Look Who’s Chosen
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Bloomfield KY Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
March 19, 2023
Have you ever noticed the similarity between this story and Cinderella? In the fairy tale, the prince goes out looking for a princess whose foot fits the glass slipper. He stops at a humble house, Cinderella’s stepmother answers the door, and the prince tries the shoe on Cinderella’s two stepsisters who desperately want that slipper to fit. But it won’t. Whereupon the prince asks, “Do you have any other daughters?” “Well, there’s Cinderella.” “Bring her in.” And the rest is fairy tale history. In our scripture, Samuel goes out looking for who’s chosen by God to be the next king of Israel. He stops in front of Jesse's house in Bethlehem. Jesse parades seven sons in front of Samuel. Samuel eyes each of them expectantly, wondering on whose foot the glass slipper of kingship will fit, only to hear God whisper seven times, "Not him."
Whereupon, Samuel finally asks Jesse, "Are all your sons here?"
To which Jesse responded, "Well, there remains the youngest (we'll come back to that word), “but he's keeping the sheep" (1 Samuel 16:11)
Then "Jesse sent and brought him in… The LORD said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’” (1 Samuel 16:12).
Here’s my question: What do you make of the fact that Israel’s greatest king was Samuel’s 8th choice, but God’s 1st choice? It was because in terms of evidencing the expected qualities of kingship, David had not one, not two, but three strikes against him.
Strike one: David wasn’t the expected person to be king. Back then, the eldest son stood to receive the lion’s share (if not all) of his father’s inheritance. Sorry, daughters and mothers, every day was Father’s and Son’s Day in that patriarchal society. The men got everything. Part of Jesus’ saving work was to restore male and female to full companionship. Equal footing. But a thousand years earlier, Samuel, a man of his time, was sure Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son, was kingly material. David was the "youngest." The Hebrew word used to describe him is haqqaton which Eugene Peterson noted “carries undertones of insignificance”[1] — i.e., the family runt. Strike one: David wasn’t the expected person to be king.
Strike two: David wasn’t of the expected lineage to be king. You expect the king to be descended from royal blood. Have a sterling pedigree, right? But David didn’t. If you did some biblical investigative reporting, you’d find David’s great-grandmother was a Moabite. A foreigner. Her name was Ruth and she married an Israelite man, which made David multiracial. He didn’t have the desired pedigree. Strike two: David wasn’t of the expected lineage to be king.
Strike three: David wasn’t from the expected place to be king. Israel had its major cities, its places “to be from.” But David wasn’t from one of them. He was from Bethlehem, which was not a royal city. Not by a long shot. By analogy, if God operated the same way today, Lexington, Frankfort, or Louisville would be the expected choice for royalty to be born, but generations later people would be singing “O Little Town of Bloomfield.”
Bottom line: David wasn’t the expected person, wasn’t of the expected lineage, wasn’t from the expected place. There were three strikes against David. Add it all up and the tabloids and Twitter could have a ball. I can see it now in grocery store checkout lines and social media posts everywhere: Scandal! Multiracial Runt from Runtsville Anointed Israel's King.
Except this isn't tabloid fodder or a social media smear campaign. This is God’s truth. And the fact that God chose David to be king ought be a lesson to us. What lesson? Not to judge a book by its cover. Not to succumb to stereotyping or prejudice. The Lord says to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature... for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:6, 7). I dare say that's a lesson we need to hear over and over again. Because we mortals do look on the outward appearance. We're all guilty of judging people based on externals: how they look, where they’re from, how they talk, what they wear, what they do, where they went to school. I'll leave it up to you to reckon with the attributes by which you unconsciously judge people. We're all guilty. So it was that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a day “when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Amen to that because God looks not on the outward appearance, but upon the heart to the point that in David of all people, eighth son of Jesse, descendent of a Moabite, from Bethlehem of all places, God saw a king. So God said to Samuel, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.”
If you know your Bible, you know God has always chosen unlikely people to do God’s work in this world:
God chose a man with a speech impediment to be his spokesperson before Pharoah, demanding, “Let my people go.” His name was Moses.
In the book of Judges (chapter 6), God handpicked a man to deliver his people from under the thumb of the Midianites. But the angel sent to tell the man he’d been chosen found him hiding in a winepress. Scared to death. The angel said, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior” (6:12). The man, embarrassed, said, “Me a mighty warrior? Me deliver Israel? But my clan is the weakest in Manasseh (translated: My people are Nelson County nobodies!), and I am the least in my family.” Look who’s chosen: God saw courage in a coward. His name was Gideon.
Also in Judges God chose a woman to lead his armies. A four-star female general? If you have a problem with that, take it up with the Lord. Her name was Deborah.
Paul wrote to the folks at Corinth Christian Church, a motley crew if there ever was one, “Consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose [you]…” (1 Cor 1:26-27)
This is all to say that God has always looked beyond outward appearances and chosen ordinary people from ordinary places to do extraordinary things to advance his kingdom. That includes when God sent Samuel to Bethlehem of all places to David of all people and it includes when God returned to Bethlehem years later to call another king. Remember? Another king, a son of David, was born in Bethlehem, and like David before him, he didn't look the part. He was wrapped in swaddling cloths, not a plush velvet blanket, and laid in a feed trough – a manger. He was surrounded not by nannies but by cattle and sheep. If you didn’t look beyond the outward appearance, you’d never have guessed that he was king. With his being raised in Nazareth, a town with one flashing yellow light, someone asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46) The closest he ever came to looking the part of a king was when he wore that crown of thorns and that purple robe that made some soldier a nifty souvenir when they cast lots for it. Laughing, they tacked above his head a sign that read: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” And then he died. Unless you are able to look beyond outward appearances to the heart you’d have never guessed him to be a king. But God took a man like that, raised him up, and made him King of Kings and Lord of Lords forever.
Which makes me wonder: If God sees royalty in people in places like Bethlehem, what does God see in you? Has anyone ever told you that you are royalty? Have you had a Samuel, a Samantha, Someone in your life who saw in you something nobody else saw, saw in you what God sees in you, and told you? Has anybody ever told you in no uncertain terms that you are God’s beloved, God’s chosen? Somebody said, “We’re all a ten somewhere.” Have you had/ do you have someone in your life who sees royalty in you?
And turn it around: Would you be that person for someone else? Would you notice someone else’s gifts and graces and make it a point to name something you see in that person they may never have been aware of. Tell them they’re special. I’m reminded of something I read years ago about how important it is for a child’s sense of self-worth to hear themselves called by name by others, especially by adults. We know the damage caused by being called names, but are we aware of the benefit of being called by name? A study said children and youth need to hear themselves called by name by at least seven non-parental adults each week. A teacher. A coach. A neighbor. Someone at church.
This is all to say that if God saw royalty in such as David, then it would be just like God to choose ordinary people like you and me to do God’s work in this world. Pardon me if I offended you by calling you ordinary. You may be a V.I.P. – a legend in your own mind. If so, I beg your pardon for calling you ordinary. Sorry to break it to you, but we’re not famous. We’re ordinary. But if I read the Bible rightly, that’s good news because the Bible teaches that God chooses folks like us to do God’s work in this world. Folks like Moses, like Gideon, like Deborah, like the plain old ordinary folks at Corinth Christian Church. Like Jesus of Nazareth.
Thank you for inviting me out. I told some friends I was preaching today, only the second time since I retired seven months ago.
“Where?” they asked.
“Bloomfield,” I said.
Where?
Bloomfield.
Is that in Kentucky?
Oh, yes. Sure is.
Whereabouts? Never heard of it.
You haven’t heard of Bloomfield? It’s west of here about 50 minutes. Out there near... Bethlehem. Word has it, God’s Word has it, that God has his eyes on those folks in Bloomfield. They’re royalty, don’t you know. God’s chosen.”
In Bloomfield?
Oh yes.
The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Rise and anoint them; for they are the ones.’ (1 Sam 16:12).
Would you look who’s chosen? You!
Let all God’s chosen say AMEN.
[1] Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, p. 16.