Being Chosen Just As We Are
1 Samuel 15:34 –16:13
Acts 9:1 –16
June 14, 2015
Marilyn B. Kendrix
Today’s reading from FIRST SAMUEL, who was the last of the judges of Israel,contains an account of the Samuel’s final public act, and the future King David’s initial appearance in biblical material. Israel’s first king, Saul, has fallen out of favor with God because of disobedience. Saul has lost sight of his call by God. He was chosen but he failed to live up to that call. He brought home loot – which God had forbidden –after defeating a neighboring country,
and he built a monument to himself in Carmel. God was not pleased. And so God moves Samuel on to his next task: he must choose a new king. Samuel obeys, and so begins the story that we will hear today.
…
In our New Testament reading from the Book of Acts, we hear about the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. I find it interesting that God’s first choice as King of Israel in the Old Testament was a man named Saul and that did not work out. Now here we are, about 1000 years later and we find another Saul, this time Saul of Tarsus, a devout Jew who has been persecuting the earliest Christians for believing that the recently crucified Jesus is the long awaited Messiah.
So just to be clear, this Saul has two names – his Hebrew name is Saul but as a Roman citizen, he also has a Latin name and that’s the name that we know him by, Paul.
…
Today’s readings got me thinking about being chosen and I realized that I have mostly thought of being chosen as something that happens to the special people, maybe even toreally, really good people. One’s who are perfect in some way. I mean, think back to junior high school. I know that for some of us, that’s a long way back but I am fairly sure that no matter how many years it’s been
between then and now, we can all remember junior high schoolgym when the real perfect athletes of the class got to choose who would play on their teams. And the rest of us prayed that we would not be the last one chosen. Being chosen first or at least near the beginning was good thing. It meant that we were closer to the perfection that we all hoped for. And being the one who was the last person chosen, the one that each side prayed the other side would have to take, well that was totally humiliating. That was proof positive that there was something wrong with us. Yes, being chosen was an indication that we were closer to perfection than the other kids. I think that that experience and other ones like it,helped shape the notion that being chosen meant that somehow, you were better than the rest. More athletic, more popular, more good looking. Being chosen I think is often equated with being the best.
And the corollary would naturally be that not being chosen means that we are somehow less than perfect and that less than perfect is a bad thing.
…
But here, in the search for a replacement for the failed King Saul, we learn that God does not look on appearance or height, on the outward signs of perfection. No, we are told,“the Lord does not see as mortals see; the Lord looks on the heart.”And I think that we have to even wonder what it is about the heartthat God sees, because we know that by most human standards, King David was not perfect. We know his heart often led him into difficulty. We don’t know it in this early story of David, when he was little more than a boy. But if we follow his career in scripture, we discover some serious flaws in the character of this anointed one of God. Scripture tells us that David was a bad warrior. I mean he believed in the scorched earth model of war. When David waged war, no one was left in the land, not men, women or children.David was a bad ruler. Later on in 1 Samuel, we read thatHis people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in spirit for their sons and daughters. (1 Sam 30:6)We know that David showed bad judgment. His exuberance led him to dance naked, embarrassing the woman who would become the first of his many wives. And David was a bad husband. He schemed to get Uriah killed in order to get Uriah’swife, Bathsheba, for himself. David was a bad father. The sons he raised waged war and committed atrocities in their fight over his thrown. What could God have seen in this flawed human being, sending Samuel to find him and then to anoint him as Israel’s next king? Indeed, throughout all of scripture we can find examples where the people that God chooses to contribute to the kingdom of God are often not the physically gifted or the morally strong. Why, God even chooses people who have been working vigorouslyagainst God’s own plans for creation.
…
Take Saul, the New Testament Saul, Saul of Tarsus, who has been busy persecuting followers of the new Way, the new religion that had recently arisen out of the ministry of Jesus. Saul was there and approved of the stoning of Stephen, making of Stephen Christianity’s first martyr. I mean you couldn’t get much worse that Saul of Tarsus. And yet God chose Saul. The risen Jesus appears to Saul and Saul is struck blind, at least temporarily, by the experience.
And even after Saul experiences his conversion and changes the very purpose of his life, he still is not the most likable character to be found in the New Testament.
…
David was not perfect, and Saul of Tarsus was not perfect, even after he became known by his Latin name Paul, he was not perfect.
But they were both of them chosen by God. I think we would do well to remember these imperfect characters as we look around at the folks who are “chosen” today, In this information age, when everything we have ever done can and probably will become public, I think we need to remind ourselves of the unlikely, imperfect prophets and kings that God has chosen.
…
In the service today, we commissioned the new vision teamwho will work to think about how we can, with other folks in New Haven, be a stronger witness to the work and ministry of Jesus Christ in our time.
I am sure that God was present as these folks prayed on how they might contribute to this work andthat each of them is also chosen by God. And as much as we love them, we can be assured that they are not perfect. But perfection is not a requirement for working on God’s kingdom.
…
And later in this service we will celebrate the contributions made by folks who’ve answered the call to help in our nursery with our littlest Christians and others who have volunteered their time and talent to be Sunday School teachers for the children of our church. They come, some of them unsure of their own knowledge of the Bible, some of them insecure about their ability as artists as they lead in the Bible Art station.Some of them not confident about their capability to teach hymns to the children in Bible Action,some intimidated by the thought of dealing with small children at all. And yet they come. They are chosen and they answer the call. They come as imperfect bearers of God’s word, imperfect ministers of the Way of Jesus Christ. In other words, they come just as they are, and can know that God chooses them, just as God chose imperfect King David, who answered God’s call and just as imperfect Paul, the Apostle came. All of us are the chosen of God, just as we are.
…
And we might be moved to ask ourselves, what kind of God would choose David as the most favored king? What kind of God would have the Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ himself descend from this flawed King David? What kind of God would choose Paul, a murderous persecutor, as the primary messenger of God’s Word to the Gentiles? Why, the same God who loves me in all my imperfections. The same God who loves you, as imperfect as you are. Thank God that our perfect God loves her imperfect creation. Thank God that God chose David, and God chose Saul, and God chooses you and me, just as we are. We are not perfect but we are beloved of God.Thanks be to God. Amen.