Text: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 51

Does anyone in the congregation come from a family like Davids? A family with a whole mess of sibling? We heard in the Lesson for All Ages that my grandpa was one of 22 (in a blended family). Big families are rare in my generation but when I was growing up my best friend was a middle child in a family of seven siblings: Michael, Chrissy, Jason, Nancy, Margaret, Kelly, Brendan. My friend was Margaret. They were Irish Catholic, if their names and the number of them didn’t give that away. They seemed kind of exotic to me!

I was probably about 8 or so when Margaret’s youngest brother Bendan was born. He became the baby and the tag-a-long. He seemed to have a sixth sense about when we had snacks and would materialize to beg for some. That was annoying but he also let us dress him up and put makeup on him and would take any role assigned to him in our pretend play. I’m pretty sure we made him be the dog in the family many times.

I wonder if that’s how David’s siblings thought about him. The youngest, the after thought. The most annoying but also he’ll tend the sheep if you tell him to because you want to go to the festival. 

I hadn’t thought about Margaret’s brother Brendan for years. So I Facebook spied on him: he’s looks just like his dad. Has his own three kids. Still lives in Saskatchewan. Regina, fwiw. Seems like being made to play the dog didn’t traumatize him. 

Fortunately, I don’t need Facebook to see what happened to David later in life. Scripture lays it all out. Just like we’re seeing a snapshot of Samuel at two points in his life – the moment of his call as a young boy and here, calling another young man at God’s bidding. So to we get this snapshot of the young David, innocent, inexperienced, full of potential. He might be looking ahead with eagerness. And in the Psalm we hear the voice of David the life-worn, battle-scarred, made some big mistakes, looking back with regret

David is not my favorite character in the Biblical narrative. My view of him is very colored by his assault of Bathsheba and the orchestrated death of her husband. When I was pastor at SMC I only preached once a month or so, but somehow I drew the David story almost every year in the Narrative Lectionary cycle. 

One of those was the year that the Me Too movement was really at the height of its momentum. It was hard to be hearing so many stories of abuse and exploitation, to be remembering my own relatively minor, but still very real Me Too experiences and to also see it happening to Bathsheba by a beloved Biblical ancestor.

The David we see anointed by Samuel doesn’t see any of that coming. Nor does he see the many other things yet that make him such a nuanced and complicated person: his always passionate devotion to God, his intimate relationship with his friend Jonathan, his continued passion for music and poetry and prayer, his career as a warrior and shrewd leader who would unite kingdoms.

God must have seen some of that potential in David. Certainly, God passed over all the brothers, saying to Samuel, “Have no regard for his appearance or stature, because I haven’t selected him. God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.”

Then right on down the line: nope, nope, nope, right past the magical biblical number of 7 to little baby brother number 8, a number with NO significance in scripture. A nothing! (Unless you’re Chinese – super lucky). And never mind making him pretend to be a dog, the text almost sounds like an adorable puppy: reddish brown with beautiful eyes. Good at herding sheep. 

Yet God saw something in his heart. The heart in the Hebrew Bible is more like what we might think of as the head: the intellect and personality. There’s something in there. And the moment Samuel saw David, he saw what God saw and acted  immediately: there in the public assembly, anointed him. God’s Spirit gripped him and never left him. 

The translation we read is a little more sedate, it says, “The Lord’s spirit came over David from that point forward.” But the original language is more tenacious than that – more like ‘gripped’ him. And I can imagine it – an invisible hand that is grasped on and will not let go. 

I was asked recently: What would you like to teach your younger self? Specifically teach, not tell or give advice. It’s a hard question for me. I do think I might advise myself to loosen up a little. Maybe take a few more risks. But I’m not sure there’s anything I could teach myself – or even tell myself – that I would have listened to. Or that I wouldn’t learn eventually. If I could teach my younger self a language or make her learn one that’s probably a thing I’d do.

I started thinking about what older David would or could teach the younger. One piece of advice might be: being God’s chosen doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to exploit and harm and abuse. Use the Spiderman principle: with great power comes great responsibility. Instead he does, in fact, let his power corrupt him. Like many celebrities today who have been outed because they have used their power to take advantage, to abuse, to harm.

I wonder: Would a visit from your now self deter you from the path you chose as a young person? Or would a visit from a future self change the choices you’re making now? 

I’m not sure middle aged David would have any influence on young pup David. This guy is just eagerly waiting for life to unfold. All of his experiences will shape him into the king that he becomes. I do not excuse his terrible behavior, remembering Bathsheba and Uriah are an important part of complicating David’s story. At the same time, I am making space in my heart for a person who comes before God saying, create in me a clean heart.

David says, I messed up. I need God’s help. I need to do better. He says, “keep me from violence.” Perhaps he is looking back over his life and realizing how much violence has shaped him, sees how the need to be a powerful warrior clouded his ability to regulate in intimate relationships. And he does not want to repeat that pattern.

It’s really weird to me how we humans develop over time. We’re the same person as an infant, a teen, a young adult, a middle aged person. And yet we’re also completely different. Me as a teen could not have imagined that I’d be a pastor but living in Seattle (that’s where Frasier lives – Frasier is fictional!) But me as a teen is part of what shaped my understanding of the world, of God, of people.

God is not like humans. While I’m not convinced that God is completely unchanging, God is faithful. God is certainly faithful to David even during his most dark days. God has gripped onto David with a steadfastness that will not let go and when David is at his lowest, he turns again to the moment when God first gripped on, the moment when God saw into his heart, and asks to be made clean again.

David will never be his younger self again. His mistakes will always be there. But God will always be God. Regardless of how we humans change, God is with us, anointing us, gripping us and not letting go, even when we mess up, make mistakes, or hurt people.  What makes Psalm 51 so powerful even today is the raw confession and true repentance. David is turning his heart again toward God, who has never let go and will never let go.

May we too remember that the God who was with us in our youth, is with us now and will never let us go. Amen and thanks be to our faithful God.

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