Beyond Our Best Thinking (1 Sam 16:1-13)

Scripture: Israel’s and Saul’s Best Thinking

1   The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel.

Just to refresh our memory of the story, Saul is the first king of Israel. He’s a real dreamboat, according to the storyteller, who describes him in this way: “There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else” (1 Sam 9:2). Technically, God had designated Saul as king. But if we remember the backstory—how Israel had demanded a king so that they could be like the other nations and how God saw this as a rejection but decided to leave Israel to its own devices, to let them have what they want—if we take all of that into account, it’s not a great leap to interpret that God had selected precisely the kind of king Israel had desired. In other words, “You want a king? I’ll give you the best king you could think of, a real eyeful, a political schemer and dreamer.” Because that’s what Israel got. King Saul is ever mindful of appearances, of what we might call the “optics” of things. He is charming and calculating, always doing what will garner him the favor of the people. But it is precisely his calculations to win the people’s favor, that earn him God’s stern disapproval. He violates God’s commands for the sake of appearances, for the sake of keeping people on his side. He thinks he knows better. He thinks he can play loose with the way of God in order to achieve victory with his fellow man. Just like the people who wanted a king thought they knew better. Just like they thought they could play loose with God’s covenant to consolidate their place among the nations. But for Saul’s violations, God rejects Saul as king.

To summarize these proceedings, then: Israel’s best thinking—and Saul’s best thinking—have resulted in a real mess.

Scripture: Looking on Appearances

Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” (In the scene that immediately precedes today’s scripture, Samuel informed Saul that God had rejected him as king. Samuel is understandably worried what Saul will think if he hears that his prophet, Samuel, is carrying around a horn of oil. It was in just such a manner that Samuel had earlier anointed him. If he suspects that Samuel is already anointing his successor, there’s no telling what he might do.)

And the LORD said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ (In other words, God is giving Samuel a little cover here. God is saying, “Prepare a worship service, complete with sacrifice. You can do the anointing bit quietly in the service, and only the people who need to know what’s happening will know.”) 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4 Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” (By now, Samuel has acquired a bit of a reputation as a prophet and a judge. Why else would he come to a little, no-name town like Bethlehem unless he was on God’s business? The people are afraid that perhaps this is a disciplinary visit, that he comes with a rebuke from God.) 5 He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD (in other words, “I’ve come only to worship with you”); sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6   When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’S anointed is now before the LORD.”  7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature (we might hear echoes here of Saul, glowingly described as head and shoulders above the rest, the most handsome man in Israel), 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.”

This verse is almost literally at the center of the book of 1 Samuel, which is perhaps no coincidence, because it certainly seems to be the central point of the book. God sees things differently than we do. We look on the appearance of things, God looks on the heart.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” we’ll sometimes say, acknowledging the all-too-human tendency to do just that, to judge by appearance. I think it’s worth pausing a moment to explore this tendency. Why do we judge by appearance? What’s the motivation? It seems to me that we take appearances as signs or visual shortcuts that show us the end of things. A tall, muscular man, head and shoulders above everyone else, signifies strength and victory. Dark, heavy clouds in the sky signify rain. We look on the appearance of things so that we can make better calculations and stay in control of the situation. In one sense, looking on the appearance of things is proto-scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific). It is an endeavor to discern the mechanics of things so that we might better position ourselves for a favorable result. If I had to summarize the motivation of judging appearances, I would say that, in a word, it is control. It is a function of our best thinking in the moment, which is seeking the best possible result.

And we learn here in this central, pivotal verse that God doesn’t think like this. God is not calculating toward the best possible result. (As we will discover in Christ, God’s concern is not results, but the way, not winning, but witness. The scandal of our faith is this: God’s victory comes not in battle, but on a cross, where we see God’s way of love most clearly.)

Scripture: Relinquishing Our Best Thinking

8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” 10 Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” 11 Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”

In my reading, this is the turning point of the story, the crucial moment. God has made the selection process a collaborative effort. God will designate the next king, but only when the next king is presented. In other words, if Samuel and Jesse had stopped right here and thrown up their hands, saying, “Well, we’ve reviewed all the candidates, all the best possibilities we could think of. What more can we do?”—then God would have been at a loss. It reminds me of when Jesus is unable to heal those people who do not believe. In a similar way, God is unable to make a choice when people do not allow for that choice. Happily, in this case, the prophet Samuel knows that God does not calculate in the way that humans do. Samuel knows that God’s will is beyond our best thinking. And so he asks Jesse if there’s possibly another son.

And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” (Perhaps this description of the young boy David is meant to indicate something about his heart, that is, his attitude and disposition. He has stayed behind with the flock while his family has gone off to see what all the fuss is about with the visit of the prophet Samuel. He is faithfully carrying out his work, even though there’s little or no reward.) And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. (Whereas Saul had what we might call noble or regal good looks, the figure of a natural leader, David has what we might call boyishly good looks. He’s sweet or adorable but does not bear the imposing profile of a warrior.) The LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward.

“My Best Thinking Got Me Here”

In 1930, the British economist and philosopher John Maynard Keynes, one of the best minds of his day, famously predicted that because of technological advances, in a hundred years’ time the average work week would be about 15 hours. Well, we’ve got five years to go before we reach the centennial of Keynes’ prediction, but I’d say the odds aren’t looking too good. Not because technology hasn’t advanced. In fact, I’d imagine that technology has advanced in ways that Keynes couldn’t even begin to imagine. But even with the leaps and bounds we’ve made in electronics and travel and robotics and automated machinery, we’re nowhere closer to the chimeric fifteen-hour work week. Why is that, I wonder?

There is a saying in Twelve-Step recovery that I think applies equally well to our spiritual life. “My best thinking got me here,” someone will say. It could be a world-renowned surgeon, a wealthy businessman, a published professor, someone whom others esteem as a great mind or thinker. And yet that same person with their brilliant mind fell victim to an inescapable addiction. Not despite their best thinking. But precisely because of it. “My best thinking got me here” is a way of confessing that I cannot think my way out of here, because my thinking is what got me here.

Think back to our advances in technology, all of which were the result of some brilliant minds. And yet look around at our world, at how frenzied we still are, how rushed, how hurried, how there are never enough hours in the week. What happened? I’m tempted to say, “Our best thinking got us here.” In other words, the same willful, resolute spirit that has pushed our thinking to the limits, to search endlessly for ways to improve our lives, has also kept our nose to the grindstone even as advances have been made. The same voice that says, “More, more, more,” and keeps technology advancing at a breakneck speed, says “more, more, more” to our hearts, always ramping up expectations and the desire to use our newfound power for previously unimagined gains. There is a sense in which our relationship with technology (and we might say the same about our relationship with money or politics) has become an addiction. The very thing that propels us forward keeps us enslaved. There never will be a fifteen-hour work week, as long as we follow our “best thinking.”

When God says to Samuel, “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7), the invitation or challenge that I hear is not to somehow develop sharper, more intuitive sight, or deeper, more sophisticated thinking. I don’t think scripture is inviting us to be able to see what God sees. I think, rather, that the invitation is to relinquish our best thinking. Which means, more specifically, to relinquish our focus on results, our tendency to judge by appearances and all the available data so that we might calculate the most favorable result. What concerns God is not that we achieve the right end—because as we have seen countless times, the right end can be pursued by horrible, ungodly means. (One could argue that was Saul’s problem, who wanted what was good for himself and Israel, but whose obsession with results led him to live in a less than faithful way.) What concerns God is not the ends but the means, not the results, but the way. We see this exemplified in Christ, who identifies himself as “the Way”—and who died on the cross, a horrible end, a terrible result, and yet it was the very embodiment of God’s love and forgiveness, the very way we know just how much God cares for us.

For me to relinquish my best thinking and my fixation on results, means that instead of trying to think my way out of a situation, I am content to live God’s way in any situation. That’s what God desires from God’s people, not that they be winners or conquerors, but that they be witnesses to God’s better way. When Samuel is selecting a king, God is not looking for an individual who stands head and shoulders above the rest, who will secure results by hook or crook; God is looking for an individual who will bear faithful witness to God’s way, who will live with God’s same shepherd-like care for others. (That David regularly fails on this front does not negate God’s judgment but shows us the fallibility of all of us—especially when we, like David in his weaker moments, decide to take matters into our own hands.)

In the case of Israel, their best thinking got them into a terrible mess with King Saul, who was handsome and charming and an astute politician, and precisely because of this cared more about appearances than about bearing faithful witness to God’s way. But what we see in today’s scripture, I think—and certainly throughout the broad arc of Israel’s story—is that there is no mess too great for God. There’s never a point beyond which we cannot stop and relinquish our best thinking. There’s never a point beyond which we cannot choose instead to live one step at a time in the gentle and humble way of our God, whom we know in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Incomprehensible God,
Whose power is not might and muscle,
Or calculation and cunning,
Whose power is, rather,
A Love that does not make sense,
A Love that surpasses all limits—
Grant us the grace
To relinquish our best thinking
…
That we might receive in its place
What is even better:
Your love guiding us to live
In a loving way.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.