March 15 - “The Lord Looks on the Heart”
The Lord Looks on the Heart
1 Samuel 16:1-13
15 March 2026
First Congregational Church UCC, Williamstown MA
Rev. Mary W. Nelson
We’re going to back up for a little context here before we jump in to this week’s reading from 1 Samuel. The downside of the lectionary is that these brief passages can float out there on their own and we can lose some of the bigger importance of the story if we’re not careful.
The Israelites are settled in the land of promise, and have been for several generations now. In that time they have spread out across the hills and have gained considerable territory, they’ve developed a system of self-governance involving judges who settle disputes among people, and priests who make sacrifices to God on the people’s behalf in order to keep the relationship alive between God and God’s people. And occasionally, someone arises from the priesthood who is recognized as a prophet, a person who speaks to the people on God’s behalf (not merely someone who speaks to God on the people’s behalf). The prophet role develops as a more direct go-between than a priest can be. Eli was this prophet, and he nurtures Samuel’s gift from childhood, so Samuel succeeds Eli after his death, becoming the great prophet for this particular time in the story of Israel.
The Israelites find themselves embattled with the other peoples in the land, primarily the Philistines but also the Ammonites and others. The Israelites see that each of these groups they are fighting with have a king, a single human leader with the authority to lead them into battle and also to govern them in other matters, and the Israelites say “Hey, that seems like a good idea; we want that, too. We want a king.” There’s a lot of back and forth here between God and the people, God says “You really don’t want a king, it’s not all unity and structure and good governance on the inside,” but the people insist that they really do want a king—and eventually, God relents and says “Fine! Have a king! But I’m telling you, it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be!”
God tells Samuel to go anoint a king, and picks someone who is exactly the kind of guy the people would want: Saul is young and tall and handsome, he comes from a wealthy family, he’s strong and devout and driven. Saul’s got all the outward characteristics necessary to win any high school popularity contest. Samuel anoints him king, Saul leads the Israelite army into battle against the Ammonites, and they win… but just barely. Because it turns out, Saul’s not actually a very good leader. He looks good on paper, but he’s immature and impulsive and a bully. Immediately the people start saying, “Who wanted this guy to be king? What were they thinking?” and for some years, Saul is a terrible, corrupt king, and there’s all this business with battles and deceit and abuses of power, and finally God says to Saul, “Look, go and attack the Amalekites, and utterly destroy them. Kill them all, do not even let their livestock live.” (We can get into why God wanted the Amalekites killed another time.) So Saul leads the Israelites into battle against the Amalekites, vanquishes them completely, but he keeps the good livestock for himself, and he keeps the Amalekite king alive, and he sets up a monument to himself in celebration of his victory. When Saul comes to Samuel and says “Okay, I did what God told me to do, I destroyed the Amalekites,” Samuel catches him in the lie. Saul plays it off like he had kept the livestock to make a sacrifice to God, and Samuel says, “God wanted your obedience more than God wanted your animal sacrifices. Now God says you aren’t the king anymore.” Samuel, ever obedient, kills the Amalekite king himself. Saul is rendered insignificant: God withdraws support from Saul and promises to replace him with another king. And Samuel, poor guy, is sad about the whole thing. He’s deeply grieved. It’s a complicated, multilayered grief. He’d borne witness to Saul’s many faults, but also knew that Saul had been exactly what the people wanted in the beginning. Saul had let them down, and Samuel, as God’s prophet to Israel, had been by Saul’s side the whole time, trying to steer him on a different path that Saul had no interest in following, and cleaning up Saul’s messes when things went awry.
That’s where our story picks up today. God says, “Why are you grieving over Saul? That guy was a bad king! Pick yourself up and let’s go find another one. This time in Bethlehem.” So Samuel, ever obedient, heads to Bethlehem and goes to the house of Jesse. He sees Jesse’s sons and thinks, “Oh yeah, this is promising!” But God cautions Samuel, “Don’t look on his outward appearance. Being tall and handsome is not a qualification for leadership. That’s not what’s going to make a good king.” And that’s when Samuel learns this key lesson: The Lord looks on the heart.
You’ve heard the rest of the story, seven sons parade before Samuel and God says “None of these guys are the next king,” so Samuel asks if Jesse has any other sons, and Jesse sends for his youngest son, who’s still out in the pasture tending the sheep. Nobody ever expects the youngest child to be the leader. He’s just a boy, and contrasted with his giant brothers, he’s boyish and small and easy to overlook. But he did have beautiful eyes and a healthy, sun-kissed complexion! And Samuel, too, was young when God called him, so he knows what can be possible when leadership potential is nurtured early. Samuel anoints the boy, David, then and there. Samuel leaves David in his father’s house to keep growing. Eventually, David ends up going to serve in Saul’s house as a musician, so Saul unwittingly raises up his successor, until the boy grows into his potential and Saul perceives that David is a rival and a threat to him. Eventually, David does become the king, and his reign becomes legendary.
Now, throughout the story of Samuel’s ministry, there is this theme of wisdom and insight, and the difference between what God sees and values versus what humans see and value. Here, in the story of David’s anointing, this theme is very in-your-face, and you don’t really have to know all that backstory to pick up the key insight that “The Lord looks on the heart,” and a person’s outward appearance is no indicator of their value, their calling, their abilities. But knowing this context adds depth to our insight as the story progresses, adding to the emotional weight of Samuel’s experience, illuminating God’s patience with the people and eagerness for Samuel to learn.
This story is also a reminder, almost an admonishment, not to rely on the surface judgments that humans so love to privilege when we are trying to discern God’s will. Looking good in a suit, or looking good on paper, is no indicator of one’s ability, or faithfulness, or calling. But we love a good stuffed suit, don’t we? We love to swap credentials and bona fides, to name-drop our schools or our family connections or our fame-adjacent fabulousness, but too often we intend to offer them as a possibility for connection with others, and end up wielding them to assert status over others instead. “I win, I know better, I have the answer.”
When it comes to our Behavioral Covenant, this story points us to the behavior of Active Listening, which we say we want to adopt but we so rarely put into practice. Our Covenant states: I believe that listening is critical for our work together. I believe that listening is both verbal and nonverbal. I will let the speaker finish their thought before developing a response, and I will ask clarifying questions when I am not clear. I will stay attentive to the topic at hand by refraining from making comments or raising questions which can shift the discussion.
Active Listening is one of those behaviors we think we do way more often than we actually do it. We learn the importance of listening from an early age, right? A kindergarten teacher or a parent today might remind a child to “put on your listening ears.” Ego, hubris, get in the way here: when I am not listening actively, I usually am pretty certain that I am [listening]. I’m a great listener! Let me tell you how great a listener I am!
Our Covenant holds up the intention of “listening to understand” rather than listening to formulate a response. I will let the speaker finish their thought before developing a response. Because you don’t actually know the point the other person is trying to make, even if you think you do, before they’ve made it. I will ask clarifying questions when I am not clear. In an environment where there is low trust, clarifying questions can feel like confrontation. Interrupting people, rebutting what you think they’re saying, do not help build trust. Genuine curiosity, real effort to understand fully another person’s perspective… when you make that effort, the Kingdom of God is among you.
Active Listening should be so easy, but it’s not. We are far better at noticing when others aren’t listening to us. When someone is not listening to me, I can tell: I feel diminished, dismissed, unseen. “No, that’s not what I meant, that’s not what I’m saying.” But take care, because ego and hubris can get in the way from this direction, too: sometimes when someone says they don’t feel like the other party is listening, it’s because the other party isn’t obeying them. Listening and obeying are two different things.
This story in 1 Samuel today illustrates not just that first impressions aren’t always correct, but that God’s eyes see more than our eyes do, and God’s discernment is greater than ours is. We must strive to “listen to understand” more than we strive to have the most answers or the fastest response time or the most thorough rebuttal. Active Listening is about developing and strengthening relationship with each other, trying to listen to the words behind the words, listening to what God may be speaking.
So we take context into account, keeping in mind not just the ideas our fellow church members are expressing, but also the context we know about them that gives rise to those ideas, and we recognize that there may be elements of that person’s story that we don’t yet know. We seek to understand each others’ perspectives, we show curiosity and care about who each other is and why they feel the way they do. We seek to learn from one another, to expand our thinking and scope, to entertain new ideas rather than retrenching old ones.
It’s this behavior that will help us grow as people, as Christians. And it’s this behavior that will grow our church. Charging in to claim we have all the answers won’t work (and, if you haven’t noticed, we tend to rehash the same answer-ideas again and again–clearly, they aren’t working, because they’re not taking effect!), and getting louder and more insistent about our own position won’t work either. We have to listen to one another, and we have to look past the surface we can see, into the heart of any matter. We have to listen as God listens, and look as God looks – not on the surface, but on the heart. When we listen to understand, we will know God’s Kingdom is near. Thanks be to God. Amen.
