The Little Things
1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41; Psalm 23
March 26, 2017
So often it really does come down to
the small details, the little things that mean a lot. I am notoriously lousy at
the little things. Ask anyone who has ever worked with me … and, while you’re
at it, lift up a prayer for Beth and every other administrator who has ever
worked with me! Oh, and, surely another one for Cheryl.
But seriously, you’ve heard about folks
who cannot see the forest for the trees? My challenge in life is the opposite:
I can see well beyond the forest, but I’m quite likely to smack my head up
against a tree that I never even noticed.
Still, even as I am rubbing the sore
spot on my forehead, I recognize the importance of the trees and of all of the
smaller things that make up the system that supports the tree that stands in
the forest that stands in mountain range that stands at the edge of the ocean.
The story of David, from beginning to
end, turns on the small things. It starts when God nudges Samuel to notice David’s
eyes – the little things lead to David’s anointing. It continues when David
picks up five smooth stones, and there is a straight line between the small
stone and the fall of the Philistine empire. David’s own fall from grace begins
with a small thing: a glance out the window where his eye catches sight of
Bathsheba.
The entire story turns on the little
things. That’s not unusual. Most of our lives turn on little things – a glance,
a moment, a choice, a distraction. The small things add up to huge ones. Every
crashing wave is made up of tiny drops of water. The cancer that devastates a
body begins with one cell mutation. The life you lead began with a single heart
beat.
The smallest unit of a community is one
individual. The smallest unit of a nation is a single citizen. The little
things matter.
With David’s five small, smooth stones
in mind, I’m going to mention five little things this morning. They don’t have
any great theological heft to them in and of themselves, but I think they
matter. I’m guessing that one or more of these will make you squirm just a bit
as you think of your own choices around them. I’m OK with your squirming,
because each of these small things is, in fact, something that I either
continue to wrestle with in my own life or have come to some resolution only
following some lengthy squirming.
The first one is simple – as simple as
it is hard: hang up and drive. No, seriously, do that. No call – and certainly no
text – is as important as the life of the pedestrian crossing the street in
front of you or the guy riding the scooter through the intersection whose red
light you missed because you were distracted.
Obviously, there were neither cell
phones nor scooters in scripture, but there is great emphasis on paying
attention, as the story of David’s anointing reminds us. God doesn’t exactly
tell Samuel to hang up and drive, but God all but says “shut up and listen.”
And, yeah, this one is personal. But
it’s way more than that: almost a third of all traffic crashes involve at least
one driver using a cell phone. The research on this is abundantly clear: it’s
not the hands holding a device, it’s the brain distracted by the conversation
that matters. The last two years have seen the biggest spike in traffic
fatalities in the United States in more than a half century. Traffic experts
are clear about the cause: it’s drivers on devices.
If you receive calls that are so
important that you can’t let it go to voicemail, then you need a driver.
Seriously. If the boss complains when you say, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t answer
immediately because I was driving,” give ‘em my number. I’ll refer them to my
sister.
The next one is also simple – and, of
course, a challenge. What’s for dinner? Or lunch? Or breakfast? Yes, our food
choices matter. They matter to our bodies, of course, but they also matter to
the wider world, indeed, to the planet, itself.
Food matters throughout scripture, and one
imagines that it played a significant roll in the celebration of David’s
anointing. Though their concerns were different from ours, scripture frequently
focuses on food choices, food preparation, and food justice.
The one personal change that any of us
can make that will have the largest impact on climate change is to cut back or
cut out consumption of beef. Moreover, how we think about our food not only
says something important about how we think about larger systems, the decisions
we make about food shape those systems. For example – one small example – take
the egg, and, please take the one that came from a cage-free chicken. Choosing
to buy cage free chicken eggs is not so much about the life experience of a
chicken – although who’s to say that the stardust that became me is more
important in the grand scheme of things than is the stardust that became the
chicken. No, the choice is about the agricultural system that so profoundly
separates us urban and suburban consumers from our rural neighbors that we have
completely forgotten that we are, in fact, bound together.
So, yes, what I’m saying is that the
entire phenomenon of Donald Trump can be explained by looking carefully at the
life of chickens. I’m not going to do that this morning, but if the whole point
is to remember that little things mean a lot, then we begin to see how social
change results from the accumulation of countless small choices.
Our “yes” to some things and “no” to
others matters. Which brings me to the third small thing: RSVP. Or, better, the
lack thereof. What I mean to ask is, whatever became of the RSVP? I am far from
alone in noticing – and mourning – its loss in the culture.
As one blogger noted a while back:
Prepare thine hair shirt as penance: Lizzie Post, the
great-great granddaughter of the most correctly etiquetted person in the
history of the world has decreed that "We are worse at RSVP-ing than we
have ever been," and this critical mass of incompetence is ruining
everything.[1]
I don’t know if it ruins everything,
but it sure does make it hard to plan for food! From my own internal struggles
with this, I’m convinced that our failure to respond and make commitments to
invitations is symptomatic of a culture that is so awash in choices that we’ve
become overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. We so fear committing to one
thing because something better might come along that we wind up stuck.
The story of the anointing of David
would have been short and pointless if the elders of Bethlehem had ignored
Samuel’s invitation to conversation because they hoped a better invite might be
coming. Also, as I said, it makes it hard to plan for food.
Our inability or unwillingness to say
“yes” or “no” bleeds into a fourth small thing: lack of civic engagement. We,
the citizens in the great democratic experiment of the United States, have too
often become passive consumers rather than active participants in the civic
arena. Progressives and other Democrats can complain about last fall’s election
outcome until the cows come home, but the truth is, when more than 40 percent
of eligible voters don’t bother to cast ballots the problem lies not so much
with an archaic electoral system as it does with a systemic failure to engage.
This is a huge issue, so it might seem
out of place in a list of little things, but really, on an individual level, it
is a small thing: as small as a post card or a text or a call to a public
official.
Samuel could have ignored God and
anointed the first of Jesse’s sons. After all, he was a strapping,
good-looking, strong lad who looked the part of king. Samuel could have said,
“I vote for you,” and then just gone home to tend to his own garden and
complain about the new king.
Voting, of course, is the lowest level
of engagement. Sitting on the sidelines complaining about the officials is for
fans at a ballgame. If you are bothered by policy decisions of local, state, or
federal officials, then get out of the stands and into the game.
The opportunities are endless, which,
no doubt, is part of the challenge. When there are so many issues, how do I
decide where to put my energy?
Well, what do you feel most passionate
about? What cause or issue grieves you the most? Angers you the most? Or most
makes your heart sing when things go well? Give your energy there. It’s a big
country. There are plenty of other voices for other concerns, but the country
desperately needs every one of our passionate voices.
The fifth small stone may seem like the
least significant in a list of little things, but it might just be the stone
that brings down the giant. Create beauty and choose joy. That’s it. That’s the
small thing: celebrate the small things.
In Leonard Wolf’s memoir of the war
years he writes,
One of the most horrible things at that time was to listen on
the wireless to the speeches of Hitler—the savage and insane ravings of a
vindictive underdog who suddenly saw himself to be all-powerful. We were in
Rodmell during the late summer of 1939, and I used to listen to those ranting,
raving speeches. One afternoon I was planting in the orchard under an
apple-tree iris reticulata, those lovely violet flowers… Suddenly I heard
Virginia’s voice calling to me from the sitting room window: “Hitler is making
a speech.” I shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be
flowering long after he is dead.”
We cannot choose the time we are given,
but we can choose what to do with it. God said to Samuel, “How long are you
going to sit there grieving the old king? Get up and get going!”
We do not get to choose so many of the
things that happen around us or to us, but we always get to choose how to
respond. If the times are ugly, create small beauty and celebrate it. It’s a
little thing, but little things mean a lot.
These are five small stones that I
carry around, that I wrestle with, that sometimes weigh upon me but that, at other
times, remind me and inspire me. Each of them, ultimately, is about making a
choice: to what will I pay attention? What will I consume? To what will I
commit? How shall I engage the wider world? What attitude will I bring to the
decisions, the commitments, the engagements, the beauty I choose?
This morning, I invite you, in a time
of prayerful quiet, to think about the small stones you carry. Which ones are
like a pebble in your shoe, that irritate you, that hobble you, that you need
to get rid of? Which ones are like a reminder that you carry in your pocket, a
touchstone that, when you feel its presence, inspires you to act? What are the
little things that mean a lot in your life?
posted by David Ensign at
9:00 AM
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