lock-attribute-key="content" data-empty="false" data-title="Paragraph" data-type="core/paragraph" data-block="bd44565a-d99e-4eae-903d-6ce731a74763" aria-label="Block: Paragraph" id="block-bd44565a-d99e-4eae-903d-6ce731a74763" aria-readonly="false" aria-multiline="true" role="document">Readings for Fourth Sunday of Lent: 1st Samuel 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Psalm 23: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41
If you have been following the news the past couple of weeks, you know that the world seems once again to be sliding toward catastrophe. The bombing of Iran by the United States and Israel represents a case in point.
Reports describe cities under bombardment and civilians trapped beneath collapsing buildings. On the first day of the conflict alone, a missile strike destroyed a girls' elementary school, killing scores of children.
Yet amid such horrors, political leaders insist that these acts defend freedom, protect civilization, and even fulfill God's purposes. Meanwhile a powerful current within contemporary Christianity-- especially among right-wing interpreters of the Bible-- assures us that geopolitical violence somehow fits within the divine plan.
None of this is new. For centuries religion has been used to sanctify empire and to bless the ambitions of the powerful. The prophets of Israel criticized this. Jesus excoriated it too.
And the readings for this Fourth Sunday of Lent expose the pattern with remarkable clarity. Taken together, they ask and answer a disturbing question: who actually sees the truth of history-- the powerful who claim to interpret God's will, or the people pushed to the margins of society?
The answer in today's readings is that the marginalized see more clearly than the powerful.
Unlikely Choice of David
The first reading from First Samuel tells the familiar story of the prophet Samuel searching for Israel's next king. Samuel arrives at the house of Jesse and begins inspecting the man's sons. The eldest looks strong and impressive. Surely this must be the Lord's anointed. But God interrupts Samuel's expectations with a startling correction: "Not as man sees does God see. Man looks at appearances, but the Lord looks into the heart."
One after another the impressive candidates pass before Samuel and are rejected. Finally, Samuel asks whether there are any more sons. Jesse answers almost as an afterthought: "There is still the youngest, who is tending the sheep." In other words, the boy so insignificant that no one even thought to invite him. Yet it is precisely this overlooked shepherd-- David-- whom God chooses.
Biblical scholars have long recognized something profoundly political in this story. Again and again the biblical narrative reveals a God who acts from below rather than from the centers of power. The decisive figures in salvation history are rarely kings or priests or generals.
Instead, they are slaves in Egypt, shepherds in Bethlehem, fishermen in Galilee, a construction worker from Nazareth. The logic of empire assumes that leadership belongs naturally to those who are wealthy, impressive, and already powerful. The Bible insists on the opposite: God's future consistently begins among those whom society overlooks.
Lord & Shepherds
Psalm 23 deepens this theme. "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want." We often hear those words as gentle religious poetry. Yet in the ancient world they carried a quiet political edge.
Kings throughout the Near East loved to describe themselves as shepherds of their people. Pharaoh was a shepherd. Babylon's emperor was a shepherd. Caesar claimed to shepherd the Roman world. But the psalm rejects that claim. The psalmist does not say that the king is my shepherd or that the empire guarantees my security. Instead, he says that the Lord alone is shepherd. The source of life, protection, and abundance is not the machinery of power.
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