This sermon was preached on Sunday, June 14, 2015. The texts for this sermon were: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, Psalm 20, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,[11-13],14-17, and Mark 4:26-34.
I was forced to watch a horrendous remake of Cinderella on a plane ride recently. It’s possible the film may have been more enjoyable had I forked over the five bucks for a pair of headphones, but I figured I knew the Cinderella story well enough already that I didn’t need to hear the dialog. We all know the Cinderella story—the meek and gentle child forced to do chores while everyone else goes off to a party to compete for the chance to become royalty. It’s a classic underdog story. And it’s pretty tempting to read today’s passage from the first book of Samuel that way, too. Poor little David isn’t invited to the party when the famous prophet Samuel comes over to anoint the next leader of Israel. While all the rest of his seven brothers audition to be king, David’s assigned to sit off in the pasture by himself to watch the sheep. But God rejects all the obvious choices among the favored older sons and calls forward that little forgotten shepherd boy instead. David, the smallest and weakest, is anointed in the presence of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord, the Bible says, comes mightily upon him.
It’s a great story, but I think focusing on just that side of it is a bit like skimming through the passage with the sound off, too. There’s a much more complex story to be told here, one from the perspective of our more complicated hero, Samuel. Unlike David, Samuel has a place at the table, and an important one at that. At the start of our story, Samuel has served as God's prophet and Israel's judge for many years. It hasn’t been easy. Samuel was forced to watch in anguish as his own sons became corrupted by their powerful positions in society and now Saul, the man whom the Israelites forced Samuel to anoint as king, has disobeyed God and lost his legitimacy to the throne. Samuel is devastated. The Bible tells us that the prophet stayed up all night, unable to sleep, weeping out of regret and despair.
So when God tells Samuel to find a new, righteous leader for Israel, our protagonist hesitates. Samuel may not be small like David, but he tries to play small. Who am I to challenge Saul’s power? Samuel complains.
Samuel’s question, and his role in all of this, gets to the heart of why we might prefer to focus on the underdog bit. Otherwise, we have to consider God has to say to us when we are in Samuel’s place. What God calls us to do when we know that the systems of power around us are unjust and we have the ability to speak up. When we grieve deeply for the state of the society today but remain paralyzed with fear. How long are you going to wait around, says the Lord to Samuel. Fill up your horn and set out.
Noah gave me a poem to read a couple weeks ago and I've found myself going back to it almost every day, probably because I’m terrified of the truth it speaks. It's called Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson although it's sometimes falsely attributed to Nelson Mandela.
In our story today, God addresses Samuel’s deepest fear. God tells Samuel to stop shrinking from his own authority, even though it might make the powers that be insecure. Your playing small does not serve the world, God says to Samuel. God commands Samuel to shine, and when he does David is given permission to shine, too.
This is where the Gospel passage for today butts in. The famous mustard seed parable. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, Jesus says. The smallest of all the seeds that grows into the greatest of all the shrubs. It reads like a David story, too--the smallest becoming the greatest, the youngest becoming the leader of all.
But something is lost if we only read the story from David’s perspective. It would be like watching a video of black teenagers getting arrested for attending a pool party in McKinney, TX with the sound off, placing ourselves only in the barefeet of the fourteen year old black girl in a bikini as she is slammed into the ground by a full grown cop. It would be missing out on considering what God would have been calling us to do if we were one of her teenaged white friends or perhaps a black fellow cop responding to the call. Would we pull out the camera and start recording? Would we intervene?
To me this is the difference between reading the story as a David and reading it as a Samuel. When we see that we not the tiny, discredited mustard seeds, but rather that the mustard seed is instead that little bit of the kingdom here on earth that God is calling into being within us.
It is that small piece of ourselves that knows the way of the world is wrong and unjust. It's the part that shudders in frustration when we see a child violently abused by an adult. It’s that moment when we read another headline and our heart just sinks. It’s the tiny seed in our souls that dreams of a better world, the small light within us with terrifying power.
What is holy about the mustard seed is not that it remains a small speck tossed about in a huge and cruel world. It's not sacred because it plays the underdog. The mustard seed is holy because it bursts forth fearlessly and exceeds its own expectations for growth. It explodes into being and becomes the greatest of all the shrubs, a mighty shelter for the birds of the air. It claims its purpose and place in the world out loud.
We are children of God. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
The mustard seed doesn't stay small. It grows and grows and grows. And here's the Good News. Jesus tells us that the kingdom is also like the seeds that were scattered on the ground and sprouted and grew while the planter slept, grew without the planter even knowing how. The kingdom is coming, whether we like it or not. It is up to us to decide whether we will let it sprout and grow and burst forth from within us. Whether we will shine like the children of God we were born to be.
I was forced to watch a horrendous remake of Cinderella on a plane ride recently. It’s possible the film may have been more enjoyable had I forked over the five bucks for a pair of headphones, but I figured I knew the Cinderella story well enough already that I didn’t need to hear the dialog. We all know the Cinderella story—the meek and gentle child forced to do chores while everyone else goes off to a party to compete for the chance to become royalty. It’s a classic underdog story. And it’s pretty tempting to read today’s passage from the first book of Samuel that way, too. Poor little David isn’t invited to the party when the famous prophet Samuel comes over to anoint the next leader of Israel. While all the rest of his seven brothers audition to be king, David’s assigned to sit off in the pasture by himself to watch the sheep. But God rejects all the obvious choices among the favored older sons and calls forward that little forgotten shepherd boy instead. David, the smallest and weakest, is anointed in the presence of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord, the Bible says, comes mightily upon him.
It’s a great story, but I think focusing on just that side of it is a bit like skimming through the passage with the sound off, too. There’s a much more complex story to be told here, one from the perspective of our more complicated hero, Samuel. Unlike David, Samuel has a place at the table, and an important one at that. At the start of our story, Samuel has served as God's prophet and Israel's judge for many years. It hasn’t been easy. Samuel was forced to watch in anguish as his own sons became corrupted by their powerful positions in society and now Saul, the man whom the Israelites forced Samuel to anoint as king, has disobeyed God and lost his legitimacy to the throne. Samuel is devastated. The Bible tells us that the prophet stayed up all night, unable to sleep, weeping out of regret and despair.
So when God tells Samuel to find a new, righteous leader for Israel, our protagonist hesitates. Samuel may not be small like David, but he tries to play small. Who am I to challenge Saul’s power? Samuel complains.
Samuel’s question, and his role in all of this, gets to the heart of why we might prefer to focus on the underdog bit. Otherwise, we have to consider God has to say to us when we are in Samuel’s place. What God calls us to do when we know that the systems of power around us are unjust and we have the ability to speak up. When we grieve deeply for the state of the society today but remain paralyzed with fear. How long are you going to wait around, says the Lord to Samuel. Fill up your horn and set out.
Noah gave me a poem to read a couple weeks ago and I've found myself going back to it almost every day, probably because I’m terrified of the truth it speaks. It's called Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson although it's sometimes falsely attributed to Nelson Mandela.
"Our Deepest Fear"
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us;
It's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
In our story today, God addresses Samuel’s deepest fear. God tells Samuel to stop shrinking from his own authority, even though it might make the powers that be insecure. Your playing small does not serve the world, God says to Samuel. God commands Samuel to shine, and when he does David is given permission to shine, too.
This is where the Gospel passage for today butts in. The famous mustard seed parable. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, Jesus says. The smallest of all the seeds that grows into the greatest of all the shrubs. It reads like a David story, too--the smallest becoming the greatest, the youngest becoming the leader of all.
But something is lost if we only read the story from David’s perspective. It would be like watching a video of black teenagers getting arrested for attending a pool party in McKinney, TX with the sound off, placing ourselves only in the barefeet of the fourteen year old black girl in a bikini as she is slammed into the ground by a full grown cop. It would be missing out on considering what God would have been calling us to do if we were one of her teenaged white friends or perhaps a black fellow cop responding to the call. Would we pull out the camera and start recording? Would we intervene?
To me this is the difference between reading the story as a David and reading it as a Samuel. When we see that we not the tiny, discredited mustard seeds, but rather that the mustard seed is instead that little bit of the kingdom here on earth that God is calling into being within us.
It is that small piece of ourselves that knows the way of the world is wrong and unjust. It's the part that shudders in frustration when we see a child violently abused by an adult. It’s that moment when we read another headline and our heart just sinks. It’s the tiny seed in our souls that dreams of a better world, the small light within us with terrifying power.
What is holy about the mustard seed is not that it remains a small speck tossed about in a huge and cruel world. It's not sacred because it plays the underdog. The mustard seed is holy because it bursts forth fearlessly and exceeds its own expectations for growth. It explodes into being and becomes the greatest of all the shrubs, a mighty shelter for the birds of the air. It claims its purpose and place in the world out loud.
We are children of God. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
The mustard seed doesn't stay small. It grows and grows and grows. And here's the Good News. Jesus tells us that the kingdom is also like the seeds that were scattered on the ground and sprouted and grew while the planter slept, grew without the planter even knowing how. The kingdom is coming, whether we like it or not. It is up to us to decide whether we will let it sprout and grow and burst forth from within us. Whether we will shine like the children of God we were born to be.
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