Not only David, You, too, are Anointed
1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
A few days ago, I received a video clip about a famous French fortune teller and seer. A French journalist went to interview him, and this is what transpired:
Journalist: Sir, is it true that you can predict the things that will happen in the future?
Seer: Yes, Sir, I can predict the future with 100% accuracy.
Journalist: The journalist gave him a dirty slap and asked him: did you see this slap coming?
Seer: writhing in pain, the seer did not respond.
Quite often, it is difficult to understand God’s doings because we expect him to carry out his activities in spectacular and extraordinary ways. Even in our twenty-first century, the spectacular and extraordinary is still very attractive; more attractive than the ordinary. Unfortunately, some go to any lengths to prove that they are not ordinary people!
On the contrary, today, God answers the question of how God chooses human beings to work for him and confers identities on his children in an ordinary way. Instead of an elaborate celebration, exact vision, and description of his choice, God meets human beings in a human way, the ordinary way, through discernment.
The story of our first reading shows this: armed with his anointing oil and God’s mandate to provide a substitute for Saul, Samuel goes to the house of Jesse in search of the Lord’s choice to anoint him king over Israel.
On seeing Eliab, Jesse’s firstborn, his comeliness and height, prophetic eclipse takes place, Samuel fails to see clearly the person to anoint: the physical appearance of Eliab beclouds Samuel’s prophetic vision. God intervenes to redirect Samuel: “[God said]: ‘Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.”
Even today, tall men and women are sought after as people specially endowed. Handsomeness and height constitute human measures of extraordinariness. Lots of short people make up for their height deficiency through the use of high-hill shoes and marriage to tall men, in the case of ladies.
The human heart, which every human being possesses, without regard to height and handsomeness, is God’s yardstick, not extraordinary appearances, in the determination for the conferment of identity as God’s elect. A human being is not reducible to appearances, but the contents of the human heart determine human destiny. Possessing the right heart, God instructs Samuel to anoint David as King over Israel: “Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anointed David in the presence of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David.” In fact, the “spirit of the Lord” is the sign of belonging to the Lord, a sign of identity and destiny as a child of God.
In the case of David, God chooses whomever he wishes to make them whatever he plans for them. As a matter of fact, Samuel and Jesse put everything in suspense to await the arrival of David from shepherding his Father’s flock before Samuel anoints him King of Israel. Indeed, God finds us wherever we are and waits for us to arrive to take up the mission he has for us.
The Gospel of this Sunday talks of how self-interest or self-importance blinds us from acknowledging God’s activities among human beings for lack of faith – the story of the man-born-blind.
While our first reading shows Samuel’s ability to hear God telling him about the rejection of Eliab in favor of David, the Pharisees, in our Gospel, are adamant to the available testimonies about the Son of God. Accepting the testimony of the man-born-blind means, for them, surrendering their importance or “extraordinariness” in the Jewish community: lies and denial of the truth is their option.
Three characters dominate our Gospel reading today: Jesus, the man-born-blind and the Pharisees. First, the healing of the man-born-blind raises an identity and faith debate. Second, the Pharisees debate the authenticity of the miracle vis-à-vis the identity of the personality of Jesus, whom they consider a sinner for not respecting the Sabbath. The man-born-blind turns protagonist and proponent of the prophetic identity of Jesus Christ. For the man-born-blind, he testifies against all odds that only prophets heal, not sinners. Third, Jesus, on his part, facilitates the revelation of his identity as the “light of the world,” through the healing of a man-born-blind.
Unlike Samuel, who listens and follows through with God’s instructions to find the Lord’s anointed, the Pharisees in today’s Gospel build up arguments to refute the man-born-blind’s testimonies about Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that the magnanimity of God is evident in the restoration of sight to the man-born-blind, an enabling grace for the discovery of God to eliminate the unbelief and darkness of the Pharisees, they deny, all through the Gospel reading, the Prophetic and Messianic identity of Jesus. The man-born-blind eventually is the only believer who worships Christ as God at the end of today’s Gospel.
Aren’t we most of the times like the Pharisees defending lies to protect our image, rather than behave like the man-born-blind to stand up in the defense of the known through that our experiences support? We all have little miracles of God in our lives despite our sinfulness, yet we claim to be better than others, like the Pharisees!
The story of the Gospel peaked with the Pharisees’ claim that they are not blind, while Jesus asserts their spiritual blindness. The lesson, however, from our readings, is the recognition of God in all occurrences. To believe a testimony of a man-born-blind, in a culture that those who should know better impute sinfulness to Jesus in defense of their self-importance challenges the morality of leaders in every generation. It pertuates the propensity of the powerful to lie and the proclivity of the little ones to testify to truth. The special people of the day who claim exclusive access to God, the Pharisees, fail to recognize Jesus among them because of his ordinariness. The self-righteousness of the Pharisees blinds them to the works of God; hence, their inability to recognize God in the healing of the man-born-blind.
Unfortunately, you and I, even today, we often contest the message of salvation and the teachings of the Church, just like the Pharisees. We often forget the miracles of our lives as occasions to testify to the blessings of God in our lives, unlike the man-born-blind who stands his grounds against the Pharisees to defend the Messiahship of Jesus Christ.
The good news is, according to Paul in the second reading, Jesus Christ’s offer of a new identity to humanity as his sons and daughters through the death and resurrection of Christ. The era of darkness and sinfulness is over with. We are now in the kingdom of light and righteousness. If we believe what Paul says, it follows that each one of us is God’s medium for the manifestation of his greatness and love. We have all become God’s channels of graces, blessings, and righteousness. In other words, the extraordinary manifestations of God now go through ordinary ways of encountering God; goodness and love become common places among human beings because we are all God’s children. There is no longer any need to wait for the extraordinary; the everyday lives of all of us become occasions for encountering God.
Above all else, our second reading teaches that there are no more prophets, kings, and Pharisees. There is only the children of God, the new light of the world. Our baptism makes us all prophets, kings, and priests. This new identity we possess, thanks to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the greatest gift that we have from God. What is more, only us can revoke it, our irrevocable Christian Identity.
In the moments of our lives, when we allow appearances to becloud our Christian judgment like Samuel in the first reading, we should remember the importance of the “heart” and not “appearances.” The times when we consider ourselves superior to others, and think that God only communicates through superior people and not inferior people, let us remember that we are all Children of God, without exception. When we are tempted to criticize others because corruption and sins of all kinds pervade our society, let us remember that we are the light of the world, and when we do the things that are expected of us as Christians, things will be better; so, the other is not the problem but me, because the other cannot be who he or she should be, unless I become who I ought to be – a Christian, a child of God through my actions.
Assignment for the Week:
Encourage your partner in sin that conversion is possible!