Rev. Dr. Bary R. Fleet - Pastor
March 2, 2008 – 4th Sunday in Lent
1st Samuel 16:1-13      
Ephesians 5:8-14   
John 9:1-41

Amazing Grace

David:  universally acclaimed as Israel’s greatest king.  David was the king that took the diverse tribes of Israel and brought them together … literally, they became “one nation under God.”   He did this by bringing the sacred covenant to Jerusalem in a triumphant procession.  This is how he let the people know that God had chosen this place – above all places – to be present with God’s people … and that God had chosen this man, David to rule God’s people.  God pledged to David an “everlasting kingdom.”

It is a great story … a deep human yearning for a “happily ever after.”

  We heard the story again today about how the prophet Samuel anointed that young, good-looking shepherd boy … the “baby” of Jesse’s family … the one whom his father hadn’t even bothered to call in from the field  when Samuel asked to see his sons.

It sort of sounds like a fairy tale …

Once upon a time, there was no king in the land.  There had been a king, but he had been a very bad king; so a wise man was sent to find a new one.  And, though this man was wise, he looked foolish.  That was because he thought to himself that the next king would be handsome and tall and mature … little knowing that the God who had called him to find the new king had something completely different in mind.   The “wise fool,” a.k.a. Samuel, inspected each of the seven sons that Jesse brought before him.  They each looked like they could be king … but God had something else in mind.  The real king was out in the pasture, keeping watch over his sheep.

The wise fool proved to be wise after all by pouring oil over his head and pronouncing that the new king had been found!  And they all lived happily …

No, that only happens in fairy tales.

They didn’t live happily ever after.  The old king, tormented by evil spirits, throws spears at the “heir apparent.”  Civil war erupts and the new king spends lots of time hiding in caves, feeling sorry for himself, and writing songs.

Then there is the story about the new king’s adultery.  We know that story very well – we talked about it not too many Sunday’s ago – about how the new king made arrangements for the husband of the woman to be killed on the front line of a war that the king himself should have been fighting.

Then there is the tragic death of the child that was conceived out of this illicit affair, a death that was interpreted as evidence of God’s judgment.  And there will be another death, of another son – a son who rebelled against his father, and yet his death caused the father such pain and heart-break that his grief-stricken cry echoes down through modern day literature:  “O my son Absalom, Absalom my son, my son Absalom!  Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son!”  (2nd Sam. 18:33).

And yet, on David’s death bed he speaks:  “One who rules … in the fear of God are like the light of morning.” (2nd Sam. 23:3). 

Maybe there is a happy ending to David’s story after all.  The “happy ending” isn’t because of David’s deeds; it is because of God’s grace. 

The “happily ever after” rests on a truth that we find in today’s story:  “…the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  (1st Samuel 16:7).

The happily ever after rests on the hope that our God looks, not on our outward appearance, that our God looks at us – not the way the world might, with all of our shortcomings, our addictive choices, our self-destructive behaviors, our selfish impulses, our strained relationships –but on our hearts!  For it is in our hearts that the image of God remains. 

And so, God calls us daughters and sons, just as God called David and, in a greater way, called Jesus.  And, as does any good parent, God loves us until we become more than we could be on our own.  God gives and forgives; God cherishes and challenges; God rebukes and ultimately redeems.

That is why we read this story during the Lenten season.  As we are looking honestly at ourselves and all that gets in the way of us having the kind of relationship with God that we want, God reminds us of that “once upon a time” when everything seemed possible … and, by God’s grace, we can pick up the pieces and it can be possible again.

NOTE:  Today’s sermon was written by Michael Poteet, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and published under the title “Once Upon a Time, “ published in The Clergy Journal, Nov. / Dec. 2007.       

SERMON IN A SACK:  A baggie of mud.  Talk about the way Jesus made the blind man see.