What God Sees

Sunday, June 16, 2024 – Gospel, Mark 4:26-34. Also 1 Samuel 15:34—16:13, Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13] 14-17

In my last year of high school, our class did a senior play and performed “Ten Little Indians” (also known as “And Then There Were Known”) by Agatha Christie. You may remember the story. In it, ten people are invited by a mysterious Mr. Owen to Indian Island, and one by one are murdered. It’s an excellent whodunit mystery story, as the remaining guests try desperately to determine the murderer before they’re all dead.

Our play almost never happened.

There hadn’t been a senior play performed in our school for a few years, since my brother’s class performed “Plaza Suite,” because no teachers wanted to take on the task of leading one. But our class wouldn’t give up. We bugged the English teachers until we finally wore down Mrs. DeAppolonio, and she agreed to direct us.

Only three boys came to the auditions, so some of us girls had to play a few of the male parts. I was Anthony Marston, the egotistical and insufferable race car driver, who was guilty of running over two children but felt no guilt over it whatsoever. I wore a houndstooth jacket, a cap, and a fake beard. I also had the honor of being the first to die onstage for my lack of morality. It was a really big time.

Our friend Tommy played General Gordon Macarthur, a veteran who had sent a subordinate and former friend to his death, in a way very similar to the old story of David and Bathsheba’s husband Uriah. David sent Uriah to a battle he couldn’t win so that he could have Bathsheba to himself. During all the rehearsals, Tommy, who had never acted before, spoke in a monotone, wooden way.

It was painful to watch.

We thought maybe he just wasn’t capable of playing the role, but there were no other actors waiting in the wings. We didn’t have high hopes. But in our one and only performance, something came alive in Tommy that we never saw. He became that General, and played the role with so much feeling and pathos that it brought everyone to tears.

Clearly, we couldn’t see who Tommy really was deep in his heart or the potential that was seeded within him.

Our lessons for today show us that God sees what the world cannot see. Rather than judging by outer appearances and what the world considers worthy, God looks more deeply into the heart of the situation and of the person.

First, we read of Samuel going to anoint the new king of Israel. Saul had been a deep disappointment and God was sorry to have made him king. This verse is a key lesson for all of us who think that God can never change God’s mind or that God isn’t moved by the world.

Samuel calls Jesse and his sons, at God’s direction, to a sacrifice, and one by one, the big, strapping boys come before Samuel, but none of them are God’s choice. Of the eldest, God says, “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.”

When it appears that Jesse has run out of sons, Samuel asks if there are any more and Jesse has to call his youngest in from the sheep. This one is smaller and ruddy from the sun. As Gabrie’l Atchison writes,

We are left to imagine that no one in the situation would have regarded David as a likely candidate for leadership.”

But that is not how God regards David. God looks beyond the outward appearance to see what is in David’s heart.

I find it interesting that he is described as “handsome” and as having “beautiful eyes.” My guess is that this description of his eyes is less about echoing the already stated handsomeness, and may be a suggestion that David’s eyes along with his vision are closer to God’s way of seeing. Maybe that’s why they’re beautiful.

David is anointed by Samuel and becomes one who is filled with the Spirit of God. He is certainly not perfect, as we see in the whole Bathsheba episode, but he loves God and does great things for his people.

Then we come to the gospel where Jesus talks about the kingdom of God as like a mustard seed. Now note here that Jesus doesn’t tell his followers that the Kingdom of God is like the great cedars of Lebanon that we read about in the psalms. In fact, I think Jesus is being ironic here.

It’s almost like he’s using a comedian’s delivery when he says, “and this seed, the smallest of all the seeds on earth,” (which it actually is not) “grows up and becomes the greatest of all…” and the audience thinks he’s going to say “trees,” and instead he says “…the greatest of all…shrubs.” What a major plot twist that is!

You see, we want the cedars of Lebanon. We want the most powerful, most muscular, and the richest people on the planet to be held up for glory. We don’t want a weedy little mustard shrub to be the metaphor for God’s kingdom!

But you know what? That mustard shrub may not be very impressive, it may not seem like much to the outside world, but it’s a hearty shrub that is useful for humans and birds. It meets someone’s needs and meets them well.

God can do great things with small and imperfect people and plants that don’t look like much to the outside world.

Take a look at this congregation. We aren’t what we were in our heyday. We don’t have a hundred or more people here on a Sunday. We don’t have young people and children filling up the place.

The outside world may look at Redeemer and think, what can that tiny group of older people do? They’re past their prime. But you know what? We may be older, but we’re also wiser. And we’re kind and loving. We have wisdom and friendship to share with a world that is in desperate need of both of those qualities.

Our psalm tells us that “the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and shall spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God; they shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be green and succulent.”

How can we be “righteous” and “planted in the house of the Lord”?

We are planted in the house of the Lord when we “walk by faith, not by sight,” as Paul writes. Meaning that if we walk by faith in God’s sight, in God’s vision, not faith in our limited human sight, or in the world’s judgment based on outer appearances, we have seeds within us that can grow into flourishing offerings to people who need us.

What is within us may seem tiny and may not look like much to the outside world, but when we look with the eyes of our hearts to see the world as God sees it, I believe we can be a great offering to our community.