A sermon
written and preached by the Reverend Scott D. Nowack on June 17, 2012
at First
Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.
What God Values
1 Samuel
15:34 – 16:13
2
Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Those who run for political office
expose themselves to extreme scrutiny, not the least of which is harsh
judgments about their physical appearance. Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich
know all about this, as political commentators have speculated about their
weight. At times, the analysis of Presidential debates has sounded a lot like
the Red Carpet commentary at the Academy Awards. Perhaps it's just the
influence of television -- and memories of Richard Nixon's shiny nose and
five-o'clock shadow during his debate with John F. Kennedy -- but it's hard to
imagine a candidate running for President today without a veritable army of
style and grooming consultants.
This is even more remarkable,
considering what some of our greatest Presidents have looked like. George
Washington was physically strong and at over six feet tall had an imposing
presence, but he wore a set of wooden false teeth that gave him tremendous pain
and led him to adopt a grim, tight-lipped expression. Abraham Lincoln was
well-known as being one of the homeliest men around. He had a huge mole on one
cheek, and was so extremely tall and awkward that some historians think he
might have had a mild case of the pathological condition known as giantism. As
for Franklin D. Roosevelt, it's well-known today that he spent much of his time
in a wheelchair, due to polio. Yet, in those pre-television days, FDR's
political handlers did a pretty good job of keeping the newspaper photographers
away from his wheelchair, crutches and leg braces. Most Americans knew little
of his disability. In the age of television, that would be unthinkable.
Where would we be today, as a
nation, without Washington, Lincoln or FDR? Yet, the simple truth is, if
today's obsessive interest in physical appearance had prevailed back then, none
of these three men would have made it to the presidency.
Our scripture reading from First
Samuel warns about judging on the basis of outward appearances and declares
that the people of God are given eyes that enable them to discriminate in new
and different ways.
We could argue that the ancient Israelites were as image-obsessed as we are. As the Israelites conquered the land promised to them by God and settled down, they couldn't help but notice the glitzy, celebrity kings of the Canaanites. They were mesmerized by their fancy clothes and their wealth. To put it in modern day terms, these kings had a lot of bling. Then they made the comparisons between the blingy kings and their own rulers, the judges. Like the old prophet Samuel and his sons, they looked so plain and scruffy by comparison (1 Samuel 8:1-5). So, they pushed Samuel for a king to govern them -- a tall, dark and handsome hero to go out and fight their battles for them (8:19-20). Despite Samuel's warning, they wanted the image of a king who would make them "like other nations".
We could argue that the ancient Israelites were as image-obsessed as we are. As the Israelites conquered the land promised to them by God and settled down, they couldn't help but notice the glitzy, celebrity kings of the Canaanites. They were mesmerized by their fancy clothes and their wealth. To put it in modern day terms, these kings had a lot of bling. Then they made the comparisons between the blingy kings and their own rulers, the judges. Like the old prophet Samuel and his sons, they looked so plain and scruffy by comparison (1 Samuel 8:1-5). So, they pushed Samuel for a king to govern them -- a tall, dark and handsome hero to go out and fight their battles for them (8:19-20). Despite Samuel's warning, they wanted the image of a king who would make them "like other nations".
God punished the Israelites by
giving them exactly what they wanted: a tall, dark and handsome soap opera-idol
ruler. King Saul, however, was the Snooki of his time. He was like so many celebrities today whose
shiny outward appearance hides a dark and broken inner life. Saul's reign
quickly started to look like a bad reality TV show. He acts impulsively (1
Samuel 13:1-15), swears (14:24-35), disobeys God (15:1-9), kills priests
(22:6-19), chucks spears at musicians (18:10-11), consults a witch (28:3-25)
and has a poor relationship with his son (20:30-34), among other things. The
Israelites, however, seemed to be pleased with the image their king was
projecting and knew that they could get Saul to play to the crowd. They
badgered Saul into keeping spoils of war that God had strictly commanded them
to destroy (15:1-9, 24).
God is fed up with the “bling
king”. It’s God’s turn to choose a king
for the Israelites.
Our society is growing ever more
preoccupied by physical appearance: what it says about us and how to enhance
it. Professor Joan Brumberg of Cornell University has documented this growing
obsession, through a comparative study of diaries written by teenage girls.
She first consulted surviving
diaries from the nineteenth century. She analyzed their entries, arranging them
by topic. What Professor Brumberg found is that nineteenth-century teenagers
spent a great deal of time writing about their aspirations to be good, useful,
caring, positive contributors to society. They had a sense of personal mission,
something that caused them to reach beyond themselves.
Then, the professor turned to
diaries written by teenage girls of our own time. She found their aspirations
to be focused mostly on becoming slim, pretty, well-dressed and popular.[1] It is easy to forget that God is more concerned
with what’s in your heart.
The experience of Samuel as he
searches for a successor to Saul indicates how easily looks can be deceiving (1
Sam. 15:34–16:13). Jesse’s eldest son,
Eliab, seems the perfect prospect, until Samuel is advised that God does not
judge according to outward appearances, but according to the heart.
What matters to God is not the image
we create, but his own image in us. God cuts through all the walls, appearances
and masks we love to wear for each other, and looks deep into our real selves;
the part of us often hidden under all those layers of makeup, material things
and make-believe roles we play. In the case of the new king, God was looking
for a man after God’s own heart -- not the oldest, wisest, strongest or
handsomest. David was that man, even though he was only the youngest boy -- so
young that he was not even considered by his father as being worthy to stand
with the rest of his sons on the runway (16:11).
The various ways in which men and
women in our and every age are tempted to do just the opposite can be
documented in our racism, our sexism, and our various forms of idolatry (love
of money, clothing, glitzy automobiles, and the like). It is only when we learn
to see beyond that which is most visible that we begin to assess people in
terms of their character and their commitments.
As with the Israelites, the
believers in the church in Corinth struggled with the same “image is
everything” issues the Israelites did and we do today. The Apostle Paul, in writing to an
overconfident Corinthian community, instructs them to walk by faith and not by
sight. And walking by faith means that “worldly standards have ceased to count
in our estimate of anyone” (2 Cor. 5:16, REB). Their prosperity and blessings
are not to be flaunted before others.
Their willingness to follow Jesus Christ as his disciple doesn’t make
them better people than anyone else.
Because believers are deeply connected to the death of Christ, they are
called to follow a new standard of judgment.
Beginning in 1 Corinthians 5:14,
Paul gets to the heart of the matter, identifying why it is that this conflict
exists between what the world sees and what Christians know to be real. Because of what Jesus did on the cross,
Christians see things differently. When the Holy Spirit of God takes up
residence in our hearts we simply do not think, perceive, assess, or judge in
the way we did before. We no longer
regard anyone from a human point of view.
If we say we are in Christ and Christ lives in us, then there is a new
creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! We begin to see the world through different
eyes, God’s eyes.
There's an African folk tale about a
tribe whose men traditionally obtained wives by purchasing them from their
fathers with livestock. Were a woman especially beautiful, a man might offer
her father five goats. Were she were plain, only one or two.
One year, as the tribe met at the
oasis for their annual gathering, one young man set his eye upon one rather
ordinary-looking maiden. To the astonishment of all his friends, he went up to
her father and bid for her the princely sum of ten goats. The girl's father was
surprised and delighted with his good fortune. He accepted the young man's
offer instantly, and the two of them were married straightaway.
A year went by, and the tribe
gathered at the oasis once again. The young men laughed and pointed their
fingers at their friend, newly arrived from the hills. "And how is your
ten-goat bride?" they asked, snickering.
At that very moment, into their
presence walked the most lovely woman any of them had ever seen. "What's
the matter?" their friend asked. "Don't you recognize the woman I
married?"
Truly, they hadn't. She had changed.
What had changed about her was the knowledge that her husband loved her so
much, he had paid 10 goats for her. It was this knowledge, this inner awareness
that made her truly beautiful.
God does not judge according to
outward appearances but according to the heart and God commands us to do the
same.
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