2008.07.13 Authenticity
Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Illustration: There is a Dutch tradition where the windows downstairs are open (i.e. no window coverings). The purpose of this is so that the community could see the family dining and know if everything was okay with the family.
This openness/transparency to the community is similar to what the early church was like.
My instinct—and generally for our society—is the opposite: to hide. We use different words for the hiding: “discretion,” “privacy.” But whatever name you give it, it is taking something out of public view and hiding it.
There are things, of course, that we make open for public consideration. But even then, we will often put forward only the things that we have determined are “good” or “acceptable” for public scrutiny.
For example, there is a cartoon that was popular in the 70’s called the Jetsons. It was about a future world where cars were like mini spaceships and buildings were built high in the sky. Their phone was a video phone. One morning, a call came into the Jetsons’ residence very early in the morning. Mrs. Jetson was not ready for the day yet, so she hurried to grab her mask—when she had it on, her face looked perfect—makeup, hair. Then she answered the phone.
We hide the things that are considered unacceptable and show only that which is acceptable—even if it means that what we are hiding is the “real” us, the authentic us. This does not happen all of the time, but it happens fairly often. That is b/c we know, that despite the fact that all of us would agree that what is real is usually better than what is fake (particularly in relationships), we also know that people—us—often pass judgment about others based on what we see rather than what we know. There is a passage in Scripture that speaks to this. It is found in the 16th chapter of the 1st book of Samuel:.
As this passage begins, it mentions King Saul. Saul was the 1st king. He was chosen b/c Israel wanted to be like the other nations around them. In 1 Samuel 8:19, it says:
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.
1 Samuel 8:19-20
Israel knew what appearances meant—to have a visible king was a morale booster for them and an intimidation tactic against their enemies. God, even if he was the God of the universe, was too invisible, too uncontrollable to be an effective leader for them.
So Saul was chosen. In chapter 9:2, we get a description of Saul:
[Kish] had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others.
1 Samuel 9:2
Appearances are important, so Israel’s 1st king is a man who is tall and looks “kingly,” with stature and height.
Interestingly, this man who was chosen for appearances ends up failing for the very same reasons he was crowned. In I Samuel chapter 15, the prophet Samuel confronts Saul for making a big mistake:
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.
1 Samuel 15: 24
“I was afraid of the people.” He was afraid of looking weak and ineffective before his subjects, so rather than obeying God’s commands, Saul had gone his own way. He wanted to appear to be a good king.
Then today’s passage picks up the story in the next chapter, 1st Samuel, chapter 16.
The prophet Samuel is mourning b/c things have not worked out with Israel’s 1st king. God comes to Samuel and says, dude, it’s time to move forward:
1 The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king."
1 Samuel 16: 1
So Samuel gets up and goes to Bethlehem. He looks for and finds Jesse, who is the father of 8 sons. Jesse gathers his sons, and the first son that Samuel sees is Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab (I-LI’UHB). Upon viewing Eliab, Samuel makes an assumption based on appearance:
6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here before the LORD."
Samuel sees Eliab and figures that this tall one, who was probably handsome too, must be the one to take Saul’s place. Appearances did not help in selecting Israel’s first king. Appearances did not help Israel’s first king do an effective job. Yet here is the prophet Samuel, falling into the same mindset again—the oldest son, tall, very likely handsome—this must be the son of Jesse that God had chosen!
We can do this too—to allow perceptions to dominate our decisions, despite what real experience may show us. I want to read an excerpt from Nancy Ortberg’s book called Looking for God. There is a section that I think is a good example of how we can believe something based on perception and continue with it even when it doesn’t work.
For most of my growing up years, I heard about the daily “quiet time.”
It was revered and talked about as the bedrock of the Christian faith. It was described as serene and profound time in the morning (anything less than 30 minutes was quite unworthy) when one sat alone with God in mediation and study over a passage in Scripture. It also included a time of prayer.. and journaling.
After you had one—people always say they’ve “had” their quiet times—you talked about it. You might sneak it into a conversation in a way that was seemingly unpretentious, but always comparative. You’d talk about what a deep time you’d had that morning alone with God. How God has spoken to you. What a meaningful insight you’d received over a particular passage in the Bible.
…So for many years, I practiced my quiet time. Not quite daily, but close—and whenever I missed a day, I was filled with great consternation and guilt. Every day, I expected something profound to occur during my quiet time, but most days, nothing approached profound. And when I engaged in conversation with others about our quiet times, my experience never quite lived up to theirs.
She then goes on to describe a time in her life when she was unable to have a quiet time—when her oldest child was 3, her 2nd child was 1.5 and she was pregnant with their 3rd child. Then she writes:
Days and weeks would go by without a moment for me to sit and open the Bible. And when those moments came, I either lost my train of thought or I fell asleep! But quiet time had been presented to me as the main/only means of connecting deeply to God, so I panicked. During this.. stage.., I desperately needed God, but I was unable to connect with Him in the only way I thought counted.
I figured I could either meet with God again in about six years (when all of the kids would be in school) or I would have to find other ways to connect with Him. And I did not know any other ways.
From Looking for God: an unexpected journey through tattoos, tofu & pronouns by Nancy Ortberg
Samuel, Nancy Ortberg, we do this.. we allow reality to be defined by our perceptions. Although she had already found through the years that quiet times were not a fail-proof way to connect with God (most days, nothing approached profound; my experience never quite lived up to others), she continued to pursue this one way. What she goes on to share, however, is that she is able to connect with God during this period of her life, and it’s not through a traditional quiet time. Which takes us to the next verse in our scripture today:
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
You, me—we look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
In the same book, different chapter, Nancy Ortberg addresses this as well. She writes about the word “model” in Christian vocabulary—how Christians, particularly leaders, are asked to be models:
Model implies that regardless of what we believe or feel or think on the inside, we should at least try to make the outside look good. This way of thinking causes us to live externally, for others, rather than internally, out of a center that is connected to God. It moves us toward unhealthy compartmentalization when we say one thing but do or believe something else entirely. Always in secret though, so no one sees that the two sides don’t match up.
We look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. What you are like in secret—or in the privacy of your own home? What do your unguarded moments reveal about your character? What kind of parent are you when there are no other adults around? What kind of spouse are you when there are no friends present? What kind person are you when no one might be paying attention?
I don’t ask these questions to imply that we are all awful, ugly people when no one else is around. I do, however, pose these questions to challenge us. To what degree do our public “selves” match our hidden “selves”? If there were no window coverings on the common areas of your home and people could see in at any moment, would there be a match between your public self and your hidden self?
Despite Samuel’s mistake in thinking that God has chosen Eliab, God tells him that it is not the outward appearance that will determine the next king’s fitness. It is, instead, the heart. Therefore,
10 Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, "The LORD has not chosen these." 11 So he asked Jesse, "Are these all the sons you have?"
"There is still the youngest," Jesse answered, "but he is tending the sheep."
Samuel said, "Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives."
It is not the oldest son, and neither is it any of the sons who are present. When Samuel first found Jesse, he invited Jesse and all of his sons to come. Yet it only the 7 oldest that are gathered for Samuel.
Several of you know that my oldest son is the son of an oldest son who, in turn, is the oldest of his family and his generation. His father, my father-in-law, is the oldest as well—of 5 sons. Last year, we found out that the grandfather was also the oldest son. In cultural tradition, that means that there are a lot of high expectations for my oldest child. He would traditionally be the one to carry on the family name, the family history, the family mantle.
Samuel goes through all 7 of Jesse’s oldest sons, and God says no, it’s none of these guys. God does not look at the things that we look at—whether it be superficial appearance or even cultural tradition. The Israelites did not have a society based on Confucius, but they certainly placed value and rank and honor to the oldest son. But again, God does not look at the things that we look at
So they send for the youngest son, who is out tending the sheep. He wasn’t even considered important enough to be called in for the initial time with Samuel.
12 So [Jesse] sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.
Then the LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one."
13a So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power.
This is David as in King David—the one who wrote most of the psalms—the 1st psalm says “blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and meditates on God’s law day and night.” David was the best king that Israel ever had. This David was the man who sought after God’s own heart—David wanted to do whatever God wanted.
The LORD does not look at the things we look at, but the LORD looks at the heart. This one, the youngest son of Jesse, is the one whom God has chosen to be the king. David is chosen for his heart. Contrast this with the former king Saul, who cared more about appearances and other people’s opinions.
And even though God has emphasized to Samuel that he does not look at the outward appearance but instead looks at the heart, it turns out that David is not so bad-looking. “He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.”
Is God being a hypocrite? No. What these verses tell us is that God does not have a problem with our efforts to put forward a good face—good manners, civil conversation, basic hygiene, appropriate dress—all could be viewed as efforts toward the superficial. But God does not have a problem with things that look good, that are attractive. It is, rather, a question of priorities. Substance is the more valuable thing in evaluating a person’s character. David’s heart is what God looked at, and it was David’s heart—the heart that longed to beat in the same rhythm as God’s—that qualified him to be the king of Israel.
I want to share with you one more excerpt from a book. This is a secular book, called “The Price of Privilege.” Its subtitle is “How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.” It is written by a psychologist from Marin County, and it has many anecdotes of patients she has seen. I would like to share one of them with you.
Story from page 20, The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
This child and her parents are a real-life examples of how we can develop our outsides, or our appearances—well, yet make the mistake like King Saul of diverting our energy and attention outward, toward what other people will observe and what other people might think. My saying this may sound irrelevant to you—high school was when we were hyper-self-conscious about our appearance and what other people thought.
Yet be honest. To one degree or another, we live dual lives—the one that we will show in public and the one that happens behind the window treatments or behind the masks.
In this passage in 1st Samuel, we are reminded that God is not fooled. God looks at our hearts. It is true beauty on the inside that transforms whatever may be on the outside to be attractive
Stop and consider those rare individuals who live the Christian life in a way that is attractive—not the ones who do everything right, but the ones who live it authentically, genuinely. They celebrate with good news, they cry or get mad with bad news. They make mistakes—and admit them. They sometimes miss their quiet time. But they love God, and seek God with their whole hearts. And their insides match their outsides.
We look at outward appearances, but God looks at the heart. On one hand, this is really good news for the parts of us which we feel don’t measure up on the outside. On the other hand, to the extent that we have been neglecting our heart-work, making the space, giving priority, seeking God in whatever way we can—to the extent that we have been spending time on the visible and neglecting our hearts, our relationship with God and even with those closest to us—this scripture is a reminder to us that we are in constant need of the cleansing blood of the cross—that salvation in Jesus Christ is not a one-time event but is instead a lifetime of transformation, growing a heart that loves God so that our attractiveness begins from the inside and comes out.
When you go home today, look at your windows and think on this passage. Could you live like the Dutch did, with no window coverings in the common areas? What would those outside learn about state of your heart? What kind of heart is it that God sees?
Illustration: There is a Dutch tradition where the windows downstairs are open (i.e. no window coverings). The purpose of this is so that the community could see the family dining and know if everything was okay with the family.
This openness/transparency to the community is similar to what the early church was like.
My instinct—and generally for our society—is the opposite: to hide. We use different words for the hiding: “discretion,” “privacy.” But whatever name you give it, it is taking something out of public view and hiding it.
There are things, of course, that we make open for public consideration. But even then, we will often put forward only the things that we have determined are “good” or “acceptable” for public scrutiny.
For example, there is a cartoon that was popular in the 70’s called the Jetsons. It was about a future world where cars were like mini spaceships and buildings were built high in the sky. Their phone was a video phone. One morning, a call came into the Jetsons’ residence very early in the morning. Mrs. Jetson was not ready for the day yet, so she hurried to grab her mask—when she had it on, her face looked perfect—makeup, hair. Then she answered the phone.
We hide the things that are considered unacceptable and show only that which is acceptable—even if it means that what we are hiding is the “real” us, the authentic us. This does not happen all of the time, but it happens fairly often. That is b/c we know, that despite the fact that all of us would agree that what is real is usually better than what is fake (particularly in relationships), we also know that people—us—often pass judgment about others based on what we see rather than what we know. There is a passage in Scripture that speaks to this. It is found in the 16th chapter of the 1st book of Samuel:.
As this passage begins, it mentions King Saul. Saul was the 1st king. He was chosen b/c Israel wanted to be like the other nations around them. In 1 Samuel 8:19, it says:
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.
1 Samuel 8:19-20
Israel knew what appearances meant—to have a visible king was a morale booster for them and an intimidation tactic against their enemies. God, even if he was the God of the universe, was too invisible, too uncontrollable to be an effective leader for them.
So Saul was chosen. In chapter 9:2, we get a description of Saul:
[Kish] had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the others.
1 Samuel 9:2
Appearances are important, so Israel’s 1st king is a man who is tall and looks “kingly,” with stature and height.
Interestingly, this man who was chosen for appearances ends up failing for the very same reasons he was crowned. In I Samuel chapter 15, the prophet Samuel confronts Saul for making a big mistake:
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.
1 Samuel 15: 24
“I was afraid of the people.” He was afraid of looking weak and ineffective before his subjects, so rather than obeying God’s commands, Saul had gone his own way. He wanted to appear to be a good king.
Then today’s passage picks up the story in the next chapter, 1st Samuel, chapter 16.
The prophet Samuel is mourning b/c things have not worked out with Israel’s 1st king. God comes to Samuel and says, dude, it’s time to move forward:
1 The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king."
1 Samuel 16: 1
So Samuel gets up and goes to Bethlehem. He looks for and finds Jesse, who is the father of 8 sons. Jesse gathers his sons, and the first son that Samuel sees is Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab (I-LI’UHB). Upon viewing Eliab, Samuel makes an assumption based on appearance:
6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, "Surely the LORD's anointed stands here before the LORD."
Samuel sees Eliab and figures that this tall one, who was probably handsome too, must be the one to take Saul’s place. Appearances did not help in selecting Israel’s first king. Appearances did not help Israel’s first king do an effective job. Yet here is the prophet Samuel, falling into the same mindset again—the oldest son, tall, very likely handsome—this must be the son of Jesse that God had chosen!
We can do this too—to allow perceptions to dominate our decisions, despite what real experience may show us. I want to read an excerpt from Nancy Ortberg’s book called Looking for God. There is a section that I think is a good example of how we can believe something based on perception and continue with it even when it doesn’t work.
For most of my growing up years, I heard about the daily “quiet time.”
It was revered and talked about as the bedrock of the Christian faith. It was described as serene and profound time in the morning (anything less than 30 minutes was quite unworthy) when one sat alone with God in mediation and study over a passage in Scripture. It also included a time of prayer.. and journaling.
After you had one—people always say they’ve “had” their quiet times—you talked about it. You might sneak it into a conversation in a way that was seemingly unpretentious, but always comparative. You’d talk about what a deep time you’d had that morning alone with God. How God has spoken to you. What a meaningful insight you’d received over a particular passage in the Bible.
…So for many years, I practiced my quiet time. Not quite daily, but close—and whenever I missed a day, I was filled with great consternation and guilt. Every day, I expected something profound to occur during my quiet time, but most days, nothing approached profound. And when I engaged in conversation with others about our quiet times, my experience never quite lived up to theirs.
She then goes on to describe a time in her life when she was unable to have a quiet time—when her oldest child was 3, her 2nd child was 1.5 and she was pregnant with their 3rd child. Then she writes:
Days and weeks would go by without a moment for me to sit and open the Bible. And when those moments came, I either lost my train of thought or I fell asleep! But quiet time had been presented to me as the main/only means of connecting deeply to God, so I panicked. During this.. stage.., I desperately needed God, but I was unable to connect with Him in the only way I thought counted.
I figured I could either meet with God again in about six years (when all of the kids would be in school) or I would have to find other ways to connect with Him. And I did not know any other ways.
From Looking for God: an unexpected journey through tattoos, tofu & pronouns by Nancy Ortberg
Samuel, Nancy Ortberg, we do this.. we allow reality to be defined by our perceptions. Although she had already found through the years that quiet times were not a fail-proof way to connect with God (most days, nothing approached profound; my experience never quite lived up to others), she continued to pursue this one way. What she goes on to share, however, is that she is able to connect with God during this period of her life, and it’s not through a traditional quiet time. Which takes us to the next verse in our scripture today:
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
You, me—we look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
In the same book, different chapter, Nancy Ortberg addresses this as well. She writes about the word “model” in Christian vocabulary—how Christians, particularly leaders, are asked to be models:
Model implies that regardless of what we believe or feel or think on the inside, we should at least try to make the outside look good. This way of thinking causes us to live externally, for others, rather than internally, out of a center that is connected to God. It moves us toward unhealthy compartmentalization when we say one thing but do or believe something else entirely. Always in secret though, so no one sees that the two sides don’t match up.
We look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. What you are like in secret—or in the privacy of your own home? What do your unguarded moments reveal about your character? What kind of parent are you when there are no other adults around? What kind of spouse are you when there are no friends present? What kind person are you when no one might be paying attention?
I don’t ask these questions to imply that we are all awful, ugly people when no one else is around. I do, however, pose these questions to challenge us. To what degree do our public “selves” match our hidden “selves”? If there were no window coverings on the common areas of your home and people could see in at any moment, would there be a match between your public self and your hidden self?
Despite Samuel’s mistake in thinking that God has chosen Eliab, God tells him that it is not the outward appearance that will determine the next king’s fitness. It is, instead, the heart. Therefore,
10 Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, "The LORD has not chosen these." 11 So he asked Jesse, "Are these all the sons you have?"
"There is still the youngest," Jesse answered, "but he is tending the sheep."
Samuel said, "Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives."
It is not the oldest son, and neither is it any of the sons who are present. When Samuel first found Jesse, he invited Jesse and all of his sons to come. Yet it only the 7 oldest that are gathered for Samuel.
Several of you know that my oldest son is the son of an oldest son who, in turn, is the oldest of his family and his generation. His father, my father-in-law, is the oldest as well—of 5 sons. Last year, we found out that the grandfather was also the oldest son. In cultural tradition, that means that there are a lot of high expectations for my oldest child. He would traditionally be the one to carry on the family name, the family history, the family mantle.
Samuel goes through all 7 of Jesse’s oldest sons, and God says no, it’s none of these guys. God does not look at the things that we look at—whether it be superficial appearance or even cultural tradition. The Israelites did not have a society based on Confucius, but they certainly placed value and rank and honor to the oldest son. But again, God does not look at the things that we look at
So they send for the youngest son, who is out tending the sheep. He wasn’t even considered important enough to be called in for the initial time with Samuel.
12 So [Jesse] sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.
Then the LORD said, "Rise and anoint him; he is the one."
13a So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power.
This is David as in King David—the one who wrote most of the psalms—the 1st psalm says “blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and meditates on God’s law day and night.” David was the best king that Israel ever had. This David was the man who sought after God’s own heart—David wanted to do whatever God wanted.
The LORD does not look at the things we look at, but the LORD looks at the heart. This one, the youngest son of Jesse, is the one whom God has chosen to be the king. David is chosen for his heart. Contrast this with the former king Saul, who cared more about appearances and other people’s opinions.
And even though God has emphasized to Samuel that he does not look at the outward appearance but instead looks at the heart, it turns out that David is not so bad-looking. “He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.”
Is God being a hypocrite? No. What these verses tell us is that God does not have a problem with our efforts to put forward a good face—good manners, civil conversation, basic hygiene, appropriate dress—all could be viewed as efforts toward the superficial. But God does not have a problem with things that look good, that are attractive. It is, rather, a question of priorities. Substance is the more valuable thing in evaluating a person’s character. David’s heart is what God looked at, and it was David’s heart—the heart that longed to beat in the same rhythm as God’s—that qualified him to be the king of Israel.
I want to share with you one more excerpt from a book. This is a secular book, called “The Price of Privilege.” Its subtitle is “How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.” It is written by a psychologist from Marin County, and it has many anecdotes of patients she has seen. I would like to share one of them with you.
Story from page 20, The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
This child and her parents are a real-life examples of how we can develop our outsides, or our appearances—well, yet make the mistake like King Saul of diverting our energy and attention outward, toward what other people will observe and what other people might think. My saying this may sound irrelevant to you—high school was when we were hyper-self-conscious about our appearance and what other people thought.
Yet be honest. To one degree or another, we live dual lives—the one that we will show in public and the one that happens behind the window treatments or behind the masks.
In this passage in 1st Samuel, we are reminded that God is not fooled. God looks at our hearts. It is true beauty on the inside that transforms whatever may be on the outside to be attractive
Stop and consider those rare individuals who live the Christian life in a way that is attractive—not the ones who do everything right, but the ones who live it authentically, genuinely. They celebrate with good news, they cry or get mad with bad news. They make mistakes—and admit them. They sometimes miss their quiet time. But they love God, and seek God with their whole hearts. And their insides match their outsides.
We look at outward appearances, but God looks at the heart. On one hand, this is really good news for the parts of us which we feel don’t measure up on the outside. On the other hand, to the extent that we have been neglecting our heart-work, making the space, giving priority, seeking God in whatever way we can—to the extent that we have been spending time on the visible and neglecting our hearts, our relationship with God and even with those closest to us—this scripture is a reminder to us that we are in constant need of the cleansing blood of the cross—that salvation in Jesus Christ is not a one-time event but is instead a lifetime of transformation, growing a heart that loves God so that our attractiveness begins from the inside and comes out.
When you go home today, look at your windows and think on this passage. Could you live like the Dutch did, with no window coverings in the common areas? What would those outside learn about state of your heart? What kind of heart is it that God sees?
Labels: 1 Samuel 16
posted by New Hope Presbyterian Church @ 11:14 AM
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