The Rev. Dr. John R. Simmons
The Community Church of Sebastopol
July 15, 2007
1 Samuel 16:6-13
“Eenie, Meenie, Minee, Moe” “Pick a Number” “Get married on 07-07-07.” Someone told me; I always know what is right. “I’m sure this is the right way to go.” Choices, there are so many way to choose. Is there a right way?
This scripture, one that we rarely hear, deals with choices. Samuel had to choose a new king. His first choice, Saul, hadn’t worked out. The reason he hadn’t worked out is not a pleasant tale. It rests within the idea that God was a blood thirsty God who wanted whole nations wiped out and all they possessed destroyed. Much later the Hebrews began to understand that this was not what God wanted, it was rather their justification for the many bloody wars they raged to take the Promised Land from those who already inhabited it.
Unfortunately many leaders in Christianity and Judaism and many other world religions have laid their choices of leadership on God. Indeed we continue to hear religious leaders put God as the source of their choices. Then why would choose a scripture that comes out of a blood drenched chapter of the Old Testament?
It was quite accidental. I was looking through my Bible looking for passages that had to do with spirit, the heart of God and the spirit within the heart of God’s creation in us. In the scripture I read this morning it cautions Samuel from making a choice based on a rational basis. God tells Samuel to use his heart.
What did Samuel’s heart tell him to do? It told him to choose a young shepherd as the next king. Thus David became the king of the Hebrews. Was it a good choice? We know the good things David did and we know his transgressions. We also read that David regretted his transgressions and when he was able, kept his heart open to God.
Now I want you to know that herein ends the history lesson from the Old Testament. If you want more of it, you have Bibles and you can read it. I want to keep with the idea of using the heart to choose.
We live in the age of science and we all know that the heart is simply an organ that pumps and thus keeps the blood flowing through the body. We know that when it stops, the body stops. Yet the word heart has had for centuries a meaning beyond a biological function. For many it has been the seat of love. Still other use heart and spirit in almost the same way. Closely connected here is also the word intuition.
I think of my heart as my inner self, it is that part of me which can be most closely connected with the spirit of God. I say can be because I am not always willing to be so closely connected with the spirit of God.
My earliest sense of being in contact with God came when I was nine. I started talking to God as I would climb the long hill to my house in the evening. At first I told God jokes feeling that God must get awfully tired of all of the long winded prayers uttered at church. Then I realized that God was not just a joke telling friend but a true companion. I realized that God was always with me whether I was willing to recognize God’s presence or not.
My first church was a student pastorate in a small town on the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky. I would arrive on Sunday mornings in time for Sunday School. One Sunday I arrived to hear that our church pianist, Miss Hess, had learned that her nephew had been seriously injured in a car/train accident the night before. He was in the county seat hospital awaiting the arrival on the next day of a brain surgeon.
That afternoon I went to the hospital to visit the family. The nephew was unconscious in a nearby room. I spent time with the mother, his aunt and his sisters offering what comfort I could and praying with them. After I had run out of comforting things to say I begin to take my leave. The mother and the aunt stopped me. They wanted me to go into the room with the patient. I agreed and I entered the room with the two women following me. I saw the young man lying unconscious on the bed. I was seized with a great desire to fall on my knees and pray. I realized that such an action on my part would upset the women behind me so I simply bowed my head and prayed. I don’t remember what I prayed. What I do remember is when I finished praying I turned to the two women and quietly said, “He will be just fine.” They weren’t words of comfort, they were words of knowing and this sense of knowing frightened me.
I went back to Lexington where I was attending seminary. I called the next evening and his aunt said the surgeon had come and the surgery had been successful. It would be awhile before we knew the full outcome because the brain had been involved and the surgeon had had to insert a plate to replace part of the shattered skull.
Later it was clear that the young man was fully recovered and had suffered no damage to his brain. I never wanted to have an answer to prayer like the one that occurred in the hospital room and I never have. I didn’t want to feel that close to the mind of God. I was content for there to be a little distance.
I tell you this story to remind you and to remind me that we do have control over how close we are willing to let God be in our lives. Oh I have had other senses of God’s presence, but none quite so dramatic. I actually treasure those moments when I feel myself being open to God. It can be a very reassuring experience.
Now I don’t know how Samuel felt when God asked him to use his heart to choose the next king, but I’m sure he must have felt a little apprehension. He chose a young man whose only proven skill was shepherding and maybe playing the lute. He certainly was not a great leader among his people. Yet Samuel did as he was instructed and trusted his heart.
The theme of this sermon is choosing. All of us every day are busy making choices. Most of our choices are minor and many come simply from following the rituals of our lives. Yet every so often there comes a significant choice that we need to make. It may have to do with health, relationships, careers, or it may by just a vague stirring that something is not quite right in our lives. In the last several months I have had all of these and with them all has come the question, “What do I want to do?” It’s such a familiar question. I wish the answer would come as easily as the question.
I can remember over four decades ago, I was asking myself if I could divorce my wife. I struggled with this for over nine months. Finally I decided I could. Then, and only then, did I discover I didn’t want to divorce her. And we lived together in relative happiness until she died. It is a choice I never regretted.
Where was God in this decision process? I think that during most of the time I was struggling it had to do with values. One of the most significant questions for me was could I leave a woman who was suffering with a chronic illness that would probably end with an early death? How would I feel about myself? God per se was not a particular awareness during this struggle. I didn’t pray about my decision in any conscious form. Yet I am sure God was with me.
Once I was finished with all of the rational parts, the categorizing of the feeling parts, the decision came clear. I’m sure it was then when I knew I had a choice about leaving or staying that my heart spoke to me. Today while I struggle with the issues facing my life, I think I’ve learned to do it differently. Yet I can’t be altogether sure.
Recently I’ve been facing the issue of aging. Oh I’ve faced it casually for a long time. But I guess I had to get there until it really hit me. I remember when it really struck home. I was having my first meeting with my Kaiser doctor. I was 72 and I told Dr. Zweig that I was now an old man. He looked at me and said, “John, we don’t consider you old at Kaiser until you are at least 82 and perhaps not until you’re 92.”
I don’t know if he could see the shock, the surprise in my face, but I could certainly feel them. The idea that I might have another 20 years stunned me. I had not developed any life plan to last me that long. This shock was with me for some time. I hardly knew where to begin. The death of my wife had been a mild tremor compared with this news. After she died I took a year off to recuperate from the strain of caring for her during her last year. I painted the inside of my house lighter colors and I remodeled my kitchen. I decided to take my children on a four month trip to Europe and North Africa. These were practical things. The house chores were a way of reclaiming my space as a single parent. The trip to Europe was to bring a larger sense of the world to my children and to help us learn to function as a family of three.
When we got back it was the beginning of a new year and I still hadn’t focused on what I was going to do. Actually it just sort of happened and I’m sure the hand of God was in it. I still had a sense of purpose and I had children to raise.
At 72 I had neither of these. While moving through many different activities, nothing was clear. Seven months ago God clobbered me. It wasn’t a knock-out punch, it wasn’t even a serious illness. In retrospect I realized I had lost my rudder and I was afloat on uncharted seas. Now I was trying to figure out how to live my life. What should I do? Where should I turn? What did I want to do? It wasn’t a pleasant time and many things conspired to make it even more difficult as is often the case when you loose your way.
I stocked up with spiritual books, I explored different kinds of therapy, I considered the possibility of moving. I sat quietly. I stirred restlessly. I fought to stay awake and I fought to go to sleep. Then one night I had a dream. In the dream I achieved clarity. I had been so caught up in my dilemma that I had lost sight of a vision. Visions for me always come from my heart.
God told Samuel he had to find a new king and God also told him how to do it. He had to use his heart. Guess what? God is still giving the same directions.
This is a very interesting congregation. It is composed of both dreamers and doers. Sometimes we work together and sometimes we get into each other’s way.
Can you think of some of the dreamers in this congregation, past and present? I think of trips to Nicaragua and New Orleans. I think of “Between Women”. I think of pie making, building repairs, cookie baking, casseroles and soups shared, rides given, classes taught, study groups, visions for programs, visions for buildings. I think of Faith Journeys, bulletins and newsletters folded. Doings and visions combined into a fellowship of believers. Then I think of the struggles in families and between friends. I think of the anguish of illness and the stress of loosing a job. I think of divorce and marriage, birth and death. I think of all of the different kinds of changes that are taking place among us.
I wonder where God is in these many activities of our lives. The one thing I know for sure is that God is present. What I’m not so sure about is whether we choose to be present to God in the midst of the trying part of our lives. When do we leave the jumbled confusions of our heads and slip into the quite space of the spirit of our hearts?
As I shake hands and exchange hugs on Sunday mornings I wonder what the visions are in the lives of the people around me. I wonder how many of us sometimes find ourselves cast apart from our visions and floating on uncharted seas.
An old word that has recently come more frequently into the vocabulary of the church is the word discernment. Discernment may mean simply being quiet and listening to our hearts.
The other day my grandson brought me a stethoscope. He wanted to listen to my heart. He moved the metal part to various places on my chest. He even asked me to cough. He was listening to my heart. And then, of course, he wanted me to listen to his heart. My grandson is going through difficult times as his parents have separated. I wished I could truly listen to what was in his heart and somehow bring comfort to what I heard.
They haven’t invented that kind of stethoscope. He seems all right and yet I know there must be some confusion within. I cannot find the particulars but I can choose to love him and trust that the love both of his parents share with him will help him understand that he is still loved and that he will be comforted.
I went to a troubling movie last week that dealt with the problems in health care in this country. I wonder how many of the people seeking to solve this problem are opening their hearts to God to capture a vision of what solve a terrible dilemma.
Sometimes I listen to hearings before committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate. I often wonder how many of the politicians listening are opening their hearts to God to find solutions to the problems they are facing.
I listen to the voices of those readying themselves to run for president of this country and I wonder how many of them are opening their hearts to God. It seems like most of them are simply listening to polls and political consultants. I have several friends sending me information on what is going on in Palestine and Israel. I wonder how many of those in power are opening their hearts to God to find resolution. I listen to the quagmire that has become Iraq and I wonder how many people of the various religions represented are opening to their hearts to God.
From the results in these situations I can only assume there are not enough people opening their hearts to God. I cannot force the issue and we as a congregation cannot force the issue. But we can set a model by the opening of our own hearts. We can listen to the voice of God echoing deep within us. We may not hear God in the same way, but simply being open to the presence brings us together not in quarrelsome factions but as a people looking deep within to feel the presence of God.
Now I hope you are taking careful note that I am not making suggestions about what we should be doing about the crisis’s around us. It is not that I am without opinions. But more important that our opinions are sharing the presence of God in our hearts with each other and opening ourselves to being led by this spirit. This is the process of discernment of choosing that will lead us to find the will of God.
Let us take it a step farther. As a church let us spend more time as we gather to solve our problems either at home or at church in silence seeking the spirit of God in our hearts.
What would happen is we would say to our sometimes quarrelsome children, “Be quiet and listen to the spirit of God in your heart.” What if we, in a heated or simply intense discussion with a spouse, partner or friend, would take a deep breath and say, “Let’s take some time to be quiet and seek out the spirit of God in our hearts?”
And let us not keep it a secret from our friends and those with whom we work that we are seeking God’s presence in our lives so that we might be led in the paths of truth and justice.
It is in the way we choose to deal with our lives that determine so many of the outcomes. The model we choose for ourselves influences not only our lives but the lives of those about us.
This, my friends, is the way in which the world changes as people of many faiths turn more and more to the spirit of God within. It doesn’t make grand headlines and it doesn’t bring throngs out to rallies, but it does change the way we live our own lives. It is our choice. Let discover if we are up to making it.