Choosing Wrongly

Choosing Wrongly March 23, 2017

(Lectionary for March 26, 2017)

It is often a guessing game to attempt to discover what lead the collectors of the Common Lectionary to choose the texts that make up the three-year list. Of course, at times it is quite obvious: Easter Sunday looks at one of the gospel accounts of the resurrection while Christmas Day invariably suggests the birth stories from one of the gospels, which leads to a likely mishmash of the three Synoptic ones, based squarely on the children’s pageant for the year rather more than the Bible.

Still, exactly why 1 Samuel 16 finds its way into the Lenten season at all is something of a mystery. However, I can only imagine that that most famous line from vs. 7 may be the attraction. “Look not to his appearance or his lofty stature, for I have cast him away! For not as humans see does God see. A human sees with the eyes and YHWH sees with the heart.” I know that the more familiar reading is: “but YHWH looks on the heart.” The clause is a parallel one, however, where the contrast suggests that whereas humans see with their eyes, YHWH sees with a divine heart. We must remember that in Hebrew anthropology, the heart is the place of will and intelligence, and the eyes are merely the organs whereby humans only can discern what is immediately in front of them. And because YHWH is after all YHWH, and no human, YHWH’s depth perception is profoundly more penetrating than any human’s could hope to be, we assume.

This story of the choice of David as a replacement for the disposed Saul turns on the ability or the lack of ability to see. That Hebrew verb is paramount here, and raises fascinating questions about just how persons are chosen, whether by the outward appearance or by the far more untrustworthy notion of the heart, a kind of inner truth not so easily characterized. Yes, I know the story tells us that it is YHWH’s heart that is offered as the paragon of correct perception, but it is the prophet Samuel who is the one is called to trust that divine heart over against the obvious facts of his eyes.

I surmise that this tale has lead to no end of mischief when it comes to discerning leadership in any organization, especially the church. A personal story comes to mind. Many years ago, I was a member of the United Methodist committee charged with the responsibility of evaluating candidates for ministry for my Central Texas Annual Conference. Despite what some of you may think, the members of my committee took this assignment with the greatest seriousness. These young, and not so young, people were to become our colleagues in the work, and we hoped and prayed that they would be the best they could be. We asked them to submit reams of written material as well as a preached sermon that we could assess the better to judge whether or not they could join our communion of clergy.

I remember one young candidate vividly; I could probably pick him out of a lineup today, and our encounter was well over thirty years ago. When we read his submitted paLounskirke-døbefontper on baptism, he said in quite clear terms that he would never baptize infants in his church, being completely convinced that only a so-called “believer’s baptism” was possible for any Bible-steeped parson. I gently pointed out to him that the United Methodist Church, along with all of its predecessor Methodist denominations, quite specifically affirmed infant baptism, believing that act to be a work of God’s grace, having nothing to do with the belief or lack of belief or confused beliefs of the one being baptized. The minister baptizes infants, I said, because the minister is the hands of God’s wonderful grace at that moment, and the one baptized is the recipient of that grace, whether he/she knew it or not. Our candidate did not buy my discussion at all, but persisted in his conviction that no infant would ever approach his baptismal font. And, he added, that I, as an intellectual teacher in a school of theology, was perhaps out of touch with the real work of the church, a work that he proposed to do. The implication was that I did not know what I was talking about, whereas he knew better.

I assume that this man has never in the ensuing years run for any sort of political office, because alienating a potential voter, or in his case one who was about to rule on his life’s vocation, is hardly the way to go about getting elected. I suggested to him that there were many denominations that agreed with his stance on infant baptism, but unfortunately for him United Methodism was not one of them. We deferred him for a year, suggesting that he think again about the Methodist ways of baptism.

He was understandably upset, since he was convinced that God had called him to ministry in the United Methodist church, and no egg-headed theology professor was going to deter him from that ministry. The egg-headed professor voted no, and agreed with his colleagues that further reflection, both theologically and personally, could do for him a world of good. I admit that I do not know what happened to that young man, since my time on the Board of Ordained Ministry ended with that painful confrontation.

Perhaps if I had had YHWH’s ability to “look with theThe_Prophet_Samuel_as_an_Old_Man_(7068789723) heart,” I might have seen something more than my eyes could see. Alas! I have only my eyes and my brain and my own human heart to discern and to evaluate. And so it was with Samuel, the prophet of YHWH. Unfortunately, Samuel too in this scene is all too human! His very first perception is that Eliab, the strapping first-born son of Jesse, must be the one to replace the fallen Saul. “Ah, yes,” he exclaims, “surely YHWH’s anointed stands before YHWH” (1 Sam. 16:7)! But immediately he senses that YHWH is not having it. “Look not to his appearance nor the height of his stature!” In other words, no more tall guys; we got one of those before, and it was a mistake. We remember, of course, that it was no one else but this same Samuel who chose Saul earlier as king, and again under the instigation of this same YHWH.

It appears that the one thing we may conclude from this tale is that choosing leaders is no easy game. They do not come ready-formed, obviously endowed, quickly the object of our desire and God’s. In this story, David, the youngest and least likely candidate for kingship is the one chosen “in the midst of his brothers,” no doubt to their collective horror and consternation. Who could ever have surmised that the shepherd boy would be king? And who would ever have surmised that this charismatic and multi- talented man would one day break four of the Ten Commandments in one episode, thrillingly and appallingly related in 1 Sam.11? Was David in fact one “after God’s own heart,” one chosen by the YHWH who “sees not as humans see?” If so, just what sort of YHWH are we dealing with in this story? And, more, how are we humans ever to make good choices as we strive to raise some of our colleagues to heights of power and leadership?

Choosing is ever a messy and conflicted business, and is never to be done hastily or simply. The answer to Donald Trump’s cry during his presidential campaign, “What have you got to lose by choosing me,” is a great deal indeed, if one’s choice is asPlaster_cast_of_Michaelangelo's_David_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1780700consequential as the US presidency obviously is. Are we in this text to see that our choice of Jesus is crucial in Lent if we are to become fully Christians with him as our leader? If we are being asked to make that choice, we must not act either rashly or unthinkingly. Following Jesus is hard work, fraught with dangers and filled with challenges. The choice of David ended badly with a murderous and lusty king out of control, dying old and cold in his lonely bed. May our choice of Jesus lead us rather to a fuller life with God.

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)


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