Sunday
June 16
The God of Second Chances
By Marsh Chapel
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The God of Second Chances
The Bible is about failure and defeat.
Its stories, letters and teachings record ways people have lived with defeat. This makes the Bible difficult for us to understand. For we as a people have run and swatted and laughed our way past learning the language of failure. We don’t admit to it. We won’t accept it. We do not countenance it. So sermons, this one and others, which are fumbling footnotes to the Scripture, may hit us from the side if they hit us at all.
Paul is thinking, it may be, when he mentions “outward appearance” and “the heart”, of Samuel who learned that mortals look upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.
You remember Samuel’s story in 1 Samuel 15:34ff. Samuel didn’t want to be a prophet, but he got saddled with the job anyway. He didn’t want anything to do with kings, but he had to pick one.
The people wanted a King, just like we at our worst always long for some imperial leader, some imperious presence on which or on whom we may cast our concerns. Then we don’t have to live with our own freedom, our own birthright from YHWH I AM THAT I AM, the Sinai God of freedom.
Samuel revered the God of freedom and the Godly freedom in each person. In fact, he revered the people’s freedom more than they themselves did. So much so that he helped them choose, even when he knew they chose in error. You want a king? You shall have a king and much trouble.
Saul, by name.
Saul, trouble, came and went. Leadership is everything. But leadership is not dictatorship. Authority is not domination. Integrity is not willfulness.
Leadership, authority, integrity—they become real when they revere the God of freedom and the freedom of each person. Real leadership increases personal freedom for all.
So, Samuel, who knew about freedom and leadership, and who could have shouted “I told you so” to the children of Israel, instead went to Ramah, that place you remember from Christmas, of wailing and loud lamentation, and he wailed and lamented:
Why, O God, have you made my people a group focused on difference and not the common good? Why should there be a few rich and many poor? Why should our distinguishing characteristics be so undistinguished? Are we forever to love appearance above reality, image above heart? O my God, are we never to see your peace upon the earth, your gracious splendor among our people, your kingdom of love?
So, we may imagine, in a hot dusty cave near Qumran, Samuel wept. And wept. And wept. He cried in his beer. He cried in his soup. You get the picture.
Until, at last, he stopped. And as so often happens, once he stopped his weeping, his self-concern, a marvelous thing happened. God gave a second chance. He said, “Samuel you old codger—get up and head over to Bethlehem and see Jesse. I’m going to give you another chance.” Samuel went to the house of Jesse, in Bethlehem.
We worship a God of second chances, of new starts, of make-up exams, of the Letter to the Hebrews and pardon after baptism, of I forgive you, of surprise opportunities. In a way, in Christ, God has simply become Another Chance.
Early on Sunday morning, we walk up and down these aisles when the sanctuary is empty. We wonder about the congregation and the community and listeners.
We worry about a nation of have and have nots. We are anxious about a race torn people. We think of people. Some giving birth and anxious. Some breaking up and anxious. Some struggling to stay together, and anxious. Some aging and anxious. Some ill and anxious. Like Samuel, we have our hurts.
Up Samuel goes to see what God will do. God tells him that there will be a new King, of God’s own choosing, out of the family of Jesse, who had seven sons.
Samuel sees the first son, and thinks—yes, this must be the one, right name, right place, right pedigree, right education. But, again, something strange happens. Samuel, given to hearing voices, hears a voice. God says, “Easy big fellow, easy. Don’t look at the appearance. Forget the outside. Don’t be misled by the image. Look inside.”
All that glitters is not gold.
One can be a saint abroad and a devil at home.
Cleanse the inside of the cup.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Be careful, when the Lady Macbeths of life connives. Banquo was right:
‘Tis Strange
And often times to win us to our HARM
The instruments of darkness tell us TRUTHS
Win us with HONEST TRIFLES
To betray us in DEEPEST CONSEQUENCES
We see the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
Meanwhile, back in Bethlehem, Samuel still has the seven sons on interview:
Job title: King of Israel
Profile: Perfect leader
Responsibilities: Bring salvation, justice, and peace.
Salary and benefits: commensurate with experience.
But he remembers: look on the heart. ELIAB. No. ABINADAB. No. SHAMMAH. No. And so on. Seven no’s. And he is limbo, he is in between.
It is tough to live in between. Like many who are here today can testify. Samuel would have loved to have settled things early. But he remembered the God of Another Chance, and trusted and waited, and hoped. Anybody can make a quick decision. Sometimes it takes more real courage to be indecisive. Anybody can decide. It takes guts to wait. Anybody can judge by appearance. But God looks on the heart.
Paul and the earliest Christians knew this perhaps better than anything else. They knew about being in between. Maybe that’s one reason why, providentially, their letters and writings have become our Bible. We are always a bit in between, and we need the confidence, daily, of Another Chance. The earliest Christians, Paul’s city Christians, were very much in between. They were often what the scholars call status-inconsistent, like Paul himself. A Jew, yet a Roman citizen. Educated, yet a tent-maker. So they were too: Women, yet rich. Artisans, yet slaves. They knew about being in-between.
And so the Apostle says:
In between the Body and the Lord
In between Sight and Faith
In between Home and Away
In between Judgment and Love
In between Crazy and Sane
In between One and All
In between Self and Others
In between Death and Resurrection
In between Old and New
In between Appearance and Heart
When you’re in between you know the joy of Another Chance. God sees the heart, and sees past appearances.
Well, dear old Samuel, is about ready to throw in the towel. He has been through all the sons of Jesse, and has not found the new king. He has found a lot of old king once removed, but nothing new. He is packing up his ephod and girding his loins and otherwise getting ready to shove off, when, again, something strange happens.
We worship the God of Second Chances.
If nothing else this morning, hear this Gospel.
Today is another chance for your family.
This week is another chance for you work.
This summer is another chance for our church.
This year is another chance for our city.
This decade is another chance for: our climate, our country, our denomination, our souls.
Where there is life, there is hope. And where there is hope, there is life.
God in Christ is Another Chance.
Realism and Idealism are not absolute alternatives. Often either you have both, or you have neither: witness Isaiah 60, John 3, 2 Corinthians 5, and the Sermon on the Mount. Things aren’t always as they seem.
SO LET US BE OPEN THIS SUMMER!
Read again Keith Miller’s, NEW WINE.
Visit Mount Washington or Bar Harbor in July.
Take a sandwich to the seashore.
We worship the God Of Second Chances.
Plant a flower.
Hug somebody.
Write a note.
Make a bequest.
I Believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And in Another Chance, God’s only Son Our Lord.
ANOTHER CHANCE!
To stand in God’s presence
To learn to help others
To have a meaningful life.
Meanwhile, back in Bethlehem…Samuel, turned as he was going, and looked at Jesse and said, “Are these all your sons”?
Jesse got that sheepish look we all get when the truth starts to come out. Well, yes and no. I mean these are all the grown ones, the ones who are worth looking at. “You mean there is a Second Chance?,” said Samuel so excited he dropped his staff and ungirded his loins and lost his ephod. “Well there’s the little guy, but we left him to tend the sheep.” “Bring him.”
And they brought David up. He was little, young, ruddy, handsome and beautiful, but mostly he had the right heart. A heart of songs and courage. A heart of love and strength. A real person. A real human being. Another Chance. Like the Tibetan Buddhists hunting for many years in the outback of the universe to find the Dali Lama. Like the birth of Jesus, we remember this Trinity Sunday, he also of Bethlehem. Like the moment your child came into the world. Or your grandchild. Like every single outburst and outcropping and intrusion and explosion and invasion of the NEW CREATION—there was David, Another Chance. And Samuel, old superannuated Samuel, could see what none of the young Turks could see—the heart. And Samuel wept, this time for joy, and said, “THIS IS THE ONE. Hire him.”
We worship Another Chance God.
Beloved, you are not last chance, anxious people.
You are God’s Second Chance people.
Let’s agree come Sunday. From now on, then, we aren’t going to look at anybody according to appearance, no matter how bad and no matter how good. I mean we once knew Christ by appearance, but then God raised him from the dead. So we look, as God looks, on the heart. By God, we will become real people, in a real church, in a real community, in a real nation. It takes a lot of idealism to become real. Anyone in Christ is new, not old.
Singing to the God of Second Chances, R. Niehbuhr wrote:
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime. Therefore, we must be saved by hope.
“Nothing which is true or good or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history. Therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we must be saved by love.”
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
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