F. Harry Daniel
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: November 26, 2006

"Searching for One Thing and Finding Another"

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Neither Saul nor the field hand in Jesus’ parable were looking for what they found. [See Scripture Readings.] Saul was searching for lost animals; the field hand was doing his job. Saul found a kingdom; the field hand a treasure. They were not looking for it. Saul was searching for one thing. Single-minded, persistent, dedicated. What happened was outside the bounds of everyday experience. Broke expectations and interrupted the ordinary. In the seeking and searching something else was found. It was not earned or labored for. It was something found that was a gift and had a profound impact on Saul and the field hand. Set life in a new context, gave life a new vision, generated new meaning, and passion and energy.

Scripture Readings
Matthew 13:44
1 Samuel 9:1-21

Matthew 13:44
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

1 Samuel 9:1-21
There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish son of Abiel son of Zeror son of Becorath son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. He had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.

Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, had strayed. So Kish said to his son Saul, "Take one of the boys with you; go and look for the donkeys." He passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then he passed through the land of Benjamin, but they did not find them.

When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the boy who was with him, "Let us turn back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and worry about us." But he said to him, "There is a man of God in this town; he is a man held in honor. Whatever he says always comes true. Let us go there now; perhaps he will tell us about the journey on which we have set out."

Then Saul replied to the boy, "But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What have we?"

The boy answered Saul again, "Here, I have with me a quarter-shekel of silver; I will give it to the man of God, to tell us our way." (Formerly in Israel, anyone who went to inquire of God would say, "Come, let us go to the seer"; for the one who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.)

Saul said to the boy, "Good; come, let us go." So they went to the town where the man of God was. As they went up the hill to the town, they met some girls coming out to draw water, and said to them, "Is the seer here?"

They answered, "Yes, there he is just ahead of you. Hurry; he has come just now to the town, because the people have a sacrifice today at the shrine. As soon as you enter the town, you will find him, before he goes up to the shrine to eat. For the people will not eat until he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterwards those eat who are invited. Now go up, for you will meet him immediately." So they went up to the town. As they were entering the town, they saw Samuel coming out towards them on his way up to the shrine.

Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: "Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the suffering of my people, because their outcry has come to me." When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, "Here is the man of whom I spoke to you. He it is who shall rule over my people."

Then Saul approached Samuel inside the gate, and said, "Tell me, please, where is the house of the seer?"

Samuel answered Saul, "I am the seer; go up before me to the shrine, for today you shall eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, give no further thought to them, for they have been found. And on whom is all Israel’s desire fixed, if not on you and on all your ancestral house?"

Saul answered, "I am only a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel, and my family is the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin. Why then have you spoken to me in this way?" (NRSV)

At first glance the category of luck or accident seems to play a major part: the animals are lost by misfortune, the travelers fortuitously stop within sight of city of an honored seer, and the finding of an appropriate gift. Behind all the apparently accidental occurrences, we are led to suspect that a higher purpose is working itself out. There is a momentous reality that underlies seemingly trivial circumstance. Something else is being worked out here other than Saul's agenda. He undergoes a process of discovery that leads him to an awareness of God's agenda, to the hands of providence.

God speaks to Samuel and lays out the divine resolve. Saul is to be anointed for a task. The whole process occurs because of the goodness of God. It takes Saul a while to see, to comprehend. He comes to Samuel with his mind set on animals; God will set Saul's mind on something else that is new and fulfills a role in God's grand design for the creation. We know God's way will be implemented powerfully and with determination. This is larger than lost animals, Saul or Samuel. God works in the historical process. As a result Saul finds himself in a new reality; he is filled with energy and freedom beyond himself. The power of God works newness in the face of established structure, order, and assumptions.

There is a purpose beyond Saul's own self. It is a total revisioning of the world in a way that shatters old perceptions, invites new commitments, and requires new actions. Saul has become available for God's power and purpose in remarkable ways. He is moved by God out beyond his own hopes, goals, agendas toward a larger vision. It is not business as usual, or a return to what is normal. It is a being turned towards God's newness with inexplicable freedom and power.

Pope John XXIII was chosen through a carefully managed bureaucratic process (interim) but was of another heart and mind. He was available to the spirit and was led in astonishing directions (objectionable to some). For John the world was not closed and settled, but opened up by God.

Saul’s story encourages us to sit a little loose to our own agendas in a way that is freeing. Presbyterians are noted for persistence. But because of that persistence we face a peculiar danger: searching for one thing, we may miss finding that something else! That is the problem with focusing on something important to us.

What is very clear in Saul's story is that God is in that other finding. We are looking at providence: that hidden, patient, sovereign working of God's overriding purpose behind the will and choice of human beings. We may think it is our good fortune and our shrewd human strategies. Thinking that we are in the right place at right time implies we are in charge, we have the power. But around the process hovers another purpose, another presence. God's working surfaces at many places: searching for one thing, we find another. This hidden caring of God is not always easy to see. Notice in Saul's story the hidden purpose that is relentless yet beyond anyone's management or manipulation. Providence is about decisive divine presence.

A similar theme occurs in J.R.R. Tolkien's great trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In volume one, The Fellowship of the Ring, the following conversation takes place between Frodo who possessed the corrupting ring and Gandalf the wizard, they are discussing how to destroy the ring. Frodo speaks:

"…..To have it destroyed. I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?"
"Such questions cannot be answered," said Gandalf, "You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."
"But I have so little of any of these things!"¹

A few pages earlier Frodo had bemoaned the fact that the times were bad. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."² Frodo discovers that he is part of a larger vision. His gifts and talents are not his; they are God’s to be used for a larger, fuller purpose. Frodo was looking for one thing, and found for another.

That is true for us. God is at work to give us a better future than we can create or initiate for ourselves. There is more at work in us than can be explained in any conventional way. That more is God's hidden caring providence. This is more than simply being illuminated, this is about being transformed.

The best things, experiences, people befall us. The objects we love have much to do with who we are, yet our loves are not self-made. While we were searching for one thing, they crossed our path. We rarely chose them, they were compelling. That is true of the best things in life. We are all part of a story we do not create.

Perhaps we ought to stop and wait at times and look around us and see when we are searching for one thing we can find another. Could Advent and Christmas be such a time? They could perhaps.

We are all vulnerable, we are all limited by our physical conditions, our emotional needs, and our proneness to sin. No person loves or does any good without the help of God. Whatever acts of kindness or virtue we perform, whatever strengths or happiness we have, whatever our ability to work well and love well, God gives.

We have freedom to make plans and act them out, to live our own life. God has freedom too, to be God: to place before us as we search that other, that something else; to call us back to God's will only by means of which can we find human fulfillment. In our sitting down and our rising up, our comings and goings, God offers that something else. God is here, reliable, working, calling, enticing.

There are lots of futilitarians in the world. Saul’s story, our story says to them: each day brings opportunities that a faithful boldness may grasp if in searching for one thing, it finds another.

God doesn't ask us to run the universe. God will do that. God asks us to serve God. We always behave as if we were called upon to make the truth triumph, whereas we are called upon only to struggle for it. God who can make the truth triumph has a special place for our own acts of loyal service, if we can see that something else. That seeing something else will require of us risk, learning, leaps of faith. Saul could have said "I am only searching for lost animals!" If the best things befall us, can we place ourselves in a setting, a situation where that can happen? More often than not it is another human being who aids us in the seeing.

We are called to live large, not small; our lives are not confined to searching for one thing. God is always opening new doors, providing new vistas. Our task is to trust God’s providence even when it cannot be directly seen. It is like an artist who takes a white canvas and slowly but surely fills it with color and meaning, and slowly, and subtly the image gradually appears, the picture sharpens, until one marvels that it is filled with such life and meaning.

Evaluating existence solely on the basis of its present state is unproductive, even unrealistic. It will change and unless we can understand its direction and possibilities, it will change without the guidance of vision. God is not satisfied with that. Life is more than searching for lost animals. God sends us something else helping us to see existence against the backdrop of possibilities God gives, and we catch a glimpse of the loving power behind the world.

God's presence may be in the slight nudging of the process, the murmured word in a human ear that can direct a life to the service of humanity. God inspires, but doe not force. God in some gentle, unobtrusive way, whispers God's desire to human beings. Then we read the world as full of the purposes of God.

We are all searching, can we see that something else? It may be the very thing that crowns life. As we approach the holidays, perhaps it is a good time to discover what Saul discovered. What are you searching for...? Searching for one thing, can you see that other….

^{__________________________________ 1} J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 94-95.
² Ibid, 82.