sometimes you come to us in ways that we expect and are looking for, and sometimes you come in ways that surprise and amaze us. We thank you for both the expected and the unexpected epiphanies.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We offer to you the hurts and cares of this world and its inhabitants. We know that you are always with those who need you, and we pray that our prayers and our presence might be part of your healing touch for a broken world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Visuals
Pictures of people being surprised: birthday parties, a jack-in-the-box, a squirting flower, etc.; also things that we associate with surprises such as balloons, birthday cakes, and so on.
Children's Sermon Starter
If you have ever had a surprise that was spoiled by learning about it, tell the children about it. Talk about how disappointing it is to have a surprise ruined. Surprises are great things. God likes surprises as well -- God likes to surprise us by helping us in ways we don't expect.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
God Looks at the Heart
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Good morning, boys and girls! The Bible tells us a story about a time when Israel needed a new king. God sent a man named Samuel to find the new ruler. Samuel was a good man who had helped God in many ways, and God told Samuel that he would point him in the right direction and would let him know when he had found the right person to be king.
God told Samuel to go and find a man named Jesse. Jesse had many sons, and one of them was God's choice to be the new king. Jesse called his sons in one by one to meet Samuel. (If you have older boys or youth helping, have them come up one by one as you finish the story.) First came a strong young man, but the Lord said to Samuel, "No, this is not the one." Next came another good-looking, strapping young fellow, but he was not God's choice either. A third son came in to see Samuel, but Samuel said, "No, this one has not been chosen." The Bible says that Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but none of them was God's choice.
Samuel finally asked Jesse if all of his sons had come in to see him. Jesse said, "Yes, these are all my sons except my youngest boy, David, who is out caring for the sheep."
Samuel asked Jesse to send for David, the young, small boy who was out in the field. When David came to see Samuel, God let Samuel know that he was the one.
David would be the new king. This was a surprise to Jesse and his older, stronger, and wiser sons. It was even a surprise to Samuel. Jesse had many older sons who looked like they would make better kings, but the Lord said to Samuel, "Don't be so concerned with how someone looks. Don't worry so much about how tall or how big someone is. People look at the outside, but God looks at the heart."
God did not care how big or how small David was. God was concerned with what was in David's heart, and God knew that David was a good, young man. He was God's choice to be the new king.
Sometimes we feel that we don't matter because we are young or small, but God doesn't care what we look like on the outside. God cares about what kind of person we are on the inside, and if God has a special job for us to do, he will help us do it, no matter what. Remember, people look at the outside, but God looks at the inside. God looks at our heart.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, April 3, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
This story of fresh, new leadership arising out of the most unexpected circumstances certainly has a strong parallel to recent events, as a series of ragtag protest movements have spread throughout north Africa and the Middle East -- even leading to the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt (with the possibility of Libya following suit). Though discontent has percolated underneath the surface for many years, most of the turmoil has seemed to arise almost out of thin air. Even as an international coalition intervenes in Libya with the stated intention of preventing the Qaddafi government from slaughtering its own population, western authorities are still trying to figure out exactly who the Libyan rebels are, and who might be the leadership of a new regime if Qaddafi is overthrown. And perhaps there's no better symbol of just how unlikely an individual can emerge to change history than Mohamed Bouazizi, the anonymous Tunisian fruit seller whose protest against perceived mistreatment by a government inspector became the spark that set off a revolution and made him a national martyr.
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Roger Lovette discusses what makes the ancient biblical story of Samuel's anointing of David so relevant to us today -- namely, that we should always expect the unexpected, and that new leadership arising out of the most unlikely circumstances is just one of the many surprising signs that God is at work in our world. Indeed, this is among the ways that the Good Shepherd provides us with his presence and comfort in the darkest of times (as the psalmist so poignantly reminds us). Given the way kings were (and are) typically groomed and chosen, what more unlikely leader is there than a young shepherd boy -- or the itinerant rabbi who will soon arrive in Jerusalem astride a donkey on his way to the cross? Who could have imagined such a thing? It sounds almost as improbable as rank outsiders like Butler and Virginia Commonwealth crashing college basketball's Final Four party this weekend. How astronomical would the odds have been on that turn of events just two weeks ago before the tournament commenced?
Team member George Reed shares some additional thoughts on the gospel text. Jesus' healing of the blind man raises the hackles of the Pharisees, who are scandalized by the healing occurring on the Sabbath. George notes that the Pharisees' slavish devotion to rules and regulations -- and the roadblocks that creates for dealing with human need -- is eerily reminiscent of the attitude of many levels of the Japanese government. Despite the continuing privation of large numbers of people in the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami, it seems that bureaucratic red tape is severely hindering many efforts to get aid to where it is most needed. It's more than mere logistics -- just as with the Pharisees, an excessive adherence to the usual way of doing things keeps people from receiving what they desperately need. George suggests that while we often think of the Pharisees as villains of sorts (a view encouraged by Jesus' occasional inflammatory language), they were actually the good religious folk of their day (much like many of the folks in our congregations). George points out that when viewed from this perspective, the story of Jesus healing the blind man serves as a cautionary warning to the church -- and to us.
Surprise! Surprise!
by Roger Lovette
1 Samuel 16:1-13
THE WORLD
The Final Four of college basketball is giving us a brief respite from the aching problems of the world. Our planes still fly over Libya as people ask if this could be another endless war. All over the Middle East, kings (or dictators who behave like kings) are being toppled, or at least are being challenged as never before. This must be a hard time for citizens of Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Bahrain, not to speak of Iraq and Afghanistan. Under fire, the Japanese emperor Akihito has said, "I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times." Meanwhile back in Washington, nobody seems to be addressing the nuclear power issue that Japan is still going through. And protests continue in Madison, Wisconsin, with 85,000 being the lowest estimate of the turnout on March 12 and 13. As many as 100,000 showed up at the state's largest demonstration since the Vietnam War. One of our problems is the challenge of instant communication. Every age and every country has had recurring troubles -- yet today we know instantly about any crisis anywhere. It makes us wonder if the sky really is falling. We need some word to put all this in perspective.
THE WORD
The Bible keeps telling us that all this barrage of reality that surrounds us may not be the last word. On almost every page of the scriptures we confront surprises of faith that ought to give us heart, even in hard times.
Like Mubarak and Qaddafi, King Saul had lost his effectiveness. The first king of Israel had made a mess out of things, and the country needed new leadership. The prophet Samuel was told to go to Bethlehem -- an out-of-the-way place five miles from Jerusalem -- and anoint a king. This itself was a surprise. Samuel did not want to carry out this assignment. If King Saul heard that his kingdom was to be threatened by a prophet of all people, he would have had Samuel's head. Yet Samuel reluctantly found his way to that tiny place that was hardly on anybody's map. If that wasn't enough, he was to find Jesse, leader of the smallest clan of the smallest tribe in Israel. This seemed no place to find a new king. Yet Jesse had eight sons. Surely, Samuel muttered to himself, out of all these sons perhaps he would find a king. So Jesse called his oldest, because the oldest had more clout in Israel. Strong, strapping, good-looking Eliab came forward. He had all the qualifications -- he even looked like a king. But God whispered no. And so Eliab was followed by son after son... good men like Abinadab and Shammah. God still said no.
Then Jesse impatiently brought out three other sons and each one was rejected. Samuel asked him, "I thought you had eight sons." Jesse laughed, "You have seen the strongest and the best men in my family. The other boy is just a shepherd out tending his sheep." Samuel asked to see the boy. We know the rest of that story. This little adolescent, this sheepherder -- the last of the litter, eighth in line for the inheritance -- was anointed to be king of Israel. Surprise! Surprise! Long after Samuel or Jesse or even little David were gone, the history of Israel would record that the measuring rod by which every king was judged was the little boy that once had been a shepherd in out-of-the-way Bethlehem.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Often they schedule an appointment to talk. Sometimes it is marriage and sometimes it's a personal failure. Often they are depressed about the world situation; occasionally someone has lost a job. But they come in and sit down, wringing their hands. They don't see any way out. All the doors seemed to have closed, one by one. Whatever hope they had, most of it has faded.
You could tell them the story of Samuel anointing the most unlikely candidate as king of Israel. You could say that faith reminds us that at the heart of every dilemma there is usually a door opening where we never expected a door at all. You could tell them that over and over, the faith of our mothers and fathers says there is a surprise lurking in the strangest of places.
David's story was Israel's story. And Israel's story was in reality the church's story. And the church's story is our story. Who would have ever believed an old man named Abraham and his aged wife Sarah would bear a son? Who would have believed that a bush would burn and God would speak to Moses, a man with enormous frailties? And as if that were not enough, who would have believed that a little cluster of slaves could wander in a wilderness for 40 years only to come out as God's chosen people? Later, much later, in that same little place where David was anointed we would read of a manger and a star and peasant parents and at the center it all a tiny child: the King of kings. The channels of grace really do flow outside the usual canals of power, influence, and success. We read story after story of God's surprises -- and it underlines that if it could happen to a group of slaves, perhaps it could happen even in Egypt or Libya or to a powerful nation that is beginning to fear that its best days are over.
But what does this have to do with us? Everything. Put that story down beside your life or your marriage or the worries you have about your children. Faith says that all the doors are not closed; all the avenues are not blocked. The Good Shepherd cares for all of us -- even the most unlikely of the sheep. Remember Jesus' story of the lost sheep? There were a hundred sheep, but the Shepherd went after the one lost sheep until he found it. That's the kind of surprising God we have -- a God so powerful that he would rub spittle on a blind man's eyes and the man could see.
You could even talk about the reaction of the Pharisees -- the best that God had -- to this healing. Reason said this couldn't happen; reason said there must be some catch; reason said even if it were true, surely the blind man must have done terrible things to be sightless. Jesus brushed all their doubts aside when he healed the blind man. You might point out that once Jesus' hands were tied and he could do no miracles. And Matthew would write: "Jesus could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).
The point is that God has great things in store for us all. God is not finished with this world -- even with nuclear meltdowns and destructive tsunamis. Weeks ago Reynolds Price died in North Carolina at the age of 77. He was a writer of many books and received a multitude of awards. But in 1984 he discovered a thin eight-inch malignant tumor wrapped around his spinal column just below his neck. Several operations and aggressive radiation therapy left him with unremitting pain. He was paralyzed from the waist down. He told his remarkable story in a book he wrote several years after his surgery, A Whole New Life (Scribner, 1995). Through therapy, hypnosis, and faith, he discovered a whole new life. He said that he had written more than 13 books since his painful ordeal. He wrote that we all have to choose life and not death. At the end of A Whole New Life he penned these lines:
"I've long since weaned myself from all drugs but a small dose of antidepressant, an aspirin to thin my blood, an occasional scotch or a good red wine, and a simple acid to brace my bladder against infection. I write six days a week, long days that often run till bedtime; and the books are different from what came before in more ways than age. I sleep long nights with few hard dreams, and now I've outlived both my parents. Even my handwriting looks very little like the script of the man I was in June of '84. Cranky as it is, it's taller, more legible, with more air and stride. It comes down the arm of a grateful man."
You might remind your congregation that the great vision runs counter to everything in our predictable world. Water can turn to wine. Lions really can lie down with lambs. Swords really could be turned into plowshares. And maybe the greatest dream of them all is that we just might sit under our own vines and our own fig trees and no one will make them afraid ever again (Micah 4:3-4).
Now, that is a far cry from what we read in our newspapers. So we put all the troubled news down beside our leather-bound book, and listen closely. If we listen long enough, like all those others along the way, we too may find surprise after surprise.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Red Tape Forever and Ever... Amen
John 9:1-41
by George Reed
THE WORLD
In the midst of Japanese efficiency, highly centralized government, well-developed infrastructure, and a work ethic that makes Puritans look like pikers, reports are emerging that the goods and services desperately needed by the Japanese people who have been so hard hit by the earthquake and tsunami are being held up by bureaucracy and red tape. Doctors who have arrived from other countries are allowed to do only the simplest of procedures because they do not have a Japanese medical license. Trucks filled with needed aid are not allowed to be used because they do not have the proper credentials for such work. Medical supplies are not allowed to be distributed to the elderly because the drugs that have been shipped in have not been through the Japanese regulatory agencies.
THE WORD
In this week's gospel story of Jesus healing the man born blind, we encounter the resistance of the Pharisees. Like the Japanese bureaucrats, these folks just cannot get over Jesus working outside the established rules for healing. This is the Sabbath -- and there is to be no work done on this day, including the healing of a blind man. Their single-minded focus on the established guidelines for Sabbath behavior has blinded them to the wonder of what God is doing in their midst.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
This story raises for me the very clear warning that the "good religious folk" of any day can get so focused on the "way it is supposed to be" that they (we) develop tunnel vision and end up not only missing what God is trying to do but actually opposing it.
My first goal would be to help the congregation understand that while the infant church was struggling against the Jewish people during the time of John's collecting and writing these gospel stories, Jesus was actually dealing with the "good folk" of his day. The Pharisees were trying to live in harmony with God by following the law in daily life and not being so focused on the sacrificial requirements of going to the temple in Jerusalem. They were good, honest, religious folk who were trying to please God -- but they came down with a terrible case of tunnel vision that put them in opposition to Jesus and what God was doing through him.
Having made this point, I would move to us with a little humorous sarcasm -- perhaps with a statement such as, "I am so thankful that no one in the Christian faith has ever succumbed to this ailment." The laughter (or lack of laughter) would let me know how much work I had to do with this congregation on recognizing their (our) own sense of humility and introspection.
For me, the question revolves around the issue of what God wants to accomplish through us. What is God calling us to do and to be? What is our unique mission that fits within the universal mission of the church -- i.e., of making disciples and welcoming/bringing the reign of God on earth? This seemed to be the focus of Jesus. When the rules and traditions helped that happen, then he followed them. When they got in the way, he ignored them. There was no time to argue about the proper location for temple worship (as the woman at the well raised) or who was the greatest disciple or what day of the week it was when someone needed help. Do we allow questions about using drums in worship, the color of the carpet, the ethnic origins of a person, or anything else to become roadblocks that keep us from doing the work God has called us to do? Do we take out of our storehouse those good things that assist us in our mission while finding new treasures to use as well? Or do we insist on placing new, still-fermenting wine into those rigid old wineskins we have come to worship?
ILLUSTRATIONS
The story is told of ten-year-old Tillie, whose parents had decided to take her to the beach for an exotic Christmas vacation.
On Christmas morning she and her mother went out on the beach to wade and collect shells, and Tillie noticed that the sea looked different than it had the day before -- flatter and frothier. The water, she joked to her mother, was having a "bad hair" day. Then it dawned on Tillie that she had seen a picture of the sea that looked just like this in her world studies class at school. It was a picture taken in Hawaii years earlier, just before a tsunami crashed ashore. Tillie told her mother -- and her mother, seeing the fear and urgency in Tillie's eyes, believed her. Together they went to the lifeguards, who took some convincing but eventually agreed to clear the beach and tell people to move inland.
This was Christmas 2004, and nearly a quarter million people died as a result of that earthquake and tsunami -- but hundreds were saved because they recognized leadership in a ten-year-old girl and were wise enough to follow her.
* * *
We tend to think of the greatest leaders as alpha males who are Olympian in stature -- Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte. Plutarch's Lives and Thomas Carlyle's Great Men seem inevitable, and we hold such great leaders up as models. Yet caution against easy generalization is advised, for the evidence of history also reveals a surprising array of unlikely individuals who rose to the top. One thinks of Moses. He started life out as a slave and lacked confidence because of a speech impediment; yet he grew in strength of character and for four decades led a disheartened people out of Egypt to found a nation in the Promised Land. Even more mine-boggling is the example of a 12-year-old shepherd in the thirteenth century named Stephen of Cloyes -- he somehow inspired tens of thousands of children from across France to join him on a crusade to Jerusalem. Other unlikely leaders have been Cleopatra (who turned on her own brother-husband); Emperor Claudius (who used his disability -- a stammer and a club foot -- to advantage); Joan of Arc (a teenage girl who heard voices in her head); Queen Elizabeth I (who was long considered illegitimate and thus not an heir to the throne); Mahatma Gandhi (small of stature and humble in bearing); and Presidents Abraham Lincoln (considered intellectually inferior to his many rivals), Ulysses Grant (an alcoholic who could barely get a command at the beginning of the Civil War), Harry Truman (a haberdasher without a college degree), Dwight Eisenhower (whose army career almost ended on the eve of World War II), and Gerald Ford (who never sought the Oval Office).
-- http://www.gvsu.edu/hauenstein/effective-leaders-494.htm
* * *
Just how far can machismo take you? It has been discovered on the mountainous battlefields of Afghanistan that even the hardiest of souls succumb to the natural elements. Soldiers who parachute into the upper altitudes of the Afghanistan mountains, absent of the time to acclimate their bodies to the thin air, instantly suffer from altitude sickness. This leaves them with headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue. Some soldiers have trouble standing; others are unable to stand at all. Their unit becomes immobile and unable to complete its mission. At 25,000 feet, 25% of the troops are ineffective. At 11,500 feet, 50% of the troops are ineffective. At 14,800 feet, 100% of the troops are immobile.
The US Army is spending $2.5 million in research on how to overcome this problem. Rod Allen, an Air Force veteran whose special-operations unit was dropped into a high altitude combat zone, said of the soldiers and airmen involved: "These are all young, strong, type-A personality guys, and they think they're just going to gut it out. They believe they are bulletproof. But at 20,000 feet, it hurts just to think."
The psalmist speaks that "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil." Dark valleys come in many forms. It can be an illness. It can be marital discord. It can be problems at work. It can be parachuting into a high-altitude combat zone. In any of these cases there is fear if one feels abandoned and hopeless. But the fear can be alleviated if you know you are supported by others who care and are working with you. The presence of the Lord goes beyond just a spiritual presence, but it is also manifested in a cadre of people who care. Just as the military's special-ops group knows researchers are aware and addressing a great fear of theirs -- high-altitude combat -- we know our Christian brothers and sisters are caring for us.
* * *
Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois just signed into law an abolishment of capital punishment for the state he oversees. He intently listened to arguments for both sides of the issue. But when the arguing ceased, he then reviewed the number of capital cases whose verdicts were overturned from the admittance of new DNA evidence or because of judicial error. Humans can make mistakes in judgment. Then Quinn turned to his Bible and a passage in 2 Corinthians about human imperfections. Then he prayed. Then he signed the piece of legislation.
Quinn's entire political career was also guided by a book written by Chicago's Cardinal Bernardin titled The Gift of Peace. In that book Bernardin discusses ethics as a "seamless garment" or a "consistent ethic of life." Quinn realized that permitting capital punishment would put a tear in his "seamless garment" of ethical beliefs. Quinn maintains that one's religious beliefs are inseparable from one's political practices. He said, "I think it's indispensable. When you're elected and sworn into office, that oath really involves your whole life experience, your religious experience. You bring that to bear on all the issues."
Samuel was told that others "look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." Quinn chose not to look upon a man in prison garb, but to see the soul of a man who could be innocent as a result of human misjudgment. Let us be careful how we judge, always being certain we are looking at the humanness of the issue.
* * *
This week's Old Testament lesson addresses the question of what role physical appearance played in the selection of Israel's greatest king, David. The short answer to that question is... none whatsoever.
The story begins when the prophet Samuel receives a message from God to take up his horn of oil and anoint Israel's next king. The only problem is, the Lord doesn't tell Samuel exactly who the next king will be -- just that he's going to be one of the eight sons of a certain Judean farmer by the name of Jesse. Samuel travels to Jesse's homestead, assuming that he'll recognize the new king when he sees him. But he doesn't -- seven sons of Jesse walk by, but not one of them displays that inscrutable aura of holiness Samuel figures will be just oozing out of the man God has chosen. "Is there no other?" he asks.
"Well, there's little Davy. If he were a sheep, he'd be the runt of the litter. We didn't even bother to invite someone so lacking in aristocratic refinement to this casting call -- we figured that would be cruel and unusual punishment."
"Send for him," says Samuel, doing a slow burn. When David finally does come forward, he's not wearing a tailored robe, Gucci sandals, or a pinky ring. His hands are calloused from gripping a walking stick, and he stinks of sheep. Yet this youngest son has a down-home, wholesome attractiveness. He's "ruddy," has "beautiful eyes," and is "handsome." There's no contrivance about him -- David is comfortable in his own skin. He -- not one of his more cosmopolitan brothers -- is the one God has chosen.
How does the Lord do it? How does the Lord select David? First Samuel provides an answer: "The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (16:7). There's tremendous hope in those words for those of us who are not accustomed to thinking of ourselves as "beautiful people." The Lord has not created us to be beautiful -- the Lord has created us to be good.
* * *
It's hard to imagine a candidate running for president today without a veritable army of style and grooming consultants, which is even more remarkable considering what some of our greatest presidents have looked like. George Washington was physically strong and -- at over six feet tall -- had an imposing presence. Yet he wore a set of wooden false teeth that gave him tremendous pain and led him to adopt a grim, tight-lipped expression that made him look perpetually angry. Abraham Lincoln was well-known as being one of the homeliest men around. He had a huge mole on one cheek and was so tall and awkward that some historians think he might have had a mild case of the pathological condition known as giantism. Franklin D. Roosevelt spent much of his time in a wheelchair due to polio. In those pre-television days, FDR's political handlers worked hard to keep newspaper photographers away from his wheelchair, crutches, and leg braces -- although in this age of television that level of protection would be unthinkable.
Yet where would we be today as a nation without Washington, Lincoln, or FDR? The simple truth is that if today's obsessive interest in physical appearance had prevailed back then, none of these three men would have made it to the presidency.
"The Lord does not see as mortals see," says Samuel. "They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
* * *
Motivational speaker Doug Dickerson (www.dougsmanagementmoment.blogspot.com) tells the story of a beauty products company that asked the citizens of a large metropolitan area to send them letters about and pictures of the most beautiful people they knew.
Of course thousands of letters came in, but none so intriguing as the one from a little boy that said: "A beautiful woman lives down the street from me. I visit her every day. She makes me feel like the most important kid in the world. We play checkers and she listens to my problems. She understands me, and when I leave she yells out the door that she's proud of me." He had enclosed a photo of a toothless old woman, her face wrinkled by age, her hair pulled back in a bun.
The president of the cosmetic company thought for a minute and then rejected the letter and picture. "If we use this," he said, "people will realize that you don't need our stuff to be beautiful."
* * *
Remember Archie Bunker, that curmudgeon of curmudgeons, and his ditzy wife Edith from the old television comedy All in the Family? In one episode, the two of them are attending Edith's high-school reunion. Edith runs into an old classmate of hers by the name of Buck. In his younger days Buck had been very handsome ñ but now, decades later, he's put on a lot of weight and is no longer what anyone would describe as good-looking.
None of this matters a bit to Edith, who's having a great time visiting with Buck and laughing about the old days. Through it all, Edith doesn't seem to notice how extremely heavy Buck has become. Later on, when Edith and Archie are talking, she remarks in her whiny voice, "Archie, ain't Buck a beautiful person?"
Archie looks back at her with his trademark curl of the lip and replies: "You're a pip, Edith. You know that. You and I look at the same guy -- and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp."
Edith suddenly loses the smile from her face. She displays a puzzled expression that slowly turns into sadness. "Yeah," she says wistfully, "ain't it too bad."
* * *
The Smithsonian Institute is preparing to place Thomas Jefferson's Bible on display this coming November. It is a cut-and-paste Bible of a mere 86 pages. After retiring from public office in 1820, Jefferson sat down with two Bibles, a razor blade, and some paste, and began to create his own Bible. It would contain only the words and actions of Jesus -- nothing miraculous or mysterious would be entertained. The result was what Jefferson referred to as The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Jefferson maintained that Jesus "was the first of human Sages." Jefferson considered himself to be a devout Christian. After completing the micro-testament, Jefferson wrote to a friend, "It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Part of Jefferson's Bible is a reflection of his attitude toward what he called "pseudo-Christians." These were Christians who were more concerned about doctrine than teaching and actions. They were preoccupied with abstract theorizing rather than the actual implementation of the teachings of Jesus.
When the blind man was healed, the Pharisees were unconcerned about the new life that was restored; they could only focus on the religious doctrine of Sabbath regulations that were violated. The Pharisees were more concerned with theorizing about religion rather than practicing the tenets of religion. An 86-page Bible may be more than sufficient for us, if it causes us to refrain from theorizing and instead calls us forth into action.
* * *
Habits are things we do because we can't stop doing them. Biting fingernails, smoking, swearing, and cracking chewing gum are all habits. There's no reason for doing them -- it's just that those of who do them can't seem to stop.
Customs are things that we do because we've always done them. The hymns we sing, the rituals we employ in worship, how we celebrate holidays -- these tend to be customs. There isn't a lot of meaning attached to how we do them; we've just always done them that way.
Traditions grow out of our core values. They are re-enactments. They remind of us of who and why we are. The sacraments are traditions in the church.
The church finds itself in trouble not because it has traditions, but because it has habits and customs that it treats as though they are traditions.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Come into the presence of our God.
People: We come to worship and to be blessed.
Leader: God may have other ideas in mind.
People: But this is what we have come to expect.
Leader: Open your eyes see things anew.
People: We come to be surprised by our God.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"God of Many Names"
found in:
UMH: 105
CH: 13
"I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord"
found in:
UMH: 540
H82: 542
PH: 441
NNBH: 302
NCH: 312
CH: 274
LBW: 368
"I Stand Amazed in the Presence"
found in:
UMH: 371
"In the Cross of Christ I Glory"
found in:
UMH: 295
H82: 441, 442
PH: 84
NNBH: 104
NCH: 193, 194
LBW: 104
"Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service"
found in:
UMH: 581
H82: 610
PH: 427
CH: 461
LBW: 423
Renew: 286
"Make Me a Captive, Lord"
found in:
UMH: 421
PH: 378
"O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done?"
found in:
UMH: 287
"Seek Ye First"
found in:
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
CH: 354
CCB: 76
"All I Need Is You"
found in:
CCB: 100
"We Are His Hands"
found in:
CCB: 85
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who works in ways that surprise us: Open our eyes that we may see the things that you are calling us to do and be, and give us courage to be faithful disciples of Jesus and blessed children of you; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to worship you, O God, and to be equipped for the work you have for us to do. Help us to so focus our lives on you and your mission that we are always ready for you to reveal yourself in new and wondrous ways. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially the ways in which we are blind to your gracious acts.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have become comfortable with our religious experiences, and we no longer anticipate your coming among us in new ways. We have come to believe that our experience of you is the only true one, and so we cut ourselves off from our sisters and brothers who have been visited by you in different ways from us. Forgive us, and replace the hardness of our hearts with an eager anticipation of your surprising, gracious work among your creatures. Amen.
Leader: God's desire to bring salvation to the creation never wanes or varies. God forgives us and regenerates us whenever we are open to God's presence.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We bless your Name, O God, because our salvation is your greatest desire. Your heart is ever tender to your creatures and your creation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have become comfortable with our religious experiences, and we no longer anticipate your coming among us in new ways. We have come to believe that our experience of you is the only true one, and so we cut ourselves off from our sisters and brothers who have been visited by you in different ways from us. Forgive us, and replace the hardness of our hearts with an eager anticipation of your surprising, gracious work among your creatures.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you come among us and work in, through, and for us. Sometimes you come to us in ways that we expect and are looking for, and sometimes you come in ways that surprise and amaze us. We thank you for both the expected and the unexpected epiphanies.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We offer to you the hurts and cares of this world and its inhabitants. We know that you are always with those who need you, and we pray that our prayers and our presence might be part of your healing touch for a broken world.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Visuals
Pictures of people being surprised: birthday parties, a jack-in-the-box, a squirting flower, etc.; also things that we associate with surprises such as balloons, birthday cakes, and so on.
Children's Sermon Starter
If you have ever had a surprise that was spoiled by learning about it, tell the children about it. Talk about how disappointing it is to have a surprise ruined. Surprises are great things. God likes surprises as well -- God likes to surprise us by helping us in ways we don't expect.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
God Looks at the Heart
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Good morning, boys and girls! The Bible tells us a story about a time when Israel needed a new king. God sent a man named Samuel to find the new ruler. Samuel was a good man who had helped God in many ways, and God told Samuel that he would point him in the right direction and would let him know when he had found the right person to be king.
God told Samuel to go and find a man named Jesse. Jesse had many sons, and one of them was God's choice to be the new king. Jesse called his sons in one by one to meet Samuel. (If you have older boys or youth helping, have them come up one by one as you finish the story.) First came a strong young man, but the Lord said to Samuel, "No, this is not the one." Next came another good-looking, strapping young fellow, but he was not God's choice either. A third son came in to see Samuel, but Samuel said, "No, this one has not been chosen." The Bible says that Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but none of them was God's choice.
Samuel finally asked Jesse if all of his sons had come in to see him. Jesse said, "Yes, these are all my sons except my youngest boy, David, who is out caring for the sheep."
Samuel asked Jesse to send for David, the young, small boy who was out in the field. When David came to see Samuel, God let Samuel know that he was the one.
David would be the new king. This was a surprise to Jesse and his older, stronger, and wiser sons. It was even a surprise to Samuel. Jesse had many older sons who looked like they would make better kings, but the Lord said to Samuel, "Don't be so concerned with how someone looks. Don't worry so much about how tall or how big someone is. People look at the outside, but God looks at the heart."
God did not care how big or how small David was. God was concerned with what was in David's heart, and God knew that David was a good, young man. He was God's choice to be the new king.
Sometimes we feel that we don't matter because we are young or small, but God doesn't care what we look like on the outside. God cares about what kind of person we are on the inside, and if God has a special job for us to do, he will help us do it, no matter what. Remember, people look at the outside, but God looks at the inside. God looks at our heart.
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The Immediate Word, April 3, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
