The Last, the Least, the Lost, and the Little

A sermon by Jamie Howison on 1 Samuel 15:34 -16:13

In tonight’s reading from 1st Samuel, we are introduced to the figure of David. He’s still just a boy and he actually doesn’t say a word in this passage, but the reader is given the inside track on the story of a man who looms large in the imagination of ancient Israel. We will be tracking David’s story—his up and down, complicated and sometime troubling story—from now through the middle of August. These stories of David won’t be all that I’m going to preach on during these months, but you have to know that given my love of stories I’m not going to be able to resist at least commenting on them as they arise.

The story began with a bit of subterfuge on the part of the prophet Samuel. If you remember Paul’s sermon from last Sunday, Samuel had come out strongly in opposition to the peoples’ call for a king. “You are old,” they’d said to Samuel, “and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” A king like other nations? That’s what you want? Careful what you wish for… your sons will end up conscripted as soldiers, your daughters will be made servants, your crops and land will be taxed, and before you know it you’ll have a rigid hierarchy, just like all the other nations have. But they persist, and their request is fulfilled. They get a king named Saul, and he looks pretty good at first. According to the text, Saul’s father was wealthy, so that’s a start for a king. And further, “There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than Saul; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.” I suspect that Samuel was still rolling his eyes a bit at the madness of the people wanting a king, but when called upon he duly anoints Saul and so Israel gets what they wanted.

Except that Saul doesn’t really live up to his calling, and quite quickly it is apparent that he thinks his own political savvy is wiser than God’s will. That’s a story that is a bit too complicated to get into here tonight, but the upshot is that “the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.” That’s such an interesting line, isn’t it, that God is sorry over having made Saul the King? Klaus-Peter Adam, though, offers a really helpful take on that line, writing,

Rather than molding Yahweh’s regret as the hallmark of a fickle, inconsistent deity, it points to an inner move of God. It condenses a critical insight about Israel’s God: far from static or distanced, Yahweh reacts to humankind’s actions.

God reacts to humankind’s actions, and in this case that means sending Samuel on a mission to find a new king; a proper king. And the message is, “Never mind the good looks, Samuel, what you want to pay attention to is the character of the potential king’s heart.”

The problem, though, is that Saul is still alive and very much on the throne, so when Samuel goes out to find a new king he’s essentially committing treason. That’s the reason for all of the material in the first half of our reading today, when Samuel goes to Bethlehem on the pretense of offering a sacrifice there. “The elders of the city came to meet Samuel trembling, and said, ‘Do you come peaceably?’” Why are they trembling? Well, Samuel is a recognizable figure, whose presence with the king is well known. Is he here to claim some of our land or take our children for the king? Is trouble brewing? Oh no, no, I’m here in peace, Samuel replies, just want to make a sacrifice to the Lord here in your area. Come along, join me…

And among those who join Samuel are Jesse and seven his sons; Jesse being the very one that Samuel had been told to seek out, because that family had born the one who would be the new king. “When they came,” the text says, “Samuel looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.’” But no, Eliab is not the one, for Samuel is told, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” And so, one after another the sons of Jesse are brought in front of Samuel, and one after another, it is “no, no, no.”

“Do you have other sons?” Samuel asks Jesse. “Well yes, sure, there’s the youngest one, but he’s out tending the sheep,” which suggests that even in his own family this young one is deemed to be not all that important. A significant guest is coming, and has invited us to participate in the offering of a sacrifice? No, David, you can’t come, the sheep are your first duty, my boy.

Go get him, Samuel says. I’ll wait.

And when that boy arrives on the scene, surprise, he’s the one! “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.”

Yet here’s the funny thing. For all that the instruction had been to not look on physical appearance, the writer simply can’t resist saying that “he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.” Here Walter Brueggemann comments:

Perhaps his appearance is noted because those who valued the story most wanted to hear of his loveliness. The young David is one of the marginal people. He is uncredentialled and has no social claim to make. Those who fastened on to this story most passionately may have been those who, like David, were marginal with no credentials and no social claim. For such people it would be important to assert and celebrate that among the marginal there are beautiful people, that among the little ones there is the potential for greatness.

Yes, he is the youngest—the eighth born—and in the familial pecking order of that ancient world he was without much hope of any stature beyond shepherd and farm hand. But God, as it turns out, is no respecter of pecking orders, and no fan of credentials and conventional social status. Looking to the last, the least, the lost, and the little is so often God’s way of doing things in these ancient stories, and those who first heard them told could relate, because so many of them were without status. Oh, but they love David, for he is as unlikely as any of them to have been chosen, and yet chosen he is. And even as they hear of the youngest being chosen, they can’t help but smile at the fact that not only is his heart set aright, but he’s good looking to boot!

Now consider this from the Gospel reading:

Jesus also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

The Kingdom of God takes the tiniest seed—the youngest son who knows only sheep—and from it bursts “the greatest of all shrubs.” Robert Capon observes here that,

The real point of the parable is the marvelous discrepancy between the hiddenness of the kingdom at its sowing and the lush, manifest exuberance of it in its final, totally successful fruition.

Don’t count out the little one, don’t bypass the shepherd boy, don’t forget the mustard seed or how a little bit of yeast buried in the dough makes the bread “happen.” Don’t dismiss the status-less, the uncredentialled, the ones that conventional society has little time or respect for, and certainly don’t by-pass the children. Don’t imagine for a minute that we in the so-called “dominant culture” have nothing to learn from the “other” cultures, which in our context in Canada might mean the Indigenous cultures and communities, as well as newcomers and refugees. It might also mean people who, on account of an array of differences and abilities, aren’t quite like “us.”

These texts tonight say to shelve the old assumptions and pay close attention. In God’s way of doing things, we’re bound to be surprised.