"The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”1
Those wise words, spoken to Samuel while he is in the process of looking for a new King, are the very reason why we are going to spending many of our summer Sunday’s this year looking at readings from the Hebrew Tradition. They are great stories about real people who are called to do things that sometimes work out and sometimes do not. These readings from the Good Book tell us about the real struggles of real people who sometimes succeed and sometimes fail miserably. They are stories that begin, like most stories, with meager expectations.
In that sense they are just like all of our stories which is why their stories and worth hearing and worth telling. And we’ll meet three characters, whom we have all heard of, today in Saul, Samuel, and David.
The people had long wanted a king, a single, strong leader who they could look to whenever times got tough as they often did. They looked for a leader whose face they could carve on a mountain. They didn’t have meagre expectations but high hopes. “High apple pie, in the sky hopes” wanting someone who was physically strong, mentally awake and morally upright.
They had high expectations for their King and what they got in their first King was Saul who, as the story of his kingship moves along, is “portrayed as growing ever more deranged and incompetent.”2 To make matters worse he seems to be more than a little paranoid, suffering from bouts of depression and thinking that people are out to get him. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”3 Saul could have said with Shakespear’s Henry IV.
No doubt that while some were satisfied with deranged and incompetent leadership others felt that it was time for a change, so they turned to the prophet Samuel to look for a new king.
With the help of the Holy Spirit Samuel choses the house of a faithful servant of the Lord, Jesse as the one from which the new king should come.
As you heard, “in this passage, Samuel is shown the new king in a most unusual manner — a kind of contest. Each son of Jesse is ‘displayed’ before Samuel”4 and down the line he goes starting with the eldest.
Both Samuel and Eliab, the eldest and by tradition and appearance the most likely, is a sure winner but the LORD says to Samuel: “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for... The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”5
Advice we might well heed during our never-ending election season particularly because, in a poem by Philip Kolin in The Christian Century, Eliab is crying foul. The election was stolen! It was rigged! Samuel is out to get him! He was robbed!
I had all the qualifications: the prerogatives of the firstborn, the stature of a man of authority, a Goliath, good looks and regal gait. I had splendor and grace. I prayed loudly, devoutly. I came from good roots...Why wasn’t that good enough for God?
How could my kid brother be anointed, the one with rosacea, looks like carpenter’s shavings, the smell of sheep dung on his hands, who roamed the fields looking for a lost lamb.
My name alone should have given me the edge in the kingdom. Any fool could see that.6
The rest of Jesse’s boys could have said the same thing when each one of them was rejected forcing Samuel to ask: “Are these all there are?”
The rest of Jesse’s boys could have said the same thing when each one of them was rejected forcing Samuel to ask: “Are these all there are?”
“Well, there is the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep.”
“Send for him at once,” Samuel said.7
And what was brought to him was David. Not Michelangelo’s king David but David in his teenage years. Perhaps a little scrawny from too much campfire cooking, not quite filled out, never-the-less we are told, at first glance, “the very picture of health—bright-eyed, good-looking.”8
While I know people who have chosen candidates for exactly those same qualifications, I wonder if there shouldn’t be something more. A little more experience like those David brought to the job “his responsibilities—to care for the flock, insure they got food and water, protect them from harm, bring them safely home—were identical to those of the good ruler.”
Don’t many of our stories wind up like David’s? Public events and private lives twist, turn, and collide. The pursuit of power and pleasure gets mixed up with efforts to be pious and faithful, and the results are mixed: some success and some disaster. This is life in God’s world: we do our best, but then cruel processes of history steamroll everybody—yet somehow, they almost accidentally further God’s kingdom.9
At first glance, except for his appearance, not much was expected of future King David. They were meager, yet somehow, he was used and in spite of our meager expectations God uses us.
In that sense all David and all of us are like that mustard seed that Jesus was talking about.
Just as some eyes were raised when David was anointed as King many more eyes were raised when Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed. “You have to be joking,” the listeners might have said to Jesus and perhaps he was.
As Biblical scholar Dr. Matthew Skinner of Luther Seminary reminds us:
This is not the kind of crop most people would sow. Where Jesus lived, mustard was prolific like a common and sturdy weed. It could pop up almost anywhere and start multiplying. Some of Jesus’ listeners must have groaned or chuckled. Imagine him speaking today of thistles or ground-ivy. In any case, the reign of God apparently isn’t much of a cash crop. Yet it grows. It is not easily eradicated. Good luck keeping it out of your well manicured garden or your farmland.
{Never-the-less} Jesus describes the fully grown mustard plant as “the greatest of all shrubs.” At this point, some of his auditors probably snorted and blew milk out of their noses. It can grow dense, but it is hardly magnificent. Jesus must be grinning as he speaks. He is not aiming to impart insights about the relative worth of shrubberies but to shock people into a new way of perceiving greatness.10
Just as David may not have been perceived as great when he strode upon the scene so few could have seen the potential in a mustard seed that Jesus did.
Few outside of the church will see any significance in what we are doing today. That’s because they have meager expections for what is happening.
While I would never call Max a mustard seed much less a shrub (Unless it was as a term of endearment) what we are doing today along with him and his wonderful family, whether we can see it or not, is causing
Christ’s kingdom to grow.
As the congregation walks back to the font, bulletins and hymnals in hand, to meet him at the font we will affirm that Christ is near us and is stretching our meager expectations beyond our wildest imaginations.
Christ comes in forms we least expect. Simple water that is turned into a font of blessing at our baptisms. Bread and wine, Christ’s very own presence with us, as we come forward to feast at his table.
If we live beyond our meager expectations, we’ll believe that even a lowly shepherd can become a great king and even something as small as a mustard seed in Jesus’ eyes can be something of great worth.
And, who knows, maybe washed in the waters of baptism and nourished at the Lord’s table even you and I can do great things for the Jesus’ reign and rule?
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1. 1 Samuel 16:7. (NLT) [NLT=The New Living Translation. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015)]
2. Daniel Smith Christopher, “1 Samuel 15:34--16:13,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, 3, no. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2021): 73– 75.
3. William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2 - Entire Play,” Folger Shakespeare Library, accessed June 15, 2024, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/henry-iv-part-2/read/.
4. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “1 Samuel 15:3-4--16:13,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, 3, no. 3 (Louisville, KY:Westminister|John Knox Press, 2021) p. 73 – 75.
5. 1 Samuel 16:7. (NLT) [NLT=The New Living Translation. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015)]
6. Philip C. Kolin, “Eliab’s Complain,” The Christian Century, December 24, 2014, https://www.christiancentury.org/artsculture/poems/eliab-s-complaint
7. 1 Samuel 16:10-11. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishing, 1971)]
8. 1 Samuel 16:12. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, with Topical Concordance (NavPress, 2005).]
9. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say June 16? 4th After Pentecost,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, accessed June 15, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.
10. Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 4:26-34,” Working Preacher , November 11, 2020, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-11-2/commentary-on-mark-426-34-4.
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