God definitely doesn't choose you

I was working on my next sermon for preaching today, so I think I'm going to cheat and process some ideas here. This is more immediately necessary than I thought, since I thought I was preaching Friday and then magically decided to look at the schedule and realized it was actually Wednesday...

My text is the story of the anointing of David from 1 Samuel, the one where Samuel has all of Jesse's sons line up and none of them are meant to be king until David, who Jesse has to send for specially, because it didn't even occur to anyone that he should be there. I was a little frustrated at first because the message seems pretty clear--God picking the underdog and all that--so what could I say that was new? As I told Lauren, I believe that Scripture is rich enough to say more than one thing, but I was wary of working too hard to find something new at the expense of what the message was actually supposed to be.

I was struck, though, by a few things--first of all, the fact that Samuel never tells Jesse or his sons what is going on. Basically he invites them to a sacrifice and then stands there appraising their chosenness or lack thereof, which personally would make me a little nervous. Second, as far as David's brothers are concerned, the verdict is just harsh. Nope, God doesn't choose you. Ouch.

It reminded me of a prayer I read in one of the ordination workbooks, which included the line "Let me be used by you, or laid aside by you." I thought that line was powerful even at the time. We all want to find our places in God's plan--but what if there is none? Are we willing to accept that God's plan for the world is bigger than us? I thought also of Henri Nouwen, who went from being a Harvard professor to working with mentally disabled people and wrote about giving up the temptation to be relevant.

I do believe that God calls each person. But maybe not all the time, and maybe not for everything. That's a humbling thought for someone trying to figure out where her life is going from here. But I guess the good news is that realizing what we're not chosen for, painful as that may be, gets us that much closer to realizing what we are.