1 Samuel
15:34-16:13
On Listening for
God
James Sledge June
13, 2021
Alexander Ivanov, 1806-1858
Samuel Anoints David to the
Kingdom,
We Presbyterians have a way of doing
things that is a kind of middle ground between the hierarchical church
governance used by Roman Catholics or Episcopalians and the congregational form
of governance found in most Baptist churches. In the former, a bishop appoints a
priest for a congregation. In the latter, there is no bishop. The congregation
can whomever it wants.
Presbyterians, however, don’t look like either of these. When it comes to pastors, the congregation can neither hire nor fire a pastor on their own. They must work with the presbytery, the regional governing body, in both the coming and going of pastors. When a pastor nominating committee looks for a pastor, it must follow procedures set forth by the denomination, and candidates for the position must be vetted and approved by the presbytery.
When a pastor nominating committee, or PNC, begins the work of finding a new pastor, certain prescribed forms must be used, and it must promise to abide by a search process that follows patterns set by the presbytery. As part of this, the PNC must sign a form that attests to their having had the presbytery’s Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action policy explained to them and their agreeing to follow that policy.
One of this policy’s stated purposes is “To inhibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, national origin, sex, age, marital status or disability and to ensure fairness to all candidates.”[1] To carry this out, the policy expects the PNC to interview a diverse group of candidates, regardless of the congregation’s racial makeup, and it requires written reports to confirm that this is happening. There is even a requirement that the PNC interview at least one woman and hear her preach.
Yet despite these requirements, white churches almost always end up with a white pastor. And even in 2021, such churches are more likely to call married, white men to be senior pastors.
You might think that the requirement to look at diverse candidates would cause PNCs occasionally to be wowed by a candidate who didn’t look much like their last pastor, but apparently not. I can’t imagine that many PNCs actually say out loud that they are looking for a married, white male, but somehow everyone on the committee knows that.
I should also mention that the PNC’s job is to discern God’s call. They aren’t looking for the one they like or the one that looks like them but rather the one that God has in mind for their congregation. Apparently, God has a preference for married, white men.
In our scripture reading this morning, a king nominating committee of one heads to Bethlehem to find Israel a new king. This was clearly a less formal and regimented process than the one we Presbyterians use to find a pastor, but no doubt there were some expectations about the qualities of a king.
I take it that Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son, had these qualities. Our scripture seems to imply that he was tall and impressive looking, kingly you might say, and the king nominating committee is clearly impressed. “Here’s the one,” he said, and Samuel was all ready to offer Eliab the job. If Eliab had been a pastor candidate, the PNC would definitely have extended a call for him to be their next pastor.
But God has other ideas and says to the king nominating committee, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.” Amazingly, the committee pays attention and doesn’t offer Eliab the job. I say amazingly because committees, even committees of one, usually aren’t very good at listening for God.
I’ve often shared a quote from Graham Standish about church committees. He says that “figuratively and literally committees in most churches begin a meeting by inviting God into the room in prayer. Then, by what they do and how they discuss proposals and make decisions, they basically tell God to wait outside in the hall until they have made a decision. Finally, through their closing prayers they invite God back in to bless their decision.”[2]
Samuel doesn’t seem to work that way, and so he hears God say “No” as all the other candidates pass by until none are left. Search committees typically start to get desperate at this point, but Samuel listens for God and hears the “No” even when there are no more candidates. Of course there is still God’s candidate, but Samuel doesn’t know that when passes on the last candidate he interviews.
How did Samuel know what God did and didn’t want? Our scripture simply reports, But Yahweh said to Samuel… How does that work? Did he have some sort of earpiece like the Secret Service wear so that God could talk directly to him? If so, I’d sure like to get one.
But I wonder if it was like that at all. Perhaps Samuel didn’t hear voices in his head. Perhaps he was simply a man of deep prayer who tried to stay open to God’s presence, to the divine nudges and prods that many of us have felt now and then in our lives. But I’d still bet that most pastor nominating committees would have taken Eliab.
Along with many others, we Presbyterians insist that Christ alone is Head of the Church. So why would most nominating committees pick Eliab? Why do so many churches keep hiring married, white men, often passing over extremely qualified candidates who are the “wrong” color or gender or marital status?
We say that Jesus is the Head of the Church, but very often we don’t act like that is true. Instead we substitute our own preferences, our own logic, our own judgements for those of Jesus. Is that because we’ve never learned how to be open to Jesus’ voice, to wait for the movement of the Spirit? Or is that because doing it ourselves is a lot faster and easier, a lot less likely to cause upset in the congregation, a lot more likely to preserve the status quo than risking what the Spirit might say?
These are hardly academic questions in our day and age. Across the board, large and small, conservative and liberal, church congregations are struggling. Attendance is down. Giving is down. Millennials and other younger folk are opting out of organized religion. The way we’ve always done it isn’t working any more.
That’s one reason I was very impressed with and proud of the efforts our Session made prior to the pandemic to listen for God, to be attentive to what Jesus wanted for the church. The Renew process that played out over a few years was filled with prayer and with an openness to the Spirit that I’ve rarely seen in a congregation. I only wish every member could have seen it in action.
The pandemic interrupted the next steps as Renew itself came to a close and we began to live into the call that had been discerned. Now, as we inch closer and closer to some sort of normal, it will be incredibly easy simply to forget that call and slip back into old patterns. But God is calling us, not to move back, but to move boldly forward on the path Jesus walks and beckons us to follow.
There’s a famous quote from John Wesley, the 18th century preacher and revivalist who founded what would become the Methodist denomination. He said, “Proceed with much prayer and your way will be made plain.” May we continue to move forward steeped in prayer, ever open to the movement of the Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment