By Sarah Beck, special education major from Archbold, Ohio

1 Samuel 16:1-13

I wonder what David thought as he was out tending to his sheep on that seemingly ordinary day.

Maybe he was thinking about the weather.  Perhaps the weather was similar to Virginia and he was wondering why on earth it was snowing in spring!  Was he noticing the birds?  Did he observe the littlest lambs trying to learn to walk?  I bet he was just livin’ life, peaceful and content , and had no idea of the anointing that was about to happen.

Can you imagine?  He got called in from the fields and his daydreams to be anointed by Samuel.  To be chosen by God.

Up until about four months ago, I would not have even been able to imagine something like that happening in my life.  I thought I had my life completely together; it was worked out perfectly in my mind!  I had a plan!

Then, one day, I found myself like David.  I was peaceful and content, just livin’ my life, tending to my “flocks” and God came out of nowhere and stirred my heart.  I felt a challenge to do something different, to be someone different, and to live a life different than the one I had planned out.

I think I was as confused as David’s father was, with thoughts of, “me…? Surely you can’t mean ME, God!  There are bigger, stronger people out there and I bet you’d rather choose them!”

But I continued to hear God’s call; He was choosing me.  He had let me have my daydreams about my own plans long enough and it was time to start revealing His plan for me.

I think we are all chosen by God; we are just not always told when he’s going to come anoint us.  I bet the blind man didn’t wake up one morning expecting to meet Jesus and receive the miracle of sight!  I know David wasn’t ready to be called in from the fields to be anointed as the chosen one!  And I sure know that I wasn’t ready to have my world turned upside down by a strange call from God that deviated from my own selfish plans.

Sometimes it takes silence to understand His plans; sometimes it takes time.  Sometimes it takes support and a gentle nudge from those around you; other times it takes a huge, life-altering event.  Whatever your call is, you are chosen by God.  Isn’t that awesome?  The God of all the universe has anointed (or WILL anoint) YOU! He has a plan for YOU! You are chosen! What an incredible thought.

I understand that it can be scary to one day, out of the blue, be chosen by God.  Yikes! What do we DO with that?  I take great comfort in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd!”  He is watching us; He is caring for us!  How can I be worried?  Even when we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death (umm, hello! That is some scary stuff!) he is with us!

God doesn’t just call us, hang up the phone, and expect us to figure it out.  He provides the call, the map, a guide, and he’s even willing to carry us if we grow weary.  He is calling us, anointing us, to do his will do we may dwell in His house forever.  And there isn’t a single thing scary enough to keep me from THAT!  This Lenten season I encourage you to be open to what God is saying to you.

Maybe your time for anointing isn’t here yet; perhaps you have been chosen long ago!  Or maybe, just maybe, God is creeping into your heart…quietly calling your name…choosing to anoint you for a new call.

by Chris Scott, master of divinity  student

1 Samuel 16:1-13

This passage reminds me of the old Alanis Morissette song of the mid 1990s, entitled “Ironic.” Perhaps some of you might remember that song. It was basically a string of contradictory events that seem to happen in life. She sang of a free ride when you’ve already paid or a traffic jam when you’re already late and so on with a mid 90s angst.

While there is not much about a singer-songwriter in this Bible passage there is much here that carries a load of irony.  The ironic angles here are so strong that the storywriter includes it as the cutline of the story.  “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart,” the writer records in verse 7.

The contrasts of this passage are deep. Samuel at the end of his years is tricked by the outward appearance of Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son. He looks over and says, “This has to be the Lord’s anointed.” Eliab must be right out of central casting for a king. And yet God says, “Keep looking.” Samuel has to go down the order of sons until he thinks he’s seen them all and it turns out there is a forgotten one. Finally David comes and he is indeed the Lord’s choice.

The shepherd David is crowned king while there is still a reigning king in the Land. That is another irony. Samuel is filling a still occupied position. Saul casts a wide shadow over the land at this point in time. Even though he still looks like a king, is actually still acting like a king, and winning victories as a king, God has truly rejected Saul as king of the land. The anointing of the Lord has passed on from Saul.  Saul’s heart is no longer bent towards God.

We see in this story, and over and over again in the entire Biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation that God looks deeper than we do. God is not looking at the markers that we habitually use, but looks deeper. God looks with the heart. Our vision is so often limited to what makes sense, or what appears practical. But God does not always make sense from our perspective and is often horribly impractical for our plans.

This is a rich passage to land on during Lent. Lent causes us to wonder and question. God pushes us to look beyond the apparently impractical nature of a suffering servant and calls us to perceive on a deeper level. As followers of that risen Messiah we struggle to live into the reality that this Lenten journey is the path that God lays out. This is the way God is choosing to act and demonstrate a love so profound and real.

We live in an appearance based culture. We base so much on appearances and snap surface judgments.  So much of what we think of others comes from the external. We see troubles and problems and wonder what’s the point.  We figure nothing good can come out of whatever mess is before us.

In doing so, we forget the enduring truth of this story of a shepherd anointed king. “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  In this Lent season may we see the world with God’s eyes, and look deeper with lenses tinted with the heart of God.  May we refocus our seeing on the deeper areas. May we see each person and each moment as a place for God’s moving and loving touch. Indeed may we follow God into the impractical, to the place of God’s kingdom.

by Kathy Fuller Guisewite, 2010 MA in Counseling graduate

Psalm 23

As I write these words, snow is falling, and sleet is soon to come in behind the snow. The roads are treacherous.   It’s made me stop and think about the many roads I’ve traveled when I didn’t feel safe or when I felt so uncertain as to where the road was actually leading me.  Maybe I was in a car or maybe I was sitting by the warmth of a fireplace sipping tea.  Journeys take place wherever we are.  So what is it that  pushes us forward or pulls us onward in the face of concerns or confusion?  How do we learn to trust the next few yards in front of us to lead us onto what is next?  How can we trust that what is next will be for good?

Trust isn’t easy.  While it often seems like trust is based on outer circumstances (like safe, clear roads),  it really is an inward journey.  When we find our way to the core of trusting, we have found our compass, our true north which is, in a word, God.  Psalm 23 speaks of such.  God provides… for our rest, our health, our guidance, our nourishment, our joy in this life and the next.  Indeed, our Creator provides at every turn, and most especially, when we lose our way.

In this season of Lent, I extend the invitation to you to read Psalm 23.  Sit with it as you would a map or a GPS.  Open your heart to what God might speak to you.  Listen most intently in times when you find yourself saying, “I can’t go that way!”  And then, go that way, that deep internal way that will lead you to quiet waters that nestle green pastures of rest and plenty.

By Jamie Spray, master of divinity and master of arts in conflict transformation dual degree student

Exodus 17:1-7

“The people were thirsty for water… and they grumbled.”  When water flowed, it flowed from an unlikely source.  From a dry rock in the desert, life-giving water flowed.

During Lent, we strip back our excesses and take on practices that reveal our true thirst.  Along the way, we may also find ourselves grumbling.  We are preparing soberly for Jesus’ Passion.  It is a season of death that longs for resurrection.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to come to terms with my doubts about the Resurrection, so I talked   to my spiritual director.

She told me to keep my eyes open for signs of resurrection around me appearing in unlikely places and unexpected forms.  I wanted to turn my eyes to the Great Resurrection, but she insisted that I turn my eyes to the small, unexpected, unlikely resurrections of my everyday life.

So, that Lent, I took on the habit of looking for signs of resurrection.  With time, I started to notice in me and around me the ways in which life was emerging or reemerging in places I did not expect to find it and in forms I might not otherwise have noticed.   Finally, when Easter came, I was able to enter the joy of the Great Resurrection in a way I had not for many years.

Reflecting on the story in Exodus, we see that Moses, too, looked for signs of resurrection in the most unlikely of places.  In the face of a grumbling, murderous people, he looked for the Presence of God.  In the face of water scarcity, he looked for God’s provision.   And in the face of a barren rock, he looked for God’s promise of a fountain.

This Lent, as we become aware of our thirst and our grumbling, may we be people who look for signs of resurrection, especially in unlikely places and unexpected forms.

by Kevin Clark, seminary campus pastor and assistant professor of spiritual formation

Psalm 121 and John 3: 1-17

Have you ever been “struck” by the moon?  I suppose that the thought of this may evoke any number of images; a white washed starless night full of brilliant light, or a narrow luminous path on the water, beckoning those on the shore to gaze out across the vastness of the sea to the source of its light, or maybe what comes to mind is one of the stories of lunacy and chaos that blame bizarre behavior or strange events on this cosmic phenomenon – the lunar rhythm.  Hmmm.

The Psalmist (Psalm 121) indicates that God is present and provides protection from sun and moon:

⁵The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

Now, I personally understand the devastating effects the sun can have (as in my need for a hat these days), but protection from the moon?  Unless…the implication is to be open to an awareness of the “keeping” work of Spirit in my night journey as well during the day.

^“The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life”

It is certainly reassuring to know that God does not sleep, “…he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,” particularly as one who finds the rhythm of sleep to be elusive on occasions. On some of these nights my inner conversation is usually not very focused as the mind churns out the day’s activity (mostly what has not been accomplished), and then begins to evoke the fullness of the day ahead  (it certainly needs to be worried about a head of time, right?)  I find myself “struck” and do not know how to let go!

The narrative from John’s Gospel invites us to eavesdrop on a nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.  This exchange during the hours of darkness certainly offers a measure of protection and secrecy for Nicodemus (a “Pharisee” and “leader of the Jews”), yet I sense that Nicodemus has been “struck ” with the questions and yearnings that possibly gave rise to his journey of faith to begin with. Now he is looking for “help” and for answers; “Rabbi…the presence of God is with you.”

In response to the question that Nicodemus asks about being born from above, Jesus does not really provide a clear explanation but does invite a new way of perceiving life (“see the kingdom of God”)” and a new way of living (“enter the kingdom of God”).  In Jesus’ words about water and Spirit, about birthing and love, Jesus offers something better than an explanation: he extends to Nicodemus, and to us, an invitation to a relationship and to a journey of transformation.  Is this not the invitation and journey of the season of Lent?

I suspect that nighttime conversations will continue to have a place in the rhythm of my life, but knowing that Jesus is present in these moonlight moments provides a deeper awareness that “The Lord is my keeper” in ways that reorient the chaos of churning thought into questions of mystery, presence and opportunity to hear the Spirit’s wind of love; “for God so loved the world.” I can begin to let go…

^“The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore”.

By Reta Halteman Finger, Senior Professor, New Testament

Matthew 4:1-11

Later, people poured theological meaning into Jesus’ torture and execution. But at the time, not even his closest friends saw it as anything other than raw, naked politics. “We had hoped he would redeem Israel,” they said.

The roots of Jesus’ nonviolent resistance to the power of Rome and the high priests in Herod’s temple lie at the beginning of his ministry. Before that, we can only imagine Jesus as a typical Galilean—an artisan and manual laborer, perhaps married and widowed, perhaps single. But as he was baptized in the Jordan River, a voice from heaven names him a beloved Son (Matt 3:13-17).

The same Spirit that alighted on him now drives him east into the Judean desert. Here he must wrestle with what kind of “Son of God” he should be. These temptations are not simply an initiation ritual where Jesus practices quoting scripture before preaching to others. They are real, and all three of them deal with political power.

The devil knows how to reach him:  “IF you are the son of God, do this and this and this. As king, how will you feed your people? How will you control the temple priests?” But the third temptation shows us most clearly Jesus’ choice to renounce violence. The devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. “You can be a king! You can challenge and conquer Rome! Just do it my way.”

Jesus understands politics; this deal with the devil implies violent conquest. Would the end justify the means?  Jesus thinks of Judas Maccabeus leading a successful revolt against the Syrian prince 200 years earlier. Surely Jesus Emmanuel can do better than that!

We do not know how long Jesus struggled with the myth of redemptive violence. In the end he realizes that the devil can make this offer only because all the kingdoms of the world belong to him. None survive and conquer without deception and cruelty, torture and murder.  Jesus now knows enough about the nature of God that to worship him is to serve him without violence, regardless of the cost.

We can find a confirmation of this third temptation in Matthew 26:52-54. After a fierce struggle in Gethsemane and during his arrest, Jesus clarifies why he has renounced violence. Even though his Father could rescue him, he knows that taking up the sword is a no-win situation.

In our American Empire today, how can we best follow this nonviolent activist, crucified as a political threat to the state?

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Genesis 12:1-4a

Exodus 17:1-7

1 Samuel 16:1-13

John 9: 1-49