Will You Accept This Rose - A Sermon for October 19 2025
I hope you have enjoyed hearing the stories
from the narrative lectionary this fall.
From creation to the call of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
to the call of Moses,
to the freeing of the slaves,
to God providing Manna and quail,
to the call of Samuel,
God speaks, and it happens.
God keeps God’s promises.
God brings order and beauty out of chaos.
These great stories of our faith continue to speak to us.
God’s Word is alive.
We tend to separate the stories in the bible,
but together,
this is the story of God,
God’s people,
God’s work in the world,
and how God’s Word speaks into our own stories.
Today the story continues with God calling David,
but a little review and context first.
Last week, we heard about God calling Samuel
to prophesy against Eli and his sons,
priests at Shiloh,
because of the blasphemy of the sons.
The people needed to hear God’s Word,
and they weren’t,
so God provided through Samuel.
God keeps God’s promises.
God promised to punish the house of Eli forever.
Eli’s sons were killed in battle
and the Philistines took the ark of the covenant.
When Eli heard about it,
he fell over and died.
Eli’s priestly dynasty ended just as promised.
After this military defeat,
and having the ark of the covenant
taken by the Philistines,
Samuel called the people to return to God
and to forsake all other gods.
Samuel served as judge over Israel,
administering justice all his life.
But when Samuel became old,
he made his sons judges over Israel.
Big mistake.
It’s funny how so many biblical characters
followed in their father’s footsteps,
to a fault.
You may recall that Isaac told his wife Rebekah
to pretend to be his sister so he wouldn’t be killed. Isaac’s father Abraham did the exact same thing.
It didn’t exactly work out well for them.
Eli wasn’t Samuel’s father,
but he was a father figure.
Eli’s sons were priests and neglected their priestly duties.
They were punished.
Then Samuel’s sons,
Joel and Abijah, were serving as judges
and neglected those duties,
taking bribes and perverting justice.
You’d think Samuel would have learned
from Eli’s mistakes.
Some of us have to learn the hard way.
Anyhow, the people demanded a king.
They want to be like other nations.
Be careful what you ask for,
because you might just get it.
Samuel objected to the call for a king,
but God spoke to Samuel;
“Listen to the voice of the people
in all that they say to you;
for they have not rejected you,
but they have rejected me
from being king over them.”
Saul was anointed their first king.
He was the tallest and handsomest in the land
We assume that to be signs of God’s favour.
My apologies to all you tall and handsome men out there,
but that’s not how God works.
(Invite scripture reader forward)
Without getting into it,
Saul’s kingship wasn’t exactly a success.
Saul turned away from God.
God was sorry he made Saul king over Israel,
and Saul was brought down from his throne.
Our God is a God of reversal:
who tears the tyrant from his throne
and lifts up the lowly.
So let us enter the story,
let us open our hearts to God’s Word
to hear what God is saying to us, today.
First Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
A reading from 1 Samuel.
1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do, and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” 4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 He said, “Peaceably. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely his anointed is now before the Lord.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 11 Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him, for this is the one.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
Word of God, word of life.
Thanks be to God.
I don’t know about you,
but I hear this story of these handsome,
young men, passing before Samuel
like models on the runway,
waiting to be judged,
and I see in my mind
the bachelor or bachelorette TV shows.
Who will get the rose?
Which one will be chosen to be wed
to the kingdom of Israel and be her king?
Have you ever watched these reality shows;
the Bachelor or Bachelorette?
I watched a season many, many years ago,
and never again!
The Bachelor is a show about a man
who dates 25 women at the same time.
The Bachelor gives a rose to the chosen women,
if you don’t get the rose,
you’re eliminated.
The bachelor eliminates them,
one by one,
so he can choose just one woman
and propose monogamous marriage.
The ironic thing is the audience for this TV show
is, generally, a bunch of women
dreaming about a man
dating 25 women at the same time:
women who would lose their mind
if they found out their actual man
was dating 25 women at the same time!
I wont name names, but a couple women in my household
are tuning in to a similar reality TV show these days:
“Love is Blind”.
It is kinda like the bachelor and bachelorette,
strangers date each other,
except they don’t get to look at eachother.
The idea is that they fall in love by the heart,
and only meet face to face
after they are engaged to be wed.
Look not on the appearance,
but on the heart.
I’m sorry!
How can you agree to marry someone
before you even see their face???
human love doesn’t work that way.
As these sons of Jesse come parading by
for a king to be chosen,
like the Bachelor, bible edition:
We hear the words:
“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
Like Susan Boyle on Britain’s God Talent,
or a love match on Love is Blind:
God says to Samuel,
Don’t look at the appearance,
but look at the heart.
God can do this,
humans struggle.
All our choices are made with mixed motives.
The eyes of the heart
and the eyes of lust, greed, and shame
don’t often see eye to eye.
Our judgment is flawed,
we prefer that which we find physically attractive.
We allow our choices to be clouded this way.
But even when our choices go against God’s will,
God doesn’t abandon us.
God does a new thing,
God finds a new way
amidst our good choices and our bad.
You see David was the last son of Jesse to be brought out.
In ancient times,
it was the oldest son that mattered most.
David was the youngest child;
a small, ruddy shepherd,
God didn’t chose the tallest son.
God didn’t choose the handsomest son.
This is not King Saul 2.0
This one is overflowing with God’s Spirit.
But even the motives in choosing David as king
seem to be mixed.
Shortly after Samuel chooses David,
we hear that David,
though ruddy like Esau,
Jacob’s older, redder and hairier brother,
also has beautiful eyes and is handsome.
He was not chosen for his looks,
but those writing about him say otherwise.
Even the one God chooses by the heart,
the people chose to judge on appearance;
ruddy and handsome or not.
David was a man of mixed motives.
On the one hand, he was a shepherd.
Shepherds by nature live for their sheep.
They get dirty for their sheep.
They have a lowly place in society for their sheep.
The shepherd knows the sheep,
They make them lie down in green pastures.
they lead them beside still waters
and guide them along right paths.
That’s leadership.
All the shepherd does is for the good of the sheep.
David has the character of a shepherd,
which is godly character.
That’s why he was chosen.
And we can see that God prepared David to serve.
He fought the bear and the lion:
preparation for battle with Goliath.
But as important as he is to the nation of Israel,
as much as he plays a defining role for them
and for us,
David was a sinner with mixed motives.
He had grace filled moments,
like showing mercy to Saul
after years of Saul trying to kill him,
not once but twice.
But then there’s David having Uriah killed
so that he could have Bathsheba for himself.
The eyes of faith and eyes of lust
don’t see eye to eye.
The Psalm we used for our confession today
is the penitential Psalm of David
written after the prophet Nathan
called him out on these sins.
David was not perfect,
and as God warned,
no king would be.
Israel was called and committed in covenant
to Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and all your mind
and all your soul
and all your strength.
This means they cannot have primary allegiance
to an earthly ruler.
No earthly ruler can truly rule
according to God’s steadfast justice,
mercy and peace.
We ought to remember this as we vote tomorrow:
The people who had a covenant with God
wanted an earthly ruler,
and though it was a rejection of God,
God allowed it,
and God worked through it.
Here’s where we can look to David:
David served by the grace of God.
Even in his times of shame and disgrace,
he returned to God.
The words of David’s Psalm 51 are our words.
Create in me a clean heart, O God
and renew a right spirit within me
Cast me not away from your presence
and take not your Holy Spirit from me
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.
God looks at your heart.
What does your heart look like?
God looks at your heart.
People look at your appearance,
your actions and your words.
How do your actions and words
reflect your heart?
Like Israel, like David and Samuel,
our motives are mixed.
We want to love and serve our God above all else,
but we often find our primary allegiance elsewhere.
The eyes of our hearts are conflicted
with Faith and Doubt
Honour and Pride
Joy and Shame
Trust and fear,
The decisions that we make
and those decisions made for us
Can leave our hearts broken,
dirty,
empty.
God can and will cleanse our hearts.
That happens here,
that happens at God’s table.
God takes what is broken and filthy in our hearts
and cleans them,
mends them,
strengthens them.
You don’t need to have it all together
before coming to the table.
Our God welcomes you,
just as you are.
Our lives are not limited to our poor decisions.
God can bring out good news
from our bad decisions.
It was a poor decision for Israel to ask for a king.
But, from the house of king David,
generations later,
God came to us in Jesus of Nazareth,
born in Bethlehem
from the house of Jesse.
The people rejected God by calling for a king,
and from this king’s line,
the rejected God brings about salvation for all people,
through the rejected King, Jesus the Christ.
The people judged Jesus worthy of death,
but Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,
Jesus is the rose
growing from the stump of Jesse,
the rose trampled upon,
but blooming to eternal life.
Now Jesus, the rose e’er blooming, chooses you.
Will you accept this rose?
Will you remain in relationship
with the One who will raise you up?
You can say no.
You can reject God,
you can reject the Rose.
But trust that God wont reject you,
you wont be eliminated,
you wont be cast aside,
for you are chosen.
Jesus accepts you, just as you are.
God judges not on the appearance,
for in God’s eyes all God makes is lovable.
God looks to your heart,
and even with your own mixed motives,
Jesus welcomes you with arms wide open.
Will you accept this rose?
May you be yourself.
Be the you God made you to be,
become the child of God you are becoming,
for you are chosen just as you are.
May your appearance and actions
be a reflection of your faithful heart,
cleansed by God.
May you take the Rose,
listen for God’s voice,
and mixed motives and all,
search for the grace-filled moments.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
