March 15, 2026 (Lent)
Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC
For this season of Lent through Easter Sunday, we are focusing on the theme, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The inspiration for this 7-week sermon comes from the hymn of the same name.
This hymn was written by Isaac Watts, one of the most recognizable of all the hymn writers. He was born in England in 1674. His hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” was published in 1707.
We began this series 4 weeks ago by focusing on surveying the temptations that come our way and how we might overcome those temptations. For the 2nd week, we surveyed our faith and how we can even allow our doubts to lead us in having a stronger faith. Last Sunday, we surveyed our spiritual thirst and how Jesus is the living water that fills and renews us.
For today, our appointed scripture readings in this season of Lent invite us to survey our hearts. Our Old Testament reading from I Samuel refers to the importance of surveying our hearts. I love this story from that reading of when God called upon the prophet, Samuel to find the right person to become the next king of Israel.
It was a very dangerous assignment because Saul was still king at the time and kings don’t like to give up their power.
Think of the prophet Samuel as the Bishop who has the very difficult task of finding the right pastor for the right church. In this case, Samuel’s short list of a replacement included eight sons of a man named Jesse who lived in Bethlehem. Eight sons. That’s a decent short list to have.
And what made this even easier for Samuel was that the first son that he saw, Eliab was very impressive looking. Why even bother with the other seven? Eliab just looks like he would be a great king. He just had that confident and majestic way about him, plus we are told that he was tall.
I guess there is such a thing as heightism in the process of hiring someone for a job. Research has shown that employers may reject and ignore shorter candidates even if their resume is similar to that of a taller person and they are just as qualified. Heightism is when the employer consciously or subconsciously associates positive workplace traits like confidence, competence and ability with tallness.
So, for example, in a study done in the United States back in the 2000’s, only 14.5% of all men were were six feet or over. But among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number was 58%. That does sound to me that there might be something to this.
We also use a lot of heightism phrases that suggest that we may be biased toward people who are taller than others. We use phrases like “drawing the short straw” to indicate failure. We also say “short-changed” or “falling short” as ways of describing not having enough of what it takes.
And on the other hand, we have phrases like “standing tall” and “fulfilling tall orders,” and “tall oaks from little acorns” and “head and shoulders above the rest” to indicate that it is better to be tall than short in our society.
Whether he was aware of it or not, it seems that Samuel was definitely focused on the physical trait of height in looking for a new king of Israel. You know, now that I think about it, whenever I have to state my height when I get my driver’s license renewed, I always round up to the next inch.
For my weight, I round down to the next pound or two. I rationalize it by saying that I was holding my heavy coat when I was on the scale. Or I was wearing heavy shoes that day.
NBA Hall of Fame basketball player, Jerry Lucas spoke at one of the churches I served. Jerry is 6’9”. Now if you were picking players to be on your basketball team, which one of us would you choose?
But height isn’t the only physical trait that catches our attention. There’s also a certain body build, family pedigree, national origin, skin color, and a whole host of other physical traits that consciously or unconsciously can impact who we assume God may be choosing over someone else.
In one of the churches I served, the pastor who preceded me and the pastor who followed me were both body builders! This always reminds me of how pastors are all unique and how God can use each one of us to live out our calling.
But back to our I Samuel story. 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. And he’s just the first of several sons introduced to Samuel. I mean, any of his sons probably would have been a good pick to be the next King of Israel.
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 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.
“Do you have any other sons,” Samuel asks Jesse. “Well, yeah, but he’s our youngest, kind of a loner. Just likes to hang out with the sheep.” “I want to meet him,” Samuel says.
So, they call for young David to come and meet Samuel. 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. And Samuel immediately anoints David as king in the presence of his brothers, and we are told that “the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David.” For God sees what we cannot see.
The reason that the Lord doesn’t worry about our outward appearances 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. It’s about what’s in our hearts and if our hearts are open to God.
I was preaching at a church one Sunday morning. I’ll never forget this. It was a Sunday that our church was focusing 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 that heart sticker and then stick it to a large prayer door that was in the back of the sanctuary.
There was someone in the congregation that day who felt called by God to take this idea beyond our church walls after worship that day. After worship, this person went to the prayer door and peeled off several of those heart post-it notes that still didn’t have any prayer requests on them.
This person in the congregation then went to the hospital and gave several patients one of those heart stickers in which this person had written the words, “Praying for you,” and then had the name of our church listed.
But this person wasn’t done. From the hospital, he then visited one of the local nursing homes giving people these heart post-its with the same message, “praying for you.” That person responded to God’s calling that Sunday morning.
God was able to bless all of these people in the hospital and at the nursing home that day through this person even though he was only half as tall as I am. And in addition to that, he was only 7 years old! God is looking for people who have loving, caring, and open hearts.
As I’ve been thinking about how God told Samuel to not focus on outward appearances but on the heart, this scripture reading that is often read during Holy Week kept coming to my mind. It’s from Isaiah, chapter 53 where the prophet says,
“He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces. He was despised and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
This Old Testament scripture reading points us to Jesus who was despised and rejected and held of no account, but who is also the one who died on that wondrous cross for the sins of the world. Jesus is the personification of God’s heart that is filled with love for everyone.
During these weeks of Lent, let’s survey our hearts so that our hearts would be more loving, more gracious, more generous, more compassionate, more willing to serve, and more open to who God is calling us to be and to what God is calling us to do.
