June 16, 2024: The Lord Looks on the Heart

Old Testament Reading: 1 Samuel 15:34-16: 13
Gospel: Mark 4: 26-34 
 
Last week we had the scripture from Samuel where the Israelites wanted a king. God told Samuel to tell the people what that would be like - more taxes and more forced labor - but that’s what the people wanted, so God relinquished and gave them Saul. This week Saul is out. He listened to the people more than God, so God no longer supports him. Samuel is tasked with going to see Jesse because one of his sons has been chosen by God to be the new king. 
 
As Jesse parades his sons before him, Samuel sees Eliab and assumes he is the one that God has chosen. He was the oldest: tall and handsome. Of course he was king material, but he wasn’t. As God reminds Samuel. “Do not look on his appearance or 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.”
 
I think God may have originated the expression, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” in this story. After rejecting the six oldest sons, the youngest, David, is called in from his job watching the sheep and God immediately tells Samuel, “Rise and anoint him for this is the one.” God has looked at the heart of this young boy and found him to be the one who will best serve God and God’s people. 
 
Consider how different this choice is from most of human history. It was typically the first son who would inherit the titles and the estate whether it was king, lord, earl, emperor, chief, or just leader of the family farm. Second and third sons were backups in case the first son died before an heir was born. The second and third sons could live on the estate as long as the first son or his heirs allowed them to. In medieval England, second sons became soldiers, and third sons, priests. 
 
Of course, throughout most of history, there is not much mention of daughters; they were essentially sold off through marriage. A dowry was the price paid to get rid of your daughter, although I hope that most families sought a good match. Daughters who did not wish to marry could become nuns or teachers. 
 
Ruling Queens only came about when there was no son to inherit the crown although, throughout history, they have certainly shown that women can indeed rule. 
 
But God ignores all of this human-created hierarchy in his choice of David. It was not about birth order, wisdom, stature, or strength; it was about character, about heart. David was someone with a pure heart, an uncorrupted mind, and true faith. It didn’t matter that he was young, that he still had a lot to learn, or that he was covered in the dust and muck of the sheep field. He was the one and he was anointed on the spot. 
 
And it’s not that David was perfect either. Most of us know the story that later he lusted after Bathsheba and had her husband sent to the front in the war where he would be killed, so that David could have her. He was far from perfect and he, like all of us at times, would need to seek forgiveness and change his ways. 
 
God continually proves that the ways of the world are not God’s ways. Yet, it takes us humans a long time to learn those lessons or maybe to unlearn the hierarchies, prejudices, and divisions that humans have created. 
 
God may have chosen many male kings and prophets but God also chose women. There were the female prophets: Moses’ sister Miriam, Deborah the Judge, Huldah who spoke out against evil in Judah, and even Isaiah’s wife whom he identified as a prophet. 
 
In Jesus’s time, there was Anna, the widow who dedicated her life to God and lived in the Temple and was one of the first to see the baby Jesus and call him the Messiah. Mary Magdalene and so many others were also called by God. 
 
I was thrilled this week when the Southern Baptist Convention rejected a ban on female pastors - a ban that had been expected to pass. Although the vote was close, the majority recognized that God does not limit the call of ministry to men: a fact that I can certainly attest to. 
 
One of my mentor ministers is gay. At one time he felt there was no place for him in the church because of that. He tells the story of living in California and walking by a congregational church and hearing them chant the United Church of Christ Slogan that is printed on our bulletin: “No matter who you are and where you are in your life journey, you are welcome here!” That chant pulled him in, and he was embraced by the church and finally felt at home. He knew that God loved him just as he was and that he could finally answer the call that he had been feeling but did not know how to respond to. 
 
God has a history of calling people who were enslaved including those enslaved on Southern Plantations here in the U.S. While those black preachers were told by their white owners to preach about the need to be subservient to their masters, they held secret meetings where they used the example of Moses to say that God would set them free. 
 
In fact, God called many Black preachers like Lemuel Haynes who became the first ordained Black Minister in the U.S. in 1785, ordained by the precursor of the United Church of Christ, and served for many years as the pastor of the West Rutland Congregational Church right here in Vermont. At a time when few black people in this country were free, God was calling some to minister to white congregations, showing the need for change. 
 
It is clear that God looks on our hearts to see what to call us to. We are not all called to ministry, and we may be called to different things at different times in our lives, but we are all called to service in some way.
 
Our Mark scriptures today compare the Kingdom of God to seeds: seeds scattered that miraculously grow to provide the food that nourishes our body;  tiny mustard seeds that grow into huge shrubs that provide shade and shelter. 
 
We are, each of us, those seeds, and God looks on our hearts as we grow throughout our lives, calling us to grow and share our harvest. Some of us are accountants, keeping the books in order; others are medical practitioners - helping people heal and live healthy lives; others are educators expanding students’ minds; others provide the food, shelter, clothing, transportation, stories, and entertainment that sustain us. 
 
God rejected Eliab and the five other older brothers from being the next king, but he did not reject them as people; their seeds were just growing in different directions. They had different roles to fulfill: different gifts to share as a part of God’s kingdom. 
 
And those roles change over time. Gerald May, in his book Will and Spirit, says, “In growing psychologically, one moves toward increasing autonomy and independence. In growing spiritually, one increasingly realizes how utterly dependent one is, on God and on the grace of God that comes through other people.” 
 
I think this mirrors the pattern of our lives and is expressed well in the book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Father Richard Rohr. I am reading it now, so will share more with you later, but he reminds us that “Most of us use the first half of life –with all its projects, goals, and striving –to discover who we were meant to be. But what do we do with the discovery? We work toward becoming our True Selves in God. Our task in life’s second half is to discover the most authentic expression of our souls to shine forth the unique existence that God has given us, and to do so in gratitude.” 
 
Our task in the second half is more contemplative. Like the mustard tree, we have grown, produced our seeds, and now our task is to provide shade to others, to rest from the active labor of growing and, as God, does, to look upon our own hearts. We are done growing physically and psychologically, but we can still grow spiritually. 
 
To grow spiritually takes time that is easier to find in the second half of life. We can take time to pause in appreciation of the beauty of the earth that we were too busy running through earlier in our lives. We can connect to God in thanks for that beauty and can consider what we can do to protect it. We can spend more time in prayer and contemplation, finding a place of peace and considering how we might be instruments of that peace in our community and world. We can consider our gifts and how we might share them to welcome and help others as they continue their growth journey. 
 
The Lord does indeed look on our hearts and so should we. How might we still be able to grow in the second half of our lives? That is the question to ponder. Amen.
 
Pastor Michelle Fountain

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