UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon for June 14, 2009
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Sunday, June 14, 2009 8:59:25 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


God's Eyes
I Samuel 15:34-16:13
Mark 4:26-34

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
The Gospels tell so many stories about sight.  Like many of the Gospel
stories, there is more to the story than whether or not eyeballs work
properly.
    
If only the Pharisees admitted they were blind, Jesus could help them
to see.  This isn’t about whether eyeballs work or not.  It is about
how they see the world.
    
Peter gets in trouble when he tells Jesus that there is no way the
world would be allowed to kill Jesus.  He gets told he is looking at
the situation in human ways, not the way God sees it.    In our recent
Bible Studies we explored the parables Jesus used to teach and preach
the kingdom of heaven.  The question often comes up, why parables?
Why not just come out and say, “Here is what God is like, deal with
it!”
    
There is a famous rock garden in Japan.  It sits within a walled
enclosure, so the only way to see the garden is from a wooden walkway
around it inside the walls.  Small white pebbles form the base, from
which rise larger stones like islands out of water.  From any one
point on the walkway, you cannot see all of the rocks.  As you walk
around the garden, one rock will disappear behind another, and then
another one, previously hidden, will come into view.  You have to move
to see all of them.  There is no one vantage point from which the
whole thing is visible.
    
Parables try and move us from what we know into what we don’t know.
We all know how seeds work.  So when some seeds sprout and some don’t,
we can understand a little bit about why some people here Good News
and get it, and some don’t.
    
But parables sometimes seem to cover up as much as they illuminate.
You cannot get the parables without walking around them, looking from
a different point of view.  They are not formulas to be solved.  We
are supposed to get up and move and look from different angles, so
that we might start to see a larger picture.  We have to move out of
our usual ways of seeing, so that we might start to see things the way
God does.  This isn’t about giving us a different answer.  It is about
helping us see things differently.
    
So it is little surprise that at the inauguration and anointing of
David as the new king,  Samuel is called to look at the candidates not
through his own eyes, but as God sees them.
    
Samuel sneaks his way onto the scene to avoid the wrath of Saul.  Saul
lost his anointing for his disobedience, and Samuel rightly fears him.
If Samuel is caught going out to anoint another, Saul would kill him.
    
Samuel sneaks to Bethlehem, and comes upon the family of Jesse.  Under
the cover of throwing a party for God, Samuel looks on each of Jesse’s
sons.  Seven of them pass before him.  And God warns not to look at
the height or the outward appearance of each son, for the Lord sees
what is inside, not what is outside.
    
Seven should be enough.  Seven is the old Hebrew number meaning
perfection.  But each time, the Lord says, “Not this one.”  So Samuel
asks, “Is this all of them?”
    
No, there is one more, out tending the sheep.  Here we find again the
link between a shepherd and a king.  The kings who do evil set the
world up so that those they rule serve the king and his needs.  The
kings who do what is right set the world up so that they serve the
ones over whom they are placed.  Good kingship and good shepherding
have been linked ever since.
    
So David, ruddy of complexion, with handsome eyes, is brought forward.
    
Here is the one, says the Lord.
    
Samuel anoints David, and he is now the chosen one of God to lead the
people.  Of course this is not the same as taking the throne from
Saul, so there is yet more work to do, more battles to be fought, more
problems ahead.
    
But for today’s reading, it is enough to be reminded that God sees
things differently than we do.  Samuel might have chosen from any of
David’s brothers and thought it a good choice.  God saw it
differently.
    
Our readings invite us to move a little, see a little more, take
another look and see what there is behind what we have always assumed.
In our worldly experience, we know the race is not always to the
swift and the battle is not always to the strong, but that is the way
the smart money gets bet.  From God’s point of view, a little faith,
just a little, the size of a mustard seed, is better than anything
else we can point to as good or powerful or true.  Just a little
faith, just a little trust, just a little hope, can change a life, can
change the world.
    
God isn’t asking us to be perfect before God will help us.  Instead,
we are invited to trust.  It is saying, “So you feel a little weak, a
little small, a little overwhelmed - or a lot - trust in the love that
does not fail and God will see you through.”
    
It isn’t about moving mountains, it about moving us.
    
It isn’t about changing the world to match the image of our
expectations, but coming to see life as a revelation, as a chance to
see the kingdom of heaven right here in our midst.  Not because we
have the faith of a saint, but because we have the faith the size of a
grain of mustard seed.  We still have a long way to go, but we start
where we are.
    
I had a conversation with someone the other day, and they asked me,
not in so many words, how long do you have to wait and how much do you
have to know before it was okay to judge someone, to say whether they
were good or bad, moral or immoral.
    
It was one of those conversations when a really good answer comes
about thirty minutes after the conversation was over.  It occurred to
me how ill equipped we are to judge others.
    
I think the answer lies in whether or not we can see others as God
does.  If we can’t see someone as God does, then we have no business
judging them.  If we think we see them as God does, but have no
compassion or forgiveness, we better check again.  It is probably just
our ego, however profoundly buttressed by doctrine or scripture or
tradition.  I believe if we really saw with God’s eyes, we would be
far more compassionate and far more forgiving with each other and with
ourselves.
    
For the only one to whom authority to judge is given, in the midst of
his own crucifixion prayed, “Abba, Father, Papa, forgive them, for
they don’t know what they are doing.”  Until we can see the world like
that, we do not yet see with God’s eyes.
    
And the one who has been given the authority to judge has far more
compassion and forgiveness than we can imagine.
    
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
09