“Not so obvious”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, May 14, 2024
1 Samuel 16:1-13a (Forward, p. 16) CEV p. 294
History is littered with stories of the most unexpected people rising to positions of power or influence or impact. William Wilberforce, one of the prime people behind the movement to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire started out life as a small, sickly, and delicate child with poor eyesight. And even after he entered parliament, he was pretty insignificant and nondescript. Diarist James Boswell describes him in this way: “I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but as I listened, he grew, and grew, until the shrimp became a whale.
Now William Wilberforce is well known, but what about all the other ‘unsung’ heroes of history? How about Rosa Parks, who inspired the civil rights movement in the United States by refusing to give up her seat on the bus; Henry Dunant, who founded the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions; and the unnamed Chinese student who stood in front of the tank risking his very life in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing after the Chinese government had already massacred some 10,000 student protestors. Nobody will ever forget his brave resistance.
And not only is history littered with such unlikely heroes. Moses, a wanted murderer, who described himself as being ‘slow of speech’, led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. Gideon, who was hiding in fear from the Midianites, became a might man of valour. Saul, later known as Paul, was an ardent and overly zealous persecutor of the church becomes its strongest advocate. Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho, became key to the Israelites being able to inherit the Promised Land. And then there is Esther, a Jewish maiden who hides her ancestry to become Queen of Persia and turns out to be instrumental in saving her people from annihilation from a concerted antisemitic purge.
All this sets the stage for today’s story. David, the youngest of Jesse’s sons, is thought of as so insignificant and worthy of consideration that his family doesn’t even think invite him to a special community meal, even though Samuel had expressly stipulated that all of Jesse’s sons should be there. And certainly, Samuel didn’t come up with him as first choice either. Jesse’s other sons seemed to be more likely candidates for king. But as God pointed out to Samuel, God doesn’t select people on account of their
appearance or outward, obvious qualities. God looks for something deeper, something interior, something of the heart.
As it turns out, this is very good news for all of us, for seldom are any of us seen as ‘outstanding’ or outwardly obvious candidates as people that God might choose and want to use in His service. We may not be exactly ‘the obvious choices, but, yet, as we see in the case of David—and all these others—this is exactly who God chooses. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (verse 7b).
One of my favorite songs from church camp is ‘God Is a Surprise.’ The lyrics describe the Lord working in mysterious ways with a touch of irreverence and tongue-in-cheek humour. God is a surprise when God tells Samuel to anoint David as the next king of Israel. The cultural logic of the time would have been for God to choose the eldest, but instead, God selects the youngest, the least impressive.
Throughout the Bible, we learn that God is a surprise: God does not see or value the things that humans value but looks on the heart. God does not choose the strong, the wealthy, or the most powerful and instead lifts up the lowly and the forgotten. God turns our expectations upside-down. By the grace of God, help us to see as God sees and value what God values.”
MOVING FORWARD: “How does God surprise you?”