1 Samuel 15:34—16:13
June 14, 2015
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Why are you here? I know why I am here because I still have a couple of sermons to give before I retire. But besides the fact that we are all here in this sanctuary, why are you here, you of all people? Why, of all the people in the universe, did God choose you to be a disciple of Jesus, to witness, in word and deed, to the truth of the gospel? I hear you saying to yourselves, ‘I am doing the best I can in life with all of my many weaknesses but I try.’ But I still ask you, why you?
We are here because today’s passage from 1 Samuel is one of the reasons why we like to be here. We love this story of the prophet Samuel’s surprising selection of young David as the one chosen by God to be the king of Israel. Here is the story of the little guy who makes good. It is a story of a member of the choir being chosen to be the featured soloist. It is about the truth that from all the people in the universe, God chose you to be one of his disciples. This is the reason why we are here!
All of the great sons of Jesse parade before Samuel, but he says that for all their fine, outward appearance, none of them is the one whom God has in mind for the new king. After all of them have paraded past, there is no son left; at least no one but little David who is out keeping sheep. David is summoned and everyone gasps as Samuel pronounces, “This is the one.”
Now why would God have chosen David? We are not told. Was it because David had great potential his family had not yet recognized? Was it because, as the youngest son, David had learned early to fend for himself, to take responsibility, to undertake difficult tasks, like shepherding which the older brothers dumped on him?
We are not told. God’s choices are often beyond our ability to figure out, surprising us. God chooses whom God will choose and thereby David was the greatest king of Israel anointed. From the least came the greatest.
Those words “from the least came the greatest” sound familiar because even if you have never heard the story of David’s selection, you have watched God at work before, lifting up the lowly, choosing those who are at the bottom, making the “last the first.” Jesus talked about that. In a way, Jesus himself was a good example of the ways in which God often commissions those whom the world regards as lowly and of no account to go and do God’s work in the world.
Chosen People
Many of us have had the opportunity to visit some of the great cathedrals in Europe and what we found were museums. There were more tombs in the floors and in the walls than there were living people on the pews. Many church leaders are worried that American churches may become museums too. Are you here for the funeral of our dying churches?
There’s a church planter, Ed Stetzer who separates the 75% of Americans who call themselves Christians into three categories: cultural, congregational and convictional.
He defines cultural Christians as people who are Christians simply because their culture tells them they are. But they’re Christian in name only, and are not practicing a vibrant faith.
Congregational Christians are similar to cultural Christians, except that they have some connection to actual congregational life, a church they attend at least occasionally, perhaps on Easter and Christmas.
Convictional Christians, on the other hand, are those who actually live according to their faith. They are the people who would say that they have met Jesus, that he has changed their lives, and that their lives are centered around the faith in him.
You may have read that in demographical studies, more people are now identifying themselves as “Nones” as having no religion. Stetzer suggests that the change is coming from defections from the cultural and congregational Christian categories, because there’s now less societal pressure to be “Christian.” These folks “feel comfortable freeing themselves from a label that was not true of them in the first place,” Stetzer says, but he quickly adds that convictional Christians are not leaving the faith. Are you here because you are a convictional Christian? I hope so.
Christianity may be losing its top-down political and cultural influence, but Jesus spoke about his followers making an impact in a very different way. He taught that God’s kingdom will begin with the last first, the least becoming the greatest.
Mustard Seed
‘To what can I compare the kingdom of God?’ asked Jesus one day before his disciples. The kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed (Mk. 4:30-32). That’s today’s gospel lesson. The Kingdom of God is like that tiny, insignificant mustard seed, “the smallest of all seeds on the earth.” Yet when the seed grows, says Jesus, it will germinate, grow, and grow until—it becomes a weed about two feet high.
“A weed? Only a shrub? The kingdom of God is a weed?” we might say.
“Yes,” continued Jesus, “a plant so impressive that small birds can come to perch in its branches—very small birds.”
“Well, that’s impressive,” said the disappointed disciples,” but only moderately impressive. We don’t like being compared to a weed.”
Evidently, judging from this parable of the mustard seed, God looks at things differently from the way we look at things. Are you surprised! What we regard as common, small, of little account, God regards as miraculous, wonderful, the essence of God’s reign.
The choice of young David, a nobody, is a metaphor for God to choose Israel to be a holy people. In Deuteronomy 7:6-8, we read, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you… It was because the Lord loved you.”
Now you know why you are here! God chose you because the Lord loves you. God’s choices, as we have said, are often surprising. God sees more than we see when God looks at people. Yet God knows who is able to do his work. Think about your life, the people with whom you come in contact each day, the things you do, the places you go. Perhaps God has chosen you, anointed you to be his representative in those places, among those people, so that they might see something of God in you.
I just heard from Pastor Visal this past week how Tiffany Lessler’s testimony of being a member of the Thailand Mission Team and her leadership at her workplace have encouraged others to receive training in leading. God has anointed Tiffany and we got the chance to see it.
Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory or being on the golf course or going on another trip is nothing else but a waste of time. But it may be that God has sent us there because if it weren’t for us, Christ would not be there. If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worthwhile.
Anointed
When the world selects a king, the world has a coronation. They bring out a crown like how the Warriors are hoping to be crowned as the NBA 2015 Champions! But to be a servant of the Lord, we are anointed rather than crowned. Anointing was the primary ritual to be designated having a special relationship with the divine.
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.
God anointed me at First Baptist, Boston when I was ordained over 40 years ago. God anointed me when you installed me in 1975 as Assistant Pastor in Christian education. And then for a second time, God anointed me again in 1998 when I became your senior pastor. God took someone who had never been a local church senior pastor and made him one; God took the lowly and the least of them.
You and I are here to be anointed in God’s presence so that the spirit of the Lord can come mightily upon us. When you step into this church this morning, God is anointing you to become his faithful witness in the world. You came to be anointed.
Already, the Day Camp directors, counselors, and CITs have been anointed to lead the children in our community to know that Jesus loves them.
Soon God will be anointing this year’s Thailand Mission Team composing of Ricky, Aaron, Tiffany and Tiffany, Melanie, and Elizabeth to help bring life-giving clean water to another hill tribe village.
God anointed the delegates to the 2015 ABC Biennial Mission Summit to bear witness of Christ’s light in FCBC in Overland Park, Kansas. We are no longer a small insignificant church once known as the Chinese Baptist Mission when we were the objects of mission efforts anymore but now we are a faithful mission-sending church.
Last Monday, I met with Asian American Baptist pastors in the Boston area and they heard about how effective and successful our youth ministry is and wondered what was our secret. After making the point that FCBC is unique like every church is unique and that we serve in Chinatown as every church serves in its respective context, what I told them is that I believe why our youth ministry is successful is because we expect our ministry to dominant the lives of our youth. There is no other program better than what we have to offer here. And if parents wish to have mature Christians, our seamless programs of Sunday school, Day Camp, youth leader development, Youth Camp, sports ministries, going to Thailand for mission and Family Camp—all demands all of their time because we believe God is in this. And at the end, our youth would be prepared to make decisions for Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. When God anoints us, God wants all of us.
There was a story by MacKinlay Kantor, “A Girl Named Frankie,” published in Reader’s Digest.
In the middle of a terrible airline crash, an ordinary stewardess named Frankie returned again and again to the crashed plane to retrieve victims. Then the plane exploded, killing this ordinary hero. In the author’s own words,
Frankie lies on a hill now. Toward the north is a hill where Central High School looms and where her principal used to talk about heroes. Maybe three miles away to the southeast is the house where she spent the first nine years of her life—and that is on a hill also…You might imagine that Frankie was up there somewhere, waltzing; she’d always loved to dance.
She could be, too… Except that something made her go back into that airplane cabin 11 times, and 11 times was just one time too many.
A crashed airplane is strictly for stalwart men and asbestos suits and masks. It is not for the petite little Miss Pretty—not unless she is Mary Frances Housley. Then she had such love in her heart that no high-octane explosion can ever blast it out.
How many times might we go with the love of God in our hearts to make a difference in the world? Are you a convictional Christian who has met Jesus and now your whole life is centered around your faith and love in him?
Convictional Christians see the world through the eyes of Jesus Christ and ask what would Jesus do in such situations.
Convictional Christians believe in Jesus’ teachings of the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors and nothing else really matters that much.
Convictional Christians put the life and vitality of the church first and foremost by tithing and giving sacrificially trusting in God that everything is possible in God.
Convictional Christians wake up in the morning and ponder about how they can proclaim the Good News to others in their words and deeds.
I know why you are here. You want to be anointed so that tomorrow when you are at work or in the supermarket or in the office or over the kitchen sink or God forbid, at an airplane crash, that you—God’s anointed one—is chosen to be the one.
Let us pray.
O God, you have called men and women into your kingdom work throughout the centuries and you continue to call people to bear witness of your love and mercy. Just as you called young David to be king, call us, anoint us, empower us to serve you mightily in the world that is in great need of your grace. Forgive us when we go against your plan for our lives and grant us yet another opportunity to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in the world and whose name we pray. Amen.