No Longer Strangers, Part 1: The Family

Ephesians 1:3-14

This week we begin a new series focusing on Christian community. Using the letter to Ephesians to explore this basic question: how to live as a community of faith in the best ways we can.

The church has changed an awful lot over the past 2000 years, but something that has not really changed is the struggle we have to be an authentic Christian community. Ever since the beginning, this has been a hard task for the church, because it is a fight against our tribal instincts. Human beings have always had a tendency to cluster into groups of people who are “like us.” In whatever ways are important to us, whatever values are foremost in our minds, these are the markers we look for in creating community.

And this is precisely what the church of Jesus Christ is working to overcome. The very radical thing that the church does is to cross over tribal and familial boundaries and create new community.

God, through Christ, is making a new family, adopting us as God’s own, kid brothers and sisters to Jesus Christ. Crossing over family lines – blood lines – and grafting us onto the family tree. All of us, and many more. The image of family is a strong one for the church. It is an image we use frequently. The joys and trials of family are things we think about a lot.

Because it’s a topic that most everyone has an interest in, there are many good movies about family. I watched one this past week, called The Family Stone. It came out about 10-15 years ago. It’s Christmas and all the adult children of the Stone family are coming home. And – spoiler alert – there will be tension.

Have you noticed that in most families every member plays a specific role? This is true in the Stone family, where they all have unspoken labels. The eldest son Everett is the successful child. He wants to make his parents proud. Susannah is the nurturing one, who spends most of the film in the background quietly caring for her young daughter. Ben is the free-spirit who marches to the beat of his own drummer, and the first to be blamed if something goes wrong. Thad is deaf and gay, the one they all rally around to support and protect. And Amy is the spoiled baby of the family.

This Christmas Everett is bringing home Meredith, the woman he plans to marry. Things don’t go well. Amy hates her. The rest of the family tries to be polite, but they look at Meredith like she dropped in from the planet Mars. She doesn’t seem to fit in well. The more nervous she gets, the more she puts her foot in her mouth, offending them.

Ben, however, takes an interest in Meredith – maybe he has sympathy because he knows what it’s like being the square peg in the house. Unexpectedly, they seem to be kindred spirits.

Pretty soon, a couple of other oddball characters get added to the mix. There is Brad, who has had an awkward crush on Amy since high school. And Meredith’s sister, Julie, who – unlike Meredith – does fit in quite well. Which creates an even bigger wedge between Meredith and the family. When Julie shows up, it’s like waiting for a car crash to happen.

The film is funny and sweet and sad and familiar, because we all know how challenging family can be. Family involves a lot of relationships that were not entered into by choice. And, in general, we are stuck with them no matter how difficult they are. And we all know they can be really, really difficult.

The thing we see happening with Meredith in the film is an example of how hard it can be to join a family. It’s like everyone has their place, their role, and there isn’t always room for someone new. They were all dismayed by Meredith, in one way or another, because they couldn’t figure out where she fit in. Even more of a problem, they didn’t need Meredith. They felt complete as they were, without her.

Family can be very hard. Just when you might think you’ve got it all sorted out, one little thing shifts, and everything is out of whack. It’s not easy being in relationship with a bunch of people you didn’t necessarily choose to be in relationship with. Which brings us to the church.

The letter to the Ephesians speaks of the church as family, as we are all, each one of us, adopted into the family of God through Jesus Christ. And this letter is deeply concerned about the matter of insiders and outsiders, and how the various members are treated. Because not everyone was treated well. The circle of membership wasn’t always open and inviting.

The message we hear in these words from Ephesians is that God’s divine plan involves gathering up all of God’s children into one family. Christ is the firstborn, our elder brother. The Jews who followed him were gathered in first, but the family did not end there. The gentiles from all the nations were gathered up into the family as well, to make up the body of Christ, the church, with Christ as our head. It is by God’s grace and for God’s purpose that we are gathered together, to be heirs to the promises God made so long ago.

The Jews, Christ’s brothers and sisters, needed to know that the family, the promises of God did not end with them. And the Ephesians and all the other churches of Asia needed to know that the family did not end with them. And we, of course, need to know that it does not end with us. God is still at work, gathering, reconciling, healing the world.

God has made us one family, in Christ, not to set ourselves against the world, but to welcome all the world into the fold. We are family. Not because we chose each other, but because God chose us. We are family. Not because we like each other but because God loves us. We are family. Not because we have so much in common but just because we all, each one of us, bear the mark of adoption.

You and I and all of us are beneficiaries of the love and grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a done deal. And because of that, other labels no longer have meaning. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

It’s like in the Stone family. Like most Christmas movies, everything resolves toward love in the end. Accepting one another, forgiving one another, and loving one another. And in the end they are all, every one of them, members of one big family.

By the end there is no longer uptight-and-awkward-Meredith and goofy-boy-down-the-street-Brad and I’m-only-here-because-my-sister-asked-me-to-come-Julie. There is no longer black-sheep-Ben and gay-Thad and spoiled-baby-Amy. There is one family where all are loved. The members are held together, in spite of their differences, by the love and grace of God.

There is so much more we can say about this matter of being in community with one another. But it begins with God. God chose us and loves us into community. We have been called, forgiven, and anointed as God’s own for God’s purposes.

We are here because God marked us as God’s own, as members of God’s family. And no matter how much things change, that will be the same.

Occupy

2 Samuel 5:1-5,9-10

2 Corinthians 12:2-10         

The beauty of following a story through a series of Sundays is being able to see how characters develop. You think back to just a few weeks ago when we were reading about the boy who ran around with a slingshot in his back pocket, following the sheep around the pasture, running errands for his dad and his big brothers. You think about this little boy who bragged to the soldiers of Israel, I could beat that old giant any day! And they laughed him off. And then he did.

That cute little boy from the hick little town of Bethlehem, ruddy and innocent – look at him now. He’s king over all Israel, ruling from his new stronghold, the city on a hill, the city of David.

All the tribes of Israel came out to see him, they praised him and honored him. They made a covenant with him and anointed him king. He was 30 years old when he began to rule. Not bad.

Not bad for the man, and not bad for the nation. These were the glory days for Israel. David occupied the stronghold, he became greater and greater, and Israel became greater and greater. As their leader, he defeated enemies and increased their territory and wealth. These were the glory days. They were on top of the world. Taking possession of the city on a hill, the stronghold, this was a critical point in their rise.

It wasn’t easy, of course. 

David wanted this city for his capitol because it seemed impregnable. High on a hill with good vantage points all around, there was no way to sneak up on Jerusalem. The Jebusites, who occupied it at the time, felt pretty confident that they were keeping it. In fact, they were so confident they taunted their enemies saying even their blind and lame could defend Jerusalem.

But that turned out to be wrong. David’s army managed to surprise the Jebusites by taking the less-traveled route. They shimmied up a water shaft and – surprise! – popped up inside the fortress. At that point it was essentially a done deal. All they had to do was get in there, and the city belonged to David. Occupation was all they needed.

It got me thinking about the spaces we occupy.

In some way, the space we occupy defines who we are.  To be the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or 10 Downing Street – we know who you are. To occupy these addresses is to occupy a seat of power. When David arrived in the city of Jerusalem, I guess dubbing it the City of David was just a formality.  To occupy this city was to claim power. And it still is today, as we witness ongoing power struggles over control of this city.

But the matter of occupation and power impacts all of us, even those of us who are not kings, prime ministers, and presidents. The space you occupy means something. The space you occupy says something to the people around you. When you have the biggest house on the block, or when you have the tall-steeple church in the center of town, it says something about your importance.

Israel was flying high on that day when they took the city of Jerusalem, and for many years after. And they probably thought it would last forever, because that’s the way we tend to think. If you’re sitting on top of the world, why wouldn’t it always stay that way?

But, of course, it didn’t.

A few hundred years later they were exiled from the land altogether. Some of the tribes of Israel were beaten so severely and scattered so thoroughly that they were never reunited. They are known as the lost tribes of Israel. Others were sent to a foreign land, Babylon, where they lived as captives.  Later, they were permitted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild, but they were never again the masters of their own land. They were always in the company of one unwelcome occupier or another. By the first century CE, they were living under Roman occupation.

And so it’s interesting to me that Jesus, the descendant of King David, grew up in an occupied land, under the oppressive rule of Empire. And it’s also interesting to me that Jesus claimed no space of his own. He occupied only the space that he happened to be in at any given moment. And what’s more, he asked the same of his disciples. An interesting 180 degree turn from the glory days of King David, isn’t it? Just what, exactly changed?

The theology underpinning the books of Samuel and Kings draws a strong connection between Israel’s obedience to God and their fortunes. The covenant law holds that the foundation of the relationship between God and the people of Israel is their obedience. As long as they are obedient to God, God will be with them, and they will receive the benefits of God’s presence with them. The story says that David became greater and greater, for the Lord was with him. At other points, they tell us that Israel suffered losses because of their failure to obey God’s laws.

This passage from Samuel is affirming this theological point. Yes, David’s army was great; they had strength, ingenuity, courage, and all sorts of good qualities. But they didn’t take the city because they had good qualities. The scripture wants us to know that they took the city because God was with them. They were successful, they prospered, because God was with them. And God was with them because they were obedient to God. That is the message of Samuel.

Honestly, it is a message that probably doesn’t work for all times and places. We know full well that there are people in the world who lack goodness and compassion and humility, yet still occupy high places. They prosper because they are ruthless and greedy. I will not say that their prosperity and success is due to their godliness, or even that God has reasons for wanting them to be successful.

The story of our faith gives us more than kings, though; it also gives us prophets.  Prophets were sent to Israel, again and again, to show them the ways they had strayed and to bring them back to their God. The prophets told them in so many ways that their failures to care for the least among them was a failure that would bring them great pain and suffering. Their failures to care for the well-being of all, instead of allowing a few to prosper at the expense of the many – this would be their great failure. But did they listen?

Jesus grieved for Jerusalem, calling it “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it,” he said. He said, “Your house is left to you”; they still occupied the city on a hill. But he would not be left with them – for much longer.

How we occupy the space we occupy is the question that matters. This is a matter of spiritual occupancy.

Paul writes to the Corinthians “I once knew a man who was caught up into third heaven.” Whatever that is.

Ancient religions sometimes spoke about the layers of heaven, that there were seven levels of heaven – hence, the term seventh heaven. Apparently, there are some extra-biblical writings that speak of these levels of heaven, although I don’t know much about it, but I have read that some believed that God resides in the third heaven. So, to be co-occupants with God in the third heaven, that would be a big thing.

Scholars agree that Paul is really referring to himself, when he says, “I knew a man who went to the third heaven.” But he probably doesn’t say so because he is preaching to the Corinthians about humility. He is trying to steer them away from the so-called super-apostles who boast about their credentials, back toward himself, Paul, who has said previously that if he boasts at all he boasts only of Christ.

That if he would boast at all, he would boast of his weakness.

He would not boast of having the biggest house, the best address, the most powerful position.  He will not boast of his education or his evangelistic achievements – but only of his weakness and his need. This thorn in the flesh that was given to him, whatever it was, kept him humble, always knowing that but for the grace of God he would be nothing.

The spiritual space we occupy is what matters. This will make the difference in how we use whatever we have been given. Think about what we have: buildings, location, endowment, a long and rich heritage and countless spiritual gifts amongst us.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: How will we choose to occupy it?

What We Give

2 Samuel 1:1,17-27     

2 Corinthians 8:7-15   

Ours is a culture that believes in charity. It’s a value we share, that it is good to give to those who are in need. We believe that it is good to give, but not that we should be compelled to give. It should be something that comes from the heart, so each one should have the right, and should be encouraged, to give freely; to give as much as one has made up one’s mind to give. 

I think we got this idea from the Apostle Paul. 

Paul tells the Corinthians that he wants them to be generous, basically for their own sake, but that he does not want to compel them to be generous. Because that would sort of defeat the purpose. He really wants them to want to do good. And you just can’t force that on someone.

That is essentially what I think Americans believe too. We are a land that celebrates freedom, and that includes freedom in giving. So in our country, we have a lot of charities. 

I am sure you know this from first-hand experience. How many requests for donations have you received this week? There are so many charities we need other organizations that help us figure out which charities to give to. We need Charity Navigators, to tell us who is worthy and who is not. 

You know that once you give, you get on everyone’s list and the requests multiply. I have known some people who try to respond to all the requests that seem worthy with at least a small amount, and others who try to narrow their focus to just a few and ignore the rest. I once knew a man who told me he and his wife were so overwhelmed by this problem they just ignored them all. And then they felt guilty about not giving, so they decided that their penance would be to pay every penny of taxes they might be responsible for, not looking for any deductions or credits that they might be eligible for.

The problem of giving can easily become an overwhelming and thorny problem for us. And we don’t have any outside authority telling us how to do it. It’s just up to each one of us to decide what and how to give. 

Some of us use the tithing rule. We say that the Bible mandates we give ten percent of our earnings to God, so that is how much we pledge to the church. Of course, then we grapple with the question of whether it’s ten percent of gross or net earnings. And there is a question of whether we give the whole ten percent to our congregation, or if we divide it up between the church and other charitable organizations. Then finally there is the question of whether ten percent is meant to be the limit of our giving, or just the starting point.

The question of how and what we give is not a simple one. And to be told, “Just give as you want to give. It’s a personal decision,” is not all that helpful. We need more guidance than that. 

Actually, we have more guidance than that. we can find it in both these passages we heard today.

Let’s look first at the story of David in 2^ndSamuel. This doesn’t sound like a story about giving, but bear with me.

You know that when he was just a boy David was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the king of Israel. For years afterward, Saul remained the king. During this period, young David came to serve in the king’s palace. He played on his harp to soothe Saul’s troubled spirit. He fought in Saul’s army. He became close friends with Saul’s son Jonathan. He even married Saul’s daughter, Michal. But eventually, Saul turned on David and they became enemies. 

David became a leader of his own army, a revolt against the king. But through all of this there was a great love between David and Saul’s son, Jonathan. Jonathan tried to facilitate a reconciliation between David and Saul when things first fell apart. He made several attempts, but eventually realized that his father was dead set on killing David. So Jonathan, who loved and honored his father, was in the position of having to choose sides. And here is what he did.

He stayed and fought with his father. But he also gave warning to David, protecting him from Saul’s wrath. He pledged his love and loyalty to David, even while fighting beside his father. He didn’t choose one over the other. He chose both.

Jonathan’s loyalty to his father was just what was expected of a son. But the love and loyalty he gave to David went beyond what anyone would expect. It was beyond what was even good for him. He suffered his father’s wrath because of his loyalty to David. His father’s army was weakened, partly, due to his loyalty to David, and eventually Jonathan died, in part, because of his loyalty to David.

And after his death, David sings of his great love for Jonathan, praising Jonathan’s love and loyalty that surpassed all expectations. Perhaps this story about David and Jonathan tells us something about giving.

Do we sometimes have a tendency to expect something back when we give? An expectation that the favor will be returned. Or that we will be lauded and praised for our generosity. Or that those we give to will use our gift precisely the way we want them to. 

At the very least, I want to get a tax deduction.

But Jonathan could not expect to get anything back for what he gave David. Jonathan’s duty was to his father, but his gift to David was the truest form of generosity. He gave without regard for his own gain.

I think the letter of Paul to the Corinthians gives support to this notion, in a slightly different way. 

Paul devotes a lot of ink to this matter of generosity among the Corinthians. However, there is something important that is not specifically denoted but would have been known to them. Paul is urging them to give to the church in Jerusalem.

Why is this significant? Something we know from the writings of the New Testament is that there was a divide in the early church. Paul was going out farther into the world to spread the gospel, but his ministry was evolving along the way in ways that were making it different from the church back in Jerusalem. There were tensions between them, power struggles, and attempts to claim authenticity over the others. You know, kind of like how things have always been.

So in urging the Corinthians to give generously to Jerusalem, Paul was urging them to give to a different church, led by different men, with different understandings and practices of the faith. 

Once again, I suggest to you, it seems to be about giving beyond expectations – and without expectations.

And so we might ask ourselves: Do we sometimes have a tendency to make judgments about who is worthy of our gifts? Only those who think and act like us. Only those who show sufficient gratitude. Only those who will use our gift well. We have certain expectations that sometimes get in the way of generosity.

Giving freely is the idea. And it means giving what you are able to give – not more and not less. 

And so, you might ask, how does that help me figure it out? 

The answer to the question of what to give is really this: it should never stop being a question. It is never something to have solved and set in stone, so you won’t have to think about it again. Because what we give is something we should always be thinking about.

Weapons of Righteousness

2 Corinthians 6:1-13  

1 Samuel 17:32-49     

There is a film called, “In the Valley of Elah.” Tommy Lee Jones is a retired army sergeant, Hank, who is looking for his son, Mike. Mike has recently returned home from his tour in Iraq, and then disappeared. The film is about Hank’s search for Mike and the things he finds along the way. I had to watch it a couple of times before I understood the title.

I know it was in the valley of Elah that the army of Israel faced off against a monster, their worst nightmare. In the valley of Elah, the people of God faced Goliath and found they had nothing, no one to match, and they were paralyzed by fear. At the valley of Elah, Israel looked at their weapons, their armor, themselves, and saw that they came up short in a particular, fatal way. Both armies had bows and arrows. Both armies had spears and swords. Both armies had armor. But only one army had a giant, and the giant was challenging Israel to a duel.

They had no match for Goliath and, therefore, they could not defeat the army of the Philistines. These were the terms that had been set. They had all the conventional weapons, but without a giant of their own, Israel knew the battle was lost before it even began.

Because the challenge had been made. The terms had been set.

It wasn’t in the realm of the expected for the boy David to step forward and volunteer to fight Goliath. It wasn’t in the realm of possibility that David could win this battle against Goliath. When he presented himself as the one who would go out to meet this “uncircumcised Philistine,” King Saul dismissed him.  He said, “You can’t. It’s not possible.” But David persisted, and invoked his experience fighting off lions and bears; Goliath was just another predator like the lions and bears. With God’s help, David could strike him down too.

It still didn’t seem possible. But David was the only volunteer they had.

So they tried to prepare David for battle. Saul put his own bronze helmet and coat of mail on him. But David was just a boy, and the armor of a grown man weighed him down.

What could they do?

I think the problem the army of Israel had is the same problem we often have: we have trouble seeing anything other than the terms that have been set before us. The Philistines declared war on Israel and they saw no other option than to go to war against them. The Philistines put up a giant with a sword, and the Israelites saw no other option that to put up their own giant with a sword. What else can you do but follow suit?

In the film called “In the Valley of Elah,” while Hank is searching for Mike, he finds photos and videos Mike took while he was in Iraq. He is a seasoned soldier, himself, but what he sees in these videos is hard to watch. He sees good boys growing cruel and hard hearts in the face of the monster of war.

Our old Book of Common Worship has a prayer for our military in which we ask God to “keep our sons and daughters from hate that hardens.” We know this is a danger of war, and we pray that when they return they will not have grown into monsters, themselves.

This is a risk not only in war, though. It is a risk of living in this world. When faced with atrocities we are at risk of becoming an atrocity ourselves. Being overwhelmed by it, we may respond in kind.

The army of Israel took that little boy David and tried to outfit him in the armor of war. But David took off the armor. He walked down into the valley to meet Goliath with nothing but his sling and a pouch full of smooth stones.

David stood before the giant, the monster who wanted to destroy them, in the belief that God would protect him. An unconventional weapon, indeed.

David shrugged off Saul’s armor that day because he had the presence of mind to know that it just didn’t fit him. He had the clarity to see that the armor was not his, that to armor up was not him. He knew in his heart that he would not find his strength and security in chain mail and swords, but in the God who had always been with him. David trusted that God would be with him in the darkest places, even in the valley of Elah.

David knew that he did not need to accept the terms that had been set. There was a better way.

In the valley of Elah, when there appears to be no other way, this is where we have the chance to see God’s way.

There is a scene in the film where Hank tells this story about David and Goliath to a little boy. Then he tells him what he believes is the moral of the story: that you fight monsters by conquering your own fear and standing up against them. This is what he has always done – shove down your fear and go toe to toe with the monsters – and what he has always believed in. But by the end of the film, he knows different. He knows that there are times when we have to admit the inadequacies of our conventional weapons. We have to confess that we are unable to defeat evil on our own power. We need to call on the living God.

Paul writes, in his letter to the Corinthians, that by the power of God we have weapons of righteousness, and these weapons look nothing like the conventional weapons. They are revealed in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech. This is the power of God.

This is the power of God. This is the armor that is available to us always.

David walked into the valley of Elah with the weapons of righteousness. And the battle was won before it had begun.

God Sees

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

2 Corinthians 5:6-17   

An item that has been in the news for the past week, gaining in intensity, is about the detention centers where our government is keeping children who cross the border, and the fact that some of these children crossed with their parents, seeking asylum. But at the border, the children were separated from their parents – sometimes by deceit. We have heard from some of these parents that agents told them they were taking their children to be bathed. They simply never returned.

I don’t assume they lied to the parents out of meanness. Perhaps these agents simply couldn’t deal with having to tell them the truth.

The children who were taken from their parents were placed in detention centers, warehouse-like facilities where they are kept in fenced-in areas. Last week some congressional representatives and journalists were allowed into one of these facilities. One of the executives who runs the facility spoke with them before they were escorted in to see the kids. One thing he said to them gave me pause. “You might want to smile. The kids feel a little like animals in a cage, being looked at.”

Like animals in a cage, exhibits at the zoo. Have you ever felt that you are being looked at like an exhibit on display? I don’t think I have. I have felt overlooked, looked down upon, and looked askance at, but I have never been looked at as an animal in a cage.

I appreciate the empathy of this man who was tasked with leading the tour; he had some sensitivity to the humanity of these children. He cared, at least a little, about how they felt. And I guess he hoped that others would see these children as human beings. It doesn’t seem like too much to expect, does it?

This story from the book of Samuel, about the anointing of David, always makes me think about what we see when we look at another human being. The truth is, sometimes, we see others for how they are useful to us – or not. We see the parts of them, the aspects of them, that we care about for our own reasons.

I remember a young man I met when I was in college who looked at me and said, "you seem like the right size." He was looking for a girlfriend who could be a dance partner, someone he could lift. He thought he was Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing and I could be Baby. So he might date me just for that reason. But I couldn’t dance, and I wasn’t very teachable. I just wasn’t going to leap into the air trusting him to catch me. It wasn’t happening. He would have to keep looking for the right size woman to be his Baby, someone who was braver than I was. 

The story about Samuel looking over the sons of Jesse reminds us how we look at other people. The way Samuel looks at them is probably the same way we would look at them. When Jesse calls all his sons together and lines them up, oldest to youngest, they seemed to be an impressive lot. Like those strapping young men in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – handsome, strong, eager to please.

Of course, when he looked at them, Samuel was still grieving the loss of Saul, the king that God’s Spirit had departed from. 

Remember how Samuel resisted giving Israel a king? He didn’t think this was the best way for Israel, and he was probably right. But he relented; Saul was the young man he chose. Samuel felt the Spirit of the Lord leading him to Saul, who is described as tall, broad shouldered, handsome. Saul looked the part of a king. 

Samuel tried to teach him to be a king. He took so much time and care with Saul, he gave him so much encouragement. But this situation was a little like me and dancing. Saul didn’t really have the confidence, the trust, the faith that he could do what was being asked of him. 

Saul looked the part, the right size and all, but it simply wasn’t in him. And Samuel was still grieving. But God said to Samuel, “Get over it. Fill your horn with oil and get out there. I’ll show you who I have in mind.”

And everything that happens after that is unexpected. 

God sends Samuel to Bethlehem – not an important place. Bethlehem was small, remote, not a likely place to find a king. Samuel is led to the family of Jesse – a famer. Samuel has come under false pretenses, saying that he is just there to perform the ritual of sacrifice to the Lord. No one knows he is there to find a new king, because, remember, the Spirit of the Lord has left Saul but the power of the kingdom is still very much with him.

He asks Jesse to call his sons so they can have a proper assembly for the ritual. They all line up and Samuel begins to look them over, one by one. 

Samuel was looking at these young men as if they were part of an exhibit. He might have disguised it well, he might have remembered to smile at them in a friendly way, but they were an exhibit – contestants for the role of king of Israel.

And the story says each one Samuel looked at – tall, handsome, strong – he heard God in his ear saying to him, “Not that one, Samuel. Not this one, either. You’re looking the wrong way. Look as the Lord looks. See what the Lord sees.

Samuel is looking at their stature, but the Lord does not look on the outward appearance – the Lord looks on the heart. 

Samuel is looking at their bone structure, but the Lord does not look on the outward appearance – the Lord looks on the heart.

Samuel is looking at the size of their muscles, but the Lord does not look on the outward appearance – the Lord looks on the heart.

Samuel is only looking at these young men the same way anyone else would. No one even thought to call David to the assembly. He was too young, too small, too insignificant to matter. But as Samuel looks over each one of Jesse’s sons, and each time fails to sense the Spirit of God alighting on him, Samuel looks at Jesse and asks, “Is this all there is?”

Jesse admits, well, there’s David, who is out tending the sheep. But they send for David, even though no one would have assumed that it mattered for him to be there. After all, he was a child.  

When Samuel looked at him he knew right away that this was the one God had chosen. Samuel took his horn of oil and anointed David in the presence of his father and his brothers.

Mortals look on the outer appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. And David was, as the scriptures say, a man after God’s own heart.

Maybe younoticed something odd in the story. The text can’t resist saying that David was handsome. So, although God does not look on the outward appearance, apparently the narrator does.

How difficult it is for us to see as God sees. How often do we really look at someone and see them? We see aspects of a person that put them into categories: we see skin color, we see age, we see clothing. We see how pleasant a person is to look at – eyes, nose, hair. We see physical fitness or strength, and we judge a person on the basis of all these things. And, you know, you can do that a whole lot more quickly than the alternative. Because it takes time to really see someone, and begin to get a glimpse of their heart.

Jill Duffield, a Presbyterian minister who is editor of the Presbyterian Outlook, wrote this week about the undocumented youth who are being kept in these detention centers. There is a poet who has worked with the youth in one of the centers, encouraging them to write poetry. He has compiled a volume of their poems. One of the young poets wrote a poem titled I Want to Support:

I want to support the
poor and end
hunger. I'd like to give
a great place to live
to those
without one, and also
to the animals.

I wonder – if we walked into that detention center and looked upon the young person who wrote this poem, I wonder what you and I would see. Would we see an animal in a cage? An exhibit? An object to observe?

Perhaps we would we see a label. What would that label say? illegal? deportee? burden on American taxpayers? What would you and I see?

Paul writes to the Corinthians a reminder that in Christ we are given the chance to be made new. In Christ there is a new creation, and we no longer regard anyone from a human point of view. In Christ, we are to know that there is no value – there is nothing to be gained – from looking on the outward appearance. In Christ we are given the gift of being able to look on the heart, just as God looks on the heart.

Blessed is the one who seeks out the heart, in Jesus’ name. 

Photo provided by Custom and Border Protection; Detention Facility in McAllen, Texas.

Life with the King

1 Samuel 8:4-20

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

A friend once said to me, “It’s always the third generation that runs the family business into the ground.” Well, in the case of Judges of Israel, it seems to have been the second generation. We saw it with Eli and his sons. Now we see it with Samuel and his sons. 

“You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways,” they tell Samuel bluntly. They might not have been so blunt, except for the fact that they have seen this picture before and they know how it ends. Samuel’s predecessor, Eli, appointed his lousy sons as judges over Israel and it was a disaster. They were corrupt and greedy, lacking wisdom and integrity. Under their leadership Israel lost the ark of God to the Philistines and were devastated. Samuel rose up to be a good moral leader of Israel. But now we see history repeating. 

It is clear to the people of Israel that it will not go well to have Samuel’s sons in charge. They see what they see, they know what they know, they have been hear before. So they speak bluntly to him about what they don’t want – and also what they do want. They want to have a king. They have seen it work for other nations. Why should it not be good for Israel? 

This thing they were asking displeased Samuel, so says the text. To put it bluntly: Samuel hates the idea. He is frustrated, exasperated, and detests the direction they are going. And it is not just because the people have pointed out his flaws and rejected his sons. There is that, but it’s not only personal; there is something. Samuel knows Israel does not need a king. Israel already has a king.

So when they say to Samuel, “Give us a king,” Samuel goes to God, like, “Oy, these people! You know what I’m saying?” and God says, “I know, I know. You better tell them what it’s gonna be like.”

So, of course, he does. You want to know what a king will do? He will take and take and take from you. And then he will take some more. You think my sons are bad? You know nothing … yet.

Even after Samuel’s speech they continued to insist on a king even after Samuel warned them about the realities of monarchy. It was like they didn’t hear him. It was like they were too afraid to hear him. And they were.

There were times in Israel’s life when they felt that God had wandered away from them, that God had left them alone. Those were terrible times. They felt abandoned, forsaken, helpless. They didn’t want to ever feel that way again.

It reminds me of the ads I used to see in the back of the comic books I read as a kid. The skinny guy at the beach who gets sand kicked in his face; he goes home and sends away for some mail-order miracle cure that will make him big and strong, just like the bullies. It works, he fights back against the bullies, and as an added bonus, he gets the girls, too.

Israel wanted some of that miracle cure. They wanted to be strong in the midst of the other nations. They never again wanted to feel vulnerable, and they thought they could make sure it never happened again. They could have a king. 

They could have a ruler here on earth, one who fought their wars, protected them from enemies, safeguarded their property. They could have a strongman, and a strongman is what they wanted. 

So, God said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and set a king over them.” Soon, they had their king. Samuel anointed the first king of Israel,Saul, who was apparently very handsome. But he never did sit easily on the throne. 

Monarchy was not a terribly good fit for Israel. But that is not to say that the kings were all rotten. The Bible sings the praises of King David, even while acknowledging his flaws. King Solomon built the first temple of God. King Josiah reestablished the law of God long after it had been abandoned by a string of bad kings. Sometimes the kings did good things, but in between there was a lot of corruption – a lot of kings who fought the wars for their own gain, who safeguarded the property for their own use. Being a good king of Israel was hard because being a good king meant being a righteous man, a servant leader, and effectively pointing the people away from themselves and toward their true king – God.

Eventually, the kingdom collapsed. Israel was overrun by other strongmen and their armies. They got to know what it was like to be under the thumb of foreign occupiers, other greedy men who sought to enlarge their power and possessions. Some never stopped wanting a king, never stopped wanting to fight the same battles with the same weapons that had failed them before.

Some never did understand what Jesus meant when he said “my kingdom is not of this world.”

Some are still fighting these same battles with the same old weapons, thinking there will be a different outcome this time. 

We want the miracle cure so we can go back out on the beach and beat the bully at his own game. Yes, I think we are still fighting these battles.

However, right now all around us a different kind of battle is going on.

This battle is being fought with different weapons. It is not a fight for self-enrichment, it is a fight that pushes aside fear and greed – because fear never did make a wise decision and greed never made a moral one. It is a fight that turns away from these baser instincts and takes up the cause of the least, the lost, and the last. It is called the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. And we are right in the middle of it.

For six weeks, churches of all denominations, along with other faith communities, are focusing energy on the needs of the poor in this land. 

Why? 

Because fifty years ago, another King, the Rev. Martin Luther King, said we have come to the point where the problem is really bigger than race. It is bigger than civil rights, it is about human rights. It is about the unacceptable truth that too many people live and die in poverty in a land of abundance. Reverend King called for a Poor People’s Campaign in 1968. And fifty years later, we look around and see that the same challenges are still with us. Some voices in the church have decided it is time for another one – a new revival. 

Perhaps some of us worry that it might not be appropriate for the church to get involved in public policy. Perhaps we don’t think that it is the church’s place to tell us how we should organize our society. Perhaps we want to respond to the biblical stories by saying, “That was different – a different time, a different place, a different world.” Yes, it was different. But it was also much the same.

When we read the stories about ancient Israel and their shortcomings and failures, it would serve us well to see how we share these same shortcomings and failures. It would be good for us to remember that God’s law was designed with the needs of the least, the lost and the last in mind. And even though we don’t pine after kings – although we do have a fascination with the goings-on of the royals abroad – we continue to seek power and security at the expense of others. We continue to allow our leaders to exploit the vulnerable, ignoring their cries.

We need a moral revival in our land. Because those in power try to blame the poorest among us for our budget shortfalls. Because tens of thousands of Americans are still denied basic healthcare. Because the city of Flint still does not have clean water. There are systemic problems in our society that only good public policy can fix. Just like the kings of Israel, our leadership has the choice to work on behalf of the people they govern, or just for their own benefit. Is there a right and a wrong in this?

Think about it: Eli’s sons were bad priests because they exploited the people they were meant to serve. Samuel’s sons were bad judges because they exploited the people they were meant to serve. God does not smile on leaders who exploit the ones they are meant to serve.

What kind of leadership will we ask for? What will we demand of our leaders? The scriptures demand over and over again that we try to keep our eyes fixed on the needs of this world God loves, caring for it and calling on our leaders to care for it. And if we can do that, I think we will find, as Paul says to the Corinthians, that our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 

All glory and honor, power and love, be to our true king – creator, redeemer, and sustainer of our life. Amen.

God Calls

1 Samuel 3:1-10

2 Corinthians 4:5-12   

Who does God call? Christians do not all agree about this. Some people do not seem fit to be called, so it’s hard for us to imagine them as potential instruments of God’s divine power and love. Doe God call people worthy of the call?

Graham Greene addressed this question quite well in a story called The Power and the Glory. It takes place in Mexico in the 1930’s, a time when the church was being persecuted by the government. There is a priest who travels from place to place to administer the sacraments, all the while trying to evade capture and execution. You might say he is a hero, but he is an unlikely hero.

He is never given a name – Greene refers to him as the whiskey priest. He is not what you would call a stellar example of a man. He is a drunk, a gossip, careless about his own spiritual habits, and he is not especially courageous. But he bears the identity of one called to priesthood, so he carries out the functions expected of him – not always well, not always gladly.

The people to whom he ministers do not think much of him. They don’t hold him in high regard, because he’s kind of a mess. They roll their eyes and they sigh. But he has what they need and they have faith in his ability to provide it.

They believe that he has been called by God, and that God does not necessarily call the most impressive candidates. This whiskey priest was never a man anyone would expect to see among the chosen. He is proof that God can take a good-for-nothing and make him good for something. And leave the warts in place for the world to see.

We ought to believe that too, if we pay attention to the stories of scripture. Time and time again the stories show God choosing the one we don’t expect. God chooses the second-born son – not the first-born. God chooses the smallest one – not the big and strong one. God chooses the one who killed a man in a fit of anger and then ran from the law, took on a new identity out in the wilderness, and settled into a life of tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Then, when God called him, answered with excuses for why he couldn’t do want God wanted him to do. Yes, Moses was not the most likely candidate.

God calls the ones we don’t expect and in the story of Samuel, this child is the unlikely candidate. 

Those were dark days. The word of the Lord was rare in those days, the story says, and so most of the candidates were unlikely. It was not a high point in Israel’s history.

Visions from the Lord were not widespread, and the priest, Eli, was losing his vision. And I think we can understand this to have a figurative as well as a literal meaning. Perhaps there was a time when Eli was a strong, visionary leader of Israel, but this was no longer true. 

Eli had problems – not least among them were his sons. The priesthood was sort of a family business back then, but it was becoming evident that Eli’s sons would not be able to carry this tradition forward. They abused the power that was entrusted to them; they treated the people with cruelty, concerned only for their own gain. They would not be leaders of Israel. It wasn’t just because they were good-for-nothings, because as we have already said, God can take a good-for-nothing and make him good for something. No, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was they were not even listening. They would not listen.

There was sadness, darkness, in Eli’s life. It was a dark time in Israel – but there was still hope because, as the text says, the lamp of God had not yet gone out.

It is night and Samuel lay down to sleep on the floor in the temple, and he hears a voice calling his name. He assumes it is Eli – what else would he think? Eli is his master. Three times he hears his name, three times he goes to Eli and says, “Here I am.” It takes three times before the old man Eli recognizes this as a call from the Lord – but finally he does. He tells Samuel, to wait for the call to come again and answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Eli teaches Samuel how to listen. 

God uses all kinds of imperfect, flawed vessels to carry God’s word into the world. God might call anyone. God might call any of us.

But we all need someone to help us learn how to listen. 

Years ago, I asked a group of Sunday school children to draw a picture of somewhere they hear God speaking. Most of the children drew pictures that were not surprising – the church sanctuary or Sunday school room, scenes of nature, like flowers or a mountain. But one child drew a picture of the Weis Market, which was the local grocery store. And another drew a picture of some telephone wires. I never followed up with those children to ask them how they heard God, or what they heard from God, in the telephone wires or the supermarket. I think I suspected that they wouldn’t be able to articulate it. But I wonder if I should have asked. Maybe these children were hearing God’s call in a special way, and maybe they needed someone to teach them how to listen.

Children, especially, need someone older to teach them how to listen. We do that pretty well in some ways. Parents teach their children to listen to their voices and obey them. Teachers train their students to listen to the teacher’s voice and respond. But do we teach our children to listen to the voice of God?

That isn’t a particularly easy thing to do. Perhaps we, like Eli, have vision that is failing, and hearing that is not very sharp anymore. And we, like Eli, are not accustomed to hearing the voice of God. 

But remember, even though the word of God had been distant for some time, Eli still believed it could happen. Even though it had not happened for Eli in many years, he knew what was happening for Samuel, and he showed him how to listen and respond.

The lamp of God has not yet gone out. The Lord is still speaking. Will we allow ourselves to be called and used by God for God’s purposes?

We hear stories sometimes about children who listen and respond in extraordinary ways. Just last week I heard a story about a five-year-old girl who had seen the plight of the homeless when her church sponsored the emergency winter shelter. She was moved to help them in some way, and with the help of the adults in her congregation, she put together health kits to give to the men and women in this community who need them. She saw, she heard, she listened, and she responded. But she could not have done it without the help of her faith family.

God may very well be calling you to hear and respond. Even if God is not calling you directly to minister, to prophesy, to evangelize, God could be calling you to guide and support someone else – someone who needs you to help them listen. 

It is not too late for us to teach our children to listen to the word of God. There are children in our midst, and they need teachers, they need models, they need mentors and guides. 

God could be calling you, regardless of whether or not you feel equipped to be called. None of us does, really. 

As Paul said to the ornery and prideful Corinthians, we carry this treasure in clay jars, we are but humble vessels, holding this power. For we proclaim not ourselves, we proclaim not ourwisdom and glory, but we proclaim Christ and the power of his resurrection.

These are dark days, as dark as Eli’s days. There are still men and women who use the power that has been entrusted to them for greedy purposes. But the lamp of God has not yet gone out. We must watch, we must listen. For God is still speaking.

photo credit: Islamic broken jar, Metropolitan Museum of Art