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Here’s the thing you need to know, God never had any intention of having a king over Israel. It had been assumed and expected stated outright That God would be their King and they would be God’s people. They had God and so there was no need for a king. God’s plan was to raise up these judges to lead them for a Time and maybe it worked and it kind of didn’t work but the Israelites the Hebrew people cried out to Samuel that they wanted. They needed a king and maybe they were doing better? Maybe they were more unified than Israel was at the time p and they thought that was exactly what they needed.
We met Samuel last week when he was just a young boy living and learning at the Tabernacle in Shiloh. He had his call and first words and visions of God. And he was raised up for a Time and a purpose he was. He is described as the last judge and the first prophet of Israel.
And when the people clamored for a king, Samuel warned them of what a king would do and be like:
10Then Samuel explained everything the LORD had said to the people who were asking for a king. 11″This is how the king will rule over you and operate,” Samuel said: “He will take your sons, and will use them for his chariots and his cavalry and as runners for his chariot. 12He will use them as his commanders of troops of one thousand and troops of fifty, or to do his plowing and his harvesting, or to make his weapons or parts for his chariots. 13He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, or bakers. 14He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his servants. 15He will give one-tenth of your grain and your vineyards to his officials and servants. 16He will take your male and female servants, along with the best of your cattle and donkeys, and make them do his work. 17He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and then you yourselves will become his slaves! 18When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you chose for yourselves, but on that day the LORD won’t answer you.”
But the people insisted Samuel anointed as King a warrior Saul looked like a king. Was a king maker of Israel in addition to being the judge.
Saul screwed everything up and failed to follow God’s commands. The way God commanded them. It’s all lost. Favor with God and the last verse of chapter 15 says that God regretted making Saul, King and Samuel who hadn’t wanted to anoint anyone grieved the failure of Saul, but it seems God had already moved on
When Samuel gets to Bethlehem it seems others know there is some kind of animosity between Saul and Samuel because the elders of the town are nervous and Samuel has to arrive under the guise of a sacrificial feast which they obviously have
In the midst of this public feast, maybe off in a little corner, and for reasons, he probably doesn’t initially understand Jesse parades his seven sons past Samuel. 7, a holy number, a number of perfection and completeness.
And it kind of seems that Samuel considered who would be the next king based on the standards he had set forth when he anointed Saul of stature and strength probably age. Well, we’re told the decisions all made that resulted in his loss of favor with God. We’re never really told why he made those decisions so Samuel doesn’t equate the person who appears to be the most like a king with the failures of the king.
But despite their age, their power, their strength, everything that made Samuel think one of the seven could be King, God declined everyone.
Are there no more sons? And it’s like Jesse was realized. Oh right, yes there’s David but it’s almost like he doesn’t even count. He’s extra in the midst of this completeness. He wasn’t even considered. But he was the one that God considered.
And it is a little funny that it says God doesn’t notice the outward appearance. But the text does still want us to know that David was handsome and suntanned and had beautiful eyes.
And to be fair, I guess it’s a little unclear whether David’s beautiful eyes were eyes themselves because they were brown and flecked with gold or blue like the sea or if his eyes were beautiful because of how he saw when they looked at him, what his eyes saw as they looked out into the world.
There was something about David that when God looked at all the potential futures for David, all of the good and all of the bad God still said this is the one. David isn’t selected to be king because of who he was who what he accomplished, but because of who God is.
Because God Saw with beautiful eyes too.
Samuel hears that humans look at what is on the surface and God looks to the heart. Which makes it sound like it’s what you love or your feelings. In the ancient world, the gut was the seat of your feelings. You feel things in your gut. The heart was the essence of who you are a lot of the things we would equate with the mind today. It was your conscience. Your soul, your wisdom. How you contemplate and discern, was your priorities. Direction, orientation, what you aligned your life to.
God has beautiful eyes.
They say they call David a man after God’s own heart. And I’m pretty sure that language exactly isn’t anywhere in the scriptures, but I imagine that the idea of it begins right here with a forgotten eighth child who had been relegated to the fields and the wilderness with the sheep
But with beautiful eyes God saw part of David oriented aligned focused on God and, with beautiful eyes, God saw every potential future in which this young man whose heart was aligned with God chasing God’s own heart, would be a great King.
That was certainly true of Jesus wasn’t it?15 Jesus looked at people and saw their hearts. He saw their potential. The budding disciples waiting to be. He looked at a despised tax collector sitting at his booth and saw a future Gospel writer. He looked at an illiterate fisherman and saw the leader of a movement. He looked at a sinful young woman tormented by demons and saw an evangelist. Jesus had beautiful eyes.
He has beautiful eyes. And they transform all who manage to see themselves in the mirror of his gaze. They let loose the possibility that each of us can be who we were created to be. To see ourselves through the eyes of Jesus is to see the beautiful image of God within and know why he was willing to die just to rescue it. Yes. Jesus has beautiful eyes. Piercing eyes you could lose yourself in. He sees every flaw and every glimpse of promise. He sees the whole you. Every possible you. And his verdict is love. And that is good news to all of us sinners who come into his Kingdom through the back door, tracking mud as we go.
In times of uncertainty, unrest, fear, dis-ease we, like the Israelites, long for a leader. We are looking for the Martin Luther King Jr. to lead the March and be the voice. We are looking for Joan of Arc to tell us what God wants. We’re looking for a John Wesley to give us a method on how to meet God. We are looking for someone to lead the way, tell us what to do, save us. We are looking for Samuel to point them out, for David to be the answer, for Jesus to show us the way.
I ran across some articles this week that wrote of the end of the guru, which is about a few particular communities but maybe is broader than that. A guru is loosely defined as a mentor, guide, expert or master of certain knowledge or field, but even more, they have become the person whom you follow closely, who you might turn to make sense of your life, your sense of self, with the divine. The guru is the one who answers, who rescues, who has all the answers. And they are saying the time of the guru is over…
It could be our issues with authority, some suggest it is the shift to a time of the answers being inside each of us, but maybe it could also be that we are also called, we are called to be people who are after God’s own heart, and we are called to see what beautiful eyes.
It could be that our leaders let us down. Psalm 51 that we read is titled a sermon of David… after Bathsheba. He is broken, and regretful and lost sight of God.
There is a The Chasing Song by Andrew Peterson, which talks about how sometimes we wonder and then talks about different Bible stories and what they chased,
[Verse 1]
Now and then these feet just take to wandering
Now and then I prop them up at home
Sometimes I think about the consequences
Sometimes I don’t
…
‘Cause Job, he chased an answer
The wise men chased the Child
Jacob chased her 14 years and he captured Rachel’s smile
And Moses chased the Promised Land
Joseph chased a dream
David, he chased God’s own heart
All I ever seem to chase is me
He lost the chasing, and like the singer, was chasing himself, his desires first.
God still creates a new heart, returns it, sets it right, let’s us try again
And even with our failures and our chasing other things.
But even still,
The God that looks at the world with beautiful eyes has shown us how to look at the world with God’s beautiful eyes. So we can learn to see past the outside, past all the surface, past what we think makes someone enough and see to the heart, to the soul, to the wisdom, to the discernment, to make space for each person, each part of creation to be seen with such eyes, and grace, and worthiness. Even you. You are seen with beautiful eyes that transform. We are full of gifts and graces and kindness, and resources and talents. And they might be different than they used to be. and they might be different than you expected, but they are seen by God, and called into the service and love of community. You are the one you are waiting for. We are the ones who are called. It isn’t about someone else, out there, rather it starts with each of us, to be those who chase after God’s own heart, to seeing ourselves with the eyes of God, to see ourselves as God sees us, with God’s beautiful eyes. And then seeing our neighbor, that they too are called and loved. And turning that love outward. Seeing the world with beautiful eyes.