Samuel Was The Search Committee
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle B
I don't know about you but when I was growing up I always loved hearing the story of Cinderella. There was always something magical about it. It was more than Walter Mitty or Lee Iacocca -- small-town boy made good. It was more than Prince Charles and Princess Diana in all their regal splendor long before Diana's untimely death.
It was like the triumph of the poor and the oppressed over the powerful and the arrogant -- the quintessential example of the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It was the divine reversal in action as if God had actually written the story. It was liberation theology brought to fruition, the triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie set in the context of a monarchial drama, an incredible conflation of political images. It was, in Reinhold Niebuhr's terminology, the transvaluation of values. Of course, when I was six years of age I didn't think all that. I just thought it was a neat story, and I loved everything about it: The poor girl down on her luck, her mean stepsisters and their mean mother, the nice fairy godmother, the pumpkin carriage, the horses, the ball, the fantasy evening that whirled by like a waltz -- round and round and round she went -- an evening we all dream of that's over before we know it. Then there was the glass slipper that fit only her foot. I loved it when the older sisters got theirs for being so greedy. A tragic story with a happy ending. I loved everything about it.
I loved it as much as I did the story of the young boy who pulled the sword Excalibur from the stone, the one Merlin had been searching for all these years. Others had tried, others who were older and bigger and stronger, but for some reason this young lad was the one who could do it. This little one who Merlin called Wart would be crowned the king of England. Who'd have thought it? Neither the young boy nor Cinderella ever imagined that he or she would be chosen.
In a way, this story of Samuel searching for a new king is a kind of Cinderella story, isn't it? Samuel is the emissary who comes looking for the one whose foot fits the glass slipper. Samuel comes looking for the only one who can pull Excalibur from the stone. Like Merlin lurking through some medieval forest for King Arthur, so Samuel comes looking for the next king of Israel. And like Merlin, Samuel is a little unsure of his task. In both cases, as in the Cinderella story, there are many other forces vying for the prize. Others want the slipper. Others want the sword and the power that goes with it. But only one will be chosen. So off goes Samuel searching for a king. "Fill your horn with oil and go. Go to Jesse who lives down the road in Bethlehem, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons."
"What?" thought Samuel. "No nationwide search? No church information forms to fill out? No denominational approval? No resumes to read? The town and the home, already picked out? I know a few search committees who would like to have heard that! No job description to fill out, no inflated ideas about finding God's gift to Christendom that is thirty years of age with forty years of experience."
No. Samuel was the search committee who went off looking for the next king, and God had made it all easy by narrowing the search down to the little town called Bethlehem, which of course we hear about it later when shepherds and wise men appear searching for another king.
Samuel came to the house of Jesse that day, and Jesse trooped his sons in one by one for interviews with Samuel. The search process always includes the interview. And each search committee does interviews in different ways. Who knows how this one went? One scholar thinks the episode is reminiscent of Saul's election by lottery. Others think it involved interviews with "Yes" and "No" answers. The whole thing reminds me of the former football coach, Bear Bryant, visiting some Alabama farm looking for his next football star, and Mama and Daddy trooping all their sons by to see which one he wants. So here is Jesse, proud father that he is, trooping his sons one by one -- Eliab and Abinadab and Shammah and Nethanel and Raddai and Ozem. And in every case something wasn't quite right. In every case Samuel would say, "No, that's not the one. Next. Next. Next...."
Samuel learned three things about his search process, things that all search committees and congregations need to keep in mind: First, the search takes a lot longer than you think. Second, you look at a lot of candidates who on the surface look pretty good but aren't quite right somehow. They all have good qualifications but there's still something missing. And third, you should never give up because the right one will come along someday. You just know it. Samuel knew it, but he didn't know why. I'll tell you why. It's because God does the choosing. Samuel may be the search committee but God does the choosing. That's always the way it works.
So there is the prince's emissary looking astonished as he fits the glass slipper on the poor girl's foot; there is Merlin looking astonished when the scrawny boy pulls the sword from the stone. There is Samuel amazed when the kid comes in from the field. Why? Because Samuel was the search committee but God did the choosing. Is this not a theological statement about the sovereignty of God over your life and mine, the sovereignty of God over all nature and history? The protagonist in this story isn't Samuel or Jesse. It isn't even David. The protagonist in this story is God.
We think we have God's plan for our lives all figured out, but it's God who does the choosing. We think we have the right person for this position or that, and we work hard for that choice, but it's God who does the choosing. Notice that God often chooses ones we'd least expect.
Why? Because God doesn't look on appearance. God always looks on the heart. Look at David, the youngest son of Jesse. David was so young and insignificant that he couldn't even come to the sacrifice but had to stay and tend his sheep. He was the one chosen because God looks not on appearance; God looks on the heart.
Some people say, "I'm all used up or I'm too handicapped or I'm too old or I'm too young. God will never want me." That may be what David thought that day as Samuel, a search committee of one, came around looking for a new king to take Saul's place. The farthest thing from David's mind was that he would even be considered, much less chosen. Chances are it was the farthest thing from Samuel's and Jesse's mind, too. Jesse was just excited to have someone in his family tapped as king; all he could think about was the connections he would have to the seat of real power, so he scrubbed all his sons up and dressed them in their finest, that is, all but the little one he'd left out with the sheep, and paraded them by Samuel one by one thinking surely this was the one. "Well, if not this one, surely that one. They all look so good, don't you think? Mama and I have done our best to raise them right. All the best schools, sports, and music programs. Bringing children up in today's world is no easy thing," says Jesse. "But haven't they turned out great?"
While Jesse is showing Samuel the family trophy case and photographs of their latest achievements, Samuel is checking them out carefully and looking each one right in the eye since the eyes really are the windows of the soul. Initially Samuel is really impressed with Eliab, the tall, dark handsome one, the one with broad shoulders who has a kind of regal air about him. "But no," says the Lord, "that's not the one." Next comes Abinadab who has all the right stuff, "But no," says the Lord, "that's not the one." Then there's Shammah, but he's not the one, either. All seven sons troop by, but, "No, no, no," says the Lord, on every one of them. Samuel and Jesse like any search committee are getting pretty frustrated.
So Samuel says, "Is this all you've got?"
"Well, actually," says Jesse, "there's one more, but he's just a boy out running with the sheep."
"Bring him in here," says Samuel. Everyone kind of giggles, just as the older sisters do in the Cinderella story. "Little David? Samuel will take one look at him and laugh his head off." But that's not what Samuel did at all. As the little red-faced, runny-nosed child stepped through the door, Samuel knew immediately. Call it divine intuition, call it providence, call it whatever you want. But Samuel knew right then. The biblical writer says it was all in the eyes, for David had beautiful eyes.
I don't know what it was. All I know is that God has an odd way of working because the moment that little boy bounced through the door with "Hey, Dad, what's going on?" his life was changed forever and so was the life of Israel. How could something like this happen? It happens, says the biblical writer, because the Lord sees not as mortals see. The Lord looks not on outward appearance. The Lord looks on the heart. God does not look at your clothes, or your cars, or your houses, or your investments, or even at how much money you give as some TV preachers would have us believe, or how much you do in social justice ministry, or how many jobs you've done around the church, or how many Sunday school classes you've taught, or even how many years you've sung in the choir. No, the Lord doesn't look at how strong or healthy you are or even how much experience you've had. The Lord looks on the heart.
Paul sings the same song in his great peroration on love in 1 Corinthians: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). We may put up a great charade among our friends at church, at work, and in our own neighborhoods; we may even be able to fool ourselves for a while. But we can never fool God. Why? Because the Lord looks not on outward appearance or achievement. The Lord looks on the heart. Walk your way through the Bible and you will see. Here is Moses who got tongue-tied every time he had to speak and not even Dale Carnegie could get him over his stage fright; Samuel and Jeremiah were entirely too young, but God still chose them. Why? Because the Lord looks not at age or outward appearance; the Lord looks on the heart.
God chooses the ones we'd never expect. Paul says in 1 Corinthians: "For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world ..." (1 Corinthians 1:26 ff RSV). Never think that you can't serve because God might choose you before you know it. God chooses the ones we'd never expect -- Paul, the murderer; Augustine, the womanizer; Luther, the heavy drinker. "You're a preacher?" says someone to John at the high school reunion. "Weren't you the hot-headed brawler on the basketball team? And Wayne, the tough kid on the block, he's a preacher, too? You guys must have really changed." Or to Susan, the bratty girl in class: "You're a preacher now? Well, you always did like to talk."
God chooses the ones we least expect. Look at a prominent journalist for the finest newspaper in the land whose colleagues say to him, "You go to church?" "What's gotten into you?" God chooses the ones we'd least expect to do God's will and bring in God's kingdom.
God chooses the ones we'd never expect. We think we have God's plan all figured out but we don't. Samuel was the search committee but God does the choosing. God chooses you and me in unexpected ways. If Jesus saw something in IRS types and fishermen and publicans and sinners and even a little scoundrel like Zacchaeus who'd been treed like a cat, imagine what Jesus sees in you and me! Jesus' x-ray vision saw right through the woman at the well and Peter and James and John. Just as with David and you and me, the Lord looks not on outward appearance or achievement; the Lord looks on the heart.
"You've got to have heart to play on this team, boy," says Bear Bryant. "I don't care how big you are." "Is this all your sons?" he asks the Alabama mother. "Well, no" she replies. "There's the little one in the barn. But he's so small." "Bring him in," says the Bear.
I don't know where you come from or how you got where you are. But for some reason God has called you and me in unexpected ways. Why? Because that's the way God works. Thanks be to God! Samuel may be the search committee, but it's God who does the choosing. Amen.
It was like the triumph of the poor and the oppressed over the powerful and the arrogant -- the quintessential example of the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It was the divine reversal in action as if God had actually written the story. It was liberation theology brought to fruition, the triumph of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie set in the context of a monarchial drama, an incredible conflation of political images. It was, in Reinhold Niebuhr's terminology, the transvaluation of values. Of course, when I was six years of age I didn't think all that. I just thought it was a neat story, and I loved everything about it: The poor girl down on her luck, her mean stepsisters and their mean mother, the nice fairy godmother, the pumpkin carriage, the horses, the ball, the fantasy evening that whirled by like a waltz -- round and round and round she went -- an evening we all dream of that's over before we know it. Then there was the glass slipper that fit only her foot. I loved it when the older sisters got theirs for being so greedy. A tragic story with a happy ending. I loved everything about it.
I loved it as much as I did the story of the young boy who pulled the sword Excalibur from the stone, the one Merlin had been searching for all these years. Others had tried, others who were older and bigger and stronger, but for some reason this young lad was the one who could do it. This little one who Merlin called Wart would be crowned the king of England. Who'd have thought it? Neither the young boy nor Cinderella ever imagined that he or she would be chosen.
In a way, this story of Samuel searching for a new king is a kind of Cinderella story, isn't it? Samuel is the emissary who comes looking for the one whose foot fits the glass slipper. Samuel comes looking for the only one who can pull Excalibur from the stone. Like Merlin lurking through some medieval forest for King Arthur, so Samuel comes looking for the next king of Israel. And like Merlin, Samuel is a little unsure of his task. In both cases, as in the Cinderella story, there are many other forces vying for the prize. Others want the slipper. Others want the sword and the power that goes with it. But only one will be chosen. So off goes Samuel searching for a king. "Fill your horn with oil and go. Go to Jesse who lives down the road in Bethlehem, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons."
"What?" thought Samuel. "No nationwide search? No church information forms to fill out? No denominational approval? No resumes to read? The town and the home, already picked out? I know a few search committees who would like to have heard that! No job description to fill out, no inflated ideas about finding God's gift to Christendom that is thirty years of age with forty years of experience."
No. Samuel was the search committee who went off looking for the next king, and God had made it all easy by narrowing the search down to the little town called Bethlehem, which of course we hear about it later when shepherds and wise men appear searching for another king.
Samuel came to the house of Jesse that day, and Jesse trooped his sons in one by one for interviews with Samuel. The search process always includes the interview. And each search committee does interviews in different ways. Who knows how this one went? One scholar thinks the episode is reminiscent of Saul's election by lottery. Others think it involved interviews with "Yes" and "No" answers. The whole thing reminds me of the former football coach, Bear Bryant, visiting some Alabama farm looking for his next football star, and Mama and Daddy trooping all their sons by to see which one he wants. So here is Jesse, proud father that he is, trooping his sons one by one -- Eliab and Abinadab and Shammah and Nethanel and Raddai and Ozem. And in every case something wasn't quite right. In every case Samuel would say, "No, that's not the one. Next. Next. Next...."
Samuel learned three things about his search process, things that all search committees and congregations need to keep in mind: First, the search takes a lot longer than you think. Second, you look at a lot of candidates who on the surface look pretty good but aren't quite right somehow. They all have good qualifications but there's still something missing. And third, you should never give up because the right one will come along someday. You just know it. Samuel knew it, but he didn't know why. I'll tell you why. It's because God does the choosing. Samuel may be the search committee but God does the choosing. That's always the way it works.
So there is the prince's emissary looking astonished as he fits the glass slipper on the poor girl's foot; there is Merlin looking astonished when the scrawny boy pulls the sword from the stone. There is Samuel amazed when the kid comes in from the field. Why? Because Samuel was the search committee but God did the choosing. Is this not a theological statement about the sovereignty of God over your life and mine, the sovereignty of God over all nature and history? The protagonist in this story isn't Samuel or Jesse. It isn't even David. The protagonist in this story is God.
We think we have God's plan for our lives all figured out, but it's God who does the choosing. We think we have the right person for this position or that, and we work hard for that choice, but it's God who does the choosing. Notice that God often chooses ones we'd least expect.
Why? Because God doesn't look on appearance. God always looks on the heart. Look at David, the youngest son of Jesse. David was so young and insignificant that he couldn't even come to the sacrifice but had to stay and tend his sheep. He was the one chosen because God looks not on appearance; God looks on the heart.
Some people say, "I'm all used up or I'm too handicapped or I'm too old or I'm too young. God will never want me." That may be what David thought that day as Samuel, a search committee of one, came around looking for a new king to take Saul's place. The farthest thing from David's mind was that he would even be considered, much less chosen. Chances are it was the farthest thing from Samuel's and Jesse's mind, too. Jesse was just excited to have someone in his family tapped as king; all he could think about was the connections he would have to the seat of real power, so he scrubbed all his sons up and dressed them in their finest, that is, all but the little one he'd left out with the sheep, and paraded them by Samuel one by one thinking surely this was the one. "Well, if not this one, surely that one. They all look so good, don't you think? Mama and I have done our best to raise them right. All the best schools, sports, and music programs. Bringing children up in today's world is no easy thing," says Jesse. "But haven't they turned out great?"
While Jesse is showing Samuel the family trophy case and photographs of their latest achievements, Samuel is checking them out carefully and looking each one right in the eye since the eyes really are the windows of the soul. Initially Samuel is really impressed with Eliab, the tall, dark handsome one, the one with broad shoulders who has a kind of regal air about him. "But no," says the Lord, "that's not the one." Next comes Abinadab who has all the right stuff, "But no," says the Lord, "that's not the one." Then there's Shammah, but he's not the one, either. All seven sons troop by, but, "No, no, no," says the Lord, on every one of them. Samuel and Jesse like any search committee are getting pretty frustrated.
So Samuel says, "Is this all you've got?"
"Well, actually," says Jesse, "there's one more, but he's just a boy out running with the sheep."
"Bring him in here," says Samuel. Everyone kind of giggles, just as the older sisters do in the Cinderella story. "Little David? Samuel will take one look at him and laugh his head off." But that's not what Samuel did at all. As the little red-faced, runny-nosed child stepped through the door, Samuel knew immediately. Call it divine intuition, call it providence, call it whatever you want. But Samuel knew right then. The biblical writer says it was all in the eyes, for David had beautiful eyes.
I don't know what it was. All I know is that God has an odd way of working because the moment that little boy bounced through the door with "Hey, Dad, what's going on?" his life was changed forever and so was the life of Israel. How could something like this happen? It happens, says the biblical writer, because the Lord sees not as mortals see. The Lord looks not on outward appearance. The Lord looks on the heart. God does not look at your clothes, or your cars, or your houses, or your investments, or even at how much money you give as some TV preachers would have us believe, or how much you do in social justice ministry, or how many jobs you've done around the church, or how many Sunday school classes you've taught, or even how many years you've sung in the choir. No, the Lord doesn't look at how strong or healthy you are or even how much experience you've had. The Lord looks on the heart.
Paul sings the same song in his great peroration on love in 1 Corinthians: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). We may put up a great charade among our friends at church, at work, and in our own neighborhoods; we may even be able to fool ourselves for a while. But we can never fool God. Why? Because the Lord looks not on outward appearance or achievement. The Lord looks on the heart. Walk your way through the Bible and you will see. Here is Moses who got tongue-tied every time he had to speak and not even Dale Carnegie could get him over his stage fright; Samuel and Jeremiah were entirely too young, but God still chose them. Why? Because the Lord looks not at age or outward appearance; the Lord looks on the heart.
God chooses the ones we'd never expect. Paul says in 1 Corinthians: "For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world ..." (1 Corinthians 1:26 ff RSV). Never think that you can't serve because God might choose you before you know it. God chooses the ones we'd never expect -- Paul, the murderer; Augustine, the womanizer; Luther, the heavy drinker. "You're a preacher?" says someone to John at the high school reunion. "Weren't you the hot-headed brawler on the basketball team? And Wayne, the tough kid on the block, he's a preacher, too? You guys must have really changed." Or to Susan, the bratty girl in class: "You're a preacher now? Well, you always did like to talk."
God chooses the ones we least expect. Look at a prominent journalist for the finest newspaper in the land whose colleagues say to him, "You go to church?" "What's gotten into you?" God chooses the ones we'd least expect to do God's will and bring in God's kingdom.
God chooses the ones we'd never expect. We think we have God's plan all figured out but we don't. Samuel was the search committee but God does the choosing. God chooses you and me in unexpected ways. If Jesus saw something in IRS types and fishermen and publicans and sinners and even a little scoundrel like Zacchaeus who'd been treed like a cat, imagine what Jesus sees in you and me! Jesus' x-ray vision saw right through the woman at the well and Peter and James and John. Just as with David and you and me, the Lord looks not on outward appearance or achievement; the Lord looks on the heart.
"You've got to have heart to play on this team, boy," says Bear Bryant. "I don't care how big you are." "Is this all your sons?" he asks the Alabama mother. "Well, no" she replies. "There's the little one in the barn. But he's so small." "Bring him in," says the Bear.
I don't know where you come from or how you got where you are. But for some reason God has called you and me in unexpected ways. Why? Because that's the way God works. Thanks be to God! Samuel may be the search committee, but it's God who does the choosing. Amen.
