Sunday, June 14, 2015

"What God Sees" 1 Samuel 15:34 - 16:13

We have a way of judging people in society. One of the ways we judge people is by their looks. Guys with muscles, women with curves and skinny waists, we judge favorably. And money helps, too.
This is not a modern phenomenon.
When God sent the prophet Samuel to find a new king for Israel, God told Samuel that the new king would be one of the sons of Jesse.
Now Jesse lived in Bethlehem. It was a little town; a quiet village. Every day like the one before. A little town full of little people … one of whom would be the next king of Israel.
So Samuel went to Bethlehem and met Jesse and Jesse’s sons.
Jesse had many sons. One may very well have been a baker, going with his bread like always: the same old bread and rolls to sell.
There were seven sons of Jesse.
  The first one was Eliab. Samuel looked at Eliab and was impressed. Surely he is the one to be king; no beast (or giant) could stand a chance against him! And no girl, for that matter. All the girls would stand and watch him pass by and say, “Look, there he goes, isn’t he dreamy! He’s such a tall, dark, strong, and handsome guy.” (That’s a paraphrase of verse 6.)
There’s no man in town as admired as Eliab. He was everyone’s favorite guy. Everyone was awed and inspired by him, and it’s not very hard to see why. No one’s slick as Eliab, no one’s quick as Eliab… well, you get the idea.
When Samuel saw Eliab, he said, “Surely this is the one!”
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance. Do not judge him by his looks; the Lord doesn’t see as people see; beauty is found within; the Lord looks on the heart, and I have rejected him.”
What? No one says no to Eliab! Dismissed? Rejected? Publicly humiliated? It was almost more than he could bear.
Then Jesse called all the rest of his sons, to pass before Samuel. But none of them was the one chosen by the Lord.
So Samuel said to Jesse, “Are these all your sons?”
Then Jesse said, “Well, there is an eighth son, the youngest, but he’s out taking care of the sheep.”
Taking care of sheep is not a glamorous job. Unlike Eliab who was admired and respected and welcome everywhere he went, a sheepherder is used to being rejected and humiliated. No one wants a sheepherder around.
Someone who had been out taking care of sheep would not be a pretty sight, especially if he had been summoned straight from the field. His ragged clothes would be dirty. His hair uncombed. And he would stink.
With beasts instead of humans for company, many in town thought of this youngest son as more beast than human. Out in the field was a good place for him. Anywhere but in town. If they could, they’d rid the village of this beast. Why? Because he’s different.
People don’t like what they don’t understand; in fact, it scares them. And what people don’t understand, what they find frightening, they fight. They become bullies.
If we jump ahead to the next chapter of 1 Samuel, we find that even this youngest son’s own brothers pick on him and are mean to him. Eliab even becomes angry at him, and ridicules him, and tries to send him away. “Why are you here?” Eliab yells at him. “You don’t belong here. Why aren’t you with your sheep? Go on, get out of here.”
It’s probably what Eliab wanted to say when Samuel insisted that this youngest brother be summoned from the field, but with Samuel and his father and all the town’s elders present, Eliab kept his mouth shut.
 It seems that a great feast had been prepared for them – evidently the youngest brother, out with the sheep, didn’t even get an invitation – and not only did Samuel insist that the younger brother be sent for, Samuel said “no one sits down at the table until he arrives.”
So they waited. The food was getting cold. I’m sure many couldn’t believe that they had to wait and let the food get cold, all because of this shepherd, this beast, who they hadn’t even invited, who they never invite to any of their gatherings…
And when he arrived, yeah, he may have been dirty, and he may have stunk… but Samuel noticed that he had beautiful eyes. Symbolically, eyes are a window to the soul, to what’s on the inside, so in other words, Samuel had learned what the Lord had taught him: Samuel had learned to look on his heart.
So Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
I wish I could say that the oil used in the anointing washed away all the dirt, all the ugliness that the other brothers and villagers saw, and revealed the beauty within. I think the world did come to see – eventually – the beauty and the goodness of David, but at least among his brothers, it didn’t happen right away. Like I said, in the next chapter, they are still picking on him.
But the Lord saw David’s beauty and goodness, and that beauty and goodness are what would allow David to become a good king, an ideal king for Israel. It wasn’t until much later that the world saw what God saw: the beauty that was within David all along.
There have always been – and always will be – bullies in the world. Gaston – I mean, Eliab – isn’t just a figure from the past, but is present today.
Just look at all the public shaming that still takes place! Even among our nation’s leaders! Former Arkansas governor and Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee recently mocked and ridiculed Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner. Ignoring the challenges Caitlyn Jenner faced and the courage she’s demonstrated, Mike Huckabee made fun of her, saying, “I wish someone could have told me when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE; I’m pretty sure I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’”
He meant it as a joke, but it was mean-spirited and rooted in his own ignorance…
But we don’t have to follow the bullies. We don’t have to join the mob in attacking whoever or whatever it is that we don’t understand.
A group of fifth grade boys made the news last week in Mankato, Minnesota. Out on the school playground, they noticed that James Wellmert, a student from another fifth grade class, was getting picked on during recess. Jake, one of the boys in the group, explained that “They were … using him and taking advantage of him, because he's easier to pick on, and it's just not right,"
So Jake and his friends Gus, Tyler, Landon, and Jack decided that from now on, they would have James’ back.
At lunch, the five boys invite James to their table. James’ mom said that before, James didn’t want “to go out for recess or anything; it would be like a struggle… Now he can barely eat his lunch to get outside to play with those guys.”
As these boys got to know James, they learned that he was adopted from an orphanage in Columbia, and that six years later he lost his new father in a bicycling accident. They also learned that James loves sports, and has a notebook with stats for over 600 college sports teams. And when those five boys learned that James didn’t have his own playstation, they bought him one as a present. They brought it to him at his house, set it up, and played – the first time James had ever had friends come over to play.
There will always be bullies in the world: on the playground, on social media, in politics.
The good news is that we don’t have to listen to them, and we don’t have to follow them.
The good news is that we have a God who doesn’t see things the way most people see things, a God who says to each and every person: you are beautiful.

The good news is that we can learn to see as God sees, and see the beauty within.

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