A small country church was in need of a
guest preacher to fill the pulpit one Sunday morning so the pastor arranged for
someone he knew to come and preach that morning. The person who was asked to preach had never
been to this church before and he also had a heart for missions and the
homeless.
Since the congregation had never met him before, he decided to take
advantage of his anonymity by being a little sneaky but also creative in
preparing for his sermon. Here’s what he
did. He dressed up as a homeless man and
arrived at the church long before the first people arrived.
Wearing a tattered old coat, smelly jeans, and torn shoes, he huddled
near the entrance of the church to see how the church members would react. When it would be time for worship, his plan
was to then enter the sanctuary and surprise the people by being their guest
speaker. He was then going to preach a
sermon on how God calls us to reach out to people in need. That was the plan, anyway.
The first few people who arrived that morning were horrified to find
this man huddled next to their church door.
They didn’t know what to do so they ignored him and came into the church
and found their place in the pew. This
was pretty much the response of everyone else who arrived that chilly fall
Sunday morning. They just walked right
by this man in disguise and prepared for worship.
It was time for the service to begin but there was still no sign of the
guest speaker. The congregation assumed
that he had either gotten lost or that he simply forgot. One man decided to use their extra time to
take care of the problem of the homeless man and so he called the police.
My pastor friend who was telling me this story said that his guest
speaker friend was startled when the police cruiser pulled into the tiny church
parking lot. His plan had taken a twist
that he didn’t anticipate. After
explaining to the officer that he wasn’t really homeless and that he was
actually the guest preacher, can you imagine the expressions of shock and
horror as this man took his place in the seat next to the pulpit?
You have to hand it to him. He
made his point. Looks can be very
deceiving! One thing is for sure. The people in that little country church will
probably never forget that Sunday when a homeless man preached the sermon.
The Story of the choosing of David as the
King is one of the most familiar and favorite of the Old Testament stories. We
already heard the story.
Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to find the
farmer Jesse to select from among Jesse's sons a new king for Israel because the
sitting King of Israel, Saul has lost God's favor. So one after the other, the sons of Jesse are
paraded before Samuel.
And what a family this is. What a proud father, Jesse must have
been. He had it all. He was a prominent man in his community and
probably well off. And just look at his
picture-perfect family. We’re introduced
to Jesse’s first son, Eliab. Picture in
your mind, six foot five, 220 lbs., handsome.
And he’s just the first of several sons introduced to Samuel. I mean, any of his sons would be potential
recruits for Urban Meyer. These are five
star prospects.
This is the family that would definitely
want to send out Christmas cards with a family photo and a description of how
each son is either in law school, studying to be a doctor, or getting ready to
compete in the Summer Olympics. This is
that kind of family!
Samuel immediately thought Eliab was the
one. “Well
that was easy. Eliab, the Lord has
chosen you to be…Wait a minute, what was that Lord? What do you mean he’s not the one to be the
next King? He’s perfect. Why wouldn’t you want him?”
But the Lord tells Samuel, “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.” And one after the other, each of Jesse’s impressive sons are
rejected by the Lord.
Finally, the youngest of the sons, David,
is brought forward—almost as an afterthought.
Compared to his brothers, David is more of a delicate and ruddy-skinned
boy. “This is the one who is to be King,”
the Lord whispers in Samuel's ear. Samuel immediately anoints David as king in
the presence of his brothers, and “the
spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David.” For God sees what we cannot
see.
Looks can be deceiving, can’t they?
I must say that I’m a little conscientious
of this whole height thing. The McDowell
family has never been known for being that tall. Taking a family picture when we get together
is a problem because when the person with the camera asks the taller people to
stand behind the others, nobody moves.
My brother has a sign at the top of his
stairs leading to his home office warning people to duck because of the low
ceiling. The sign says, “If you are taller than a McDowell, you’d
better duck your head!”
Many of you might remember when basketball
legend, Jerry Lucas visited our church a couple of years ago. Well, here’s a picture of Jerry and me during
his visit with us. I don’t know if you
can notice the height differential in this picture. It may not be obvious.
Outward appearances or what we might think of as surface oriented
qualifications aren’t all what they’re cracked up to be.
Remember Susan Boyle? She was the unknown soprano who in April of
2009, appeared on the TV program, “Britain’s Got Talent.” The crowd laughed at
her when she came on stage. One of the judges,
Simon Cowell thought it was some kind of joke because of her unkempt
appearance.
You’ve probably already seen this, but
here’s her performance that night.
Oh my, how looks can be deceiving.
This story about God choosing one of
Jesse’s sons to be the next King of Israel reminds us that God’s calling isn’t
just for the one with the degrees, the charismatic personality, and the movie
star looks. God’s call also comes to the
one you’d least expect, especially to the one you’d least expect. Like my father.
Dad always felt like he lived in the
shadows of his older brother. I remember
him telling me several times how he always wanted to be more like my Uncle
Mac. When my dad would be out in the
garage having trouble fixing a motor, he would say, “Your Uncle Mac would have been able to fix this in no time.”
In one way, dad was complimenting his
brother when he said those things. But I
don’t think he truly realized what a wonderful man he was as well.
The story is told that when mom and dad
came back from their Florida honeymoon in 1950, dad was the one who suggested
which church they should begin attending together as a married couple. That Methodist church located in a small
south central Pennsylvania town became the place where they would raise their
four children in the Christian faith and where two of those children would go
on to become United Methodist pastors.
This past fall, as the four of us were
cleaning out our mom’s attic, we were surprised to find a diary that belonged
to our grandmother, our dad’s mother. It
only covered three years from 1970 to 1972 and each entry was only a sentence
or two. One of the entries talked about
the astronauts being in trouble. That’s
all it said. She was referring to the
astronauts that were on the Apollo 13 mission.
In another diary entry, my grandmother
wrote that my dad had stopped by to visit with her after he had dropped me off
for a youth group meeting at the church.
That little diary entry reminded me that even though dad didn’t talk a
lot about his faith, his church and his faith were very important to him.
When I went to college, somebody in the
church told my mom and dad about a troubled teen who was homeless. It was my dad who said, “We have room in our home.”
It was the love of my mom and dad that helped this person know that
somebody cared.
My dad didn’t need to live in his brother’s
shadow. He was quietly living out his
calling to be a great dad and a follower of Jesus.
In this story of the Lord calling David,
the last of Jesse’s sons to become the new King of Israel, there’s a very
important verse that I want to leave us with today. It’s the last verse, verse 13. “Then
Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed David in the presence of his
brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day
forward.”
The reason that the Lord doesn’t worry
about our outward appearance or how tall we are is because when God calls us,
it’s the Holy Spirit that empowers us to do what we are being called to
do. We can step out in faith because
it’s not about our strength or our looks.
It’s about the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.
A couple of months ago, someone shared
with me how someone here in our church responded to God’s calling following
worship one Sunday morning. It was the
Sunday that we focused on the importance of prayer and praying for others. We had these little heart post-it stickers
where we invited the congregation to write a prayer request on the heart and
then stick it to the prayer door.
Well, one of you felt called by God to
take this idea beyond our church walls that very day. After worship, you went to the prayer door
and you peeled off several of those heart post-it notes to take with you.
You then went to the hospital and gave
several patients one of these hearts in which you had written the words,
“Praying for you – First United Methodist Church.”
But you weren’t done. You left the hospital and visited one of our
nursing homes giving people these hearts with the same message. You responded to God’s calling that Sunday
morning.
And my goodness. You’re only half as tall as I am, and just seven
years old.
