Picked Last

Have you ever been picked last?

Playground pick'em has been a right of passage for generations. Two leaders are chosen, and these leaders look at the mass of kids blobbed together, arms raised, begging to be picked for this or that team. And, inevitably, there has always been one or two kids who know they are going to be picked last. One of them might not even be picked at all; he or she will just be relegated to whichever team would have had the last pick.

Sometimes, it gets down to these last few kids, and an argument breaks out - not about who gets who, but about who has to take who. "I'll take Sally this time if you take Joe. I had to take Joe last time." It can be humiliating...especially if you happen to be Sally or Joe. 

(This is why, by the way, I never pick team captains when I have to divide a class of students.) 

A lot of us imagine God's Kingdom to be a lot like this schoolyard pick. We know that He says He has a place for us, but we worry that that place might be all the way out somewhere near the right field fence, somewhere where we, who are picked last, are never going to see any real action, never going to be a meaningful part of the game. 

But remember, Jesus understands what it's like to be picked last. There was a moment in His life when it came down to just two men remaining, two men standing in front of the crowds. There was Jesus, of course...and there was Barabbas. And the entire crowd, in a moment of stunning rejection and humiliation, starting shouting Barabbas's name. 

No, you have to take Jesus. I don't care what you do with Him. We don't want Him.

He felt the sting of all of that. 

And He's not about to do that to you. 

God chose you first. Before the beginning of the world, He chose you. He knew that the world, His world, was going to need one of you, and He chose you by design. He knit together every part of your being so that He could love you just the way you are. 

Jesus chose you first. When He tells you that there's a place at the table for you, He means it. This table. Not under the table, like the woman in the Gospel story. Not next to the table, where a servant might be. There is a seat at the table for you; it's got your name on it already. First. Before you even get there. Before you even come. 

Not as the last chosen, but as the first welcomed. This is the Table of Christ. 

Set for you by Someone who knows what it's like to be picked...not even last, but not at all. He chose you first. And you're welcome here. 

God of Mercy

If the abandoned restaurants in my town have any lesson to teach us, it's that one place is not as good as any other for a Rally's (or a Firehouse Subs or a Long John Silver's or a....). It doesn't matter how much the people like your food; if it's not easy to get into and out of your location, they aren't coming. 

And if house-hunting for my grandmother has taught me anything, it's that one neighborhood is not just as good as any other. Sometimes, the houses are too close together. Other times, the association fees are too high. In other cases, maybe there's a history of crime somewhere. 

As they say, location, location, location. 

Given this truth, where do you think might be the best place to build the Temple of the Lord?

In Jerusalem, of course. Duh. But that's the answer we give in hindsight, already knowing where the Temple of the Lord was built; the people of Israel had to think about this a little bit more critically.

Many years before Israel even started gathering the gold and bronze, the dust and clay to build the Temple, there was a plague. Of course there was a plague; it seems there was always a plague in Israel. But in this particular plague, there was a spot where the plague stopped. David rushed to get to where the Lord's angel of death put his sword away. He sped to a place between the plague and the people and there, he built an altar and offered a sacrifice to the Lord. 

The Bible tells us that on that very piece of ground, the plague stopped. Not one more Israelite died. 

And, the Bible tells us, it was on that very piece of ground that the first Temple was built. 

Of course it was. Because what better place is there to build the House of the Lord, the Temple, the place of worship...than the place where the Lord's anger stops and His mercy begins?

God of Delight

Why do you think God saved you?

Sometimes, when I'm reading the Old Testament, the words of Moses jump out at me. Over and over again during the Exodus, Moses keeps pleading with God not to destroy His people because, Moses says, if He does, then the whole rest of the world is going to talk about how God wasn't even powerful enough to save His own people and how He let His wrath get the best of Him. No, says Moses, it's better that God keep putting up with His people so that no one thinks less of Him, so that His reputation can stay intact. So maybe, I think, God saves me because He's concerned about His reputation - I mean, if the Lord of all Creation can't save one measly person like me, how all-powerful can He really be? 

Other times, I think about messages I have heard throughout my life in the church. Messages like, you exist for God's glory. And so I start to think that perhaps God has saved me because I am supposed to somehow bring Him glory. Something about me is supposed to bring glory to Him, and I can't do that if He lets me die. So He saves me for His own glory. 

We just finished up Easter week, and sometimes, I think about the sacrifice of Jesus. Such an extreme thing, such a dramatic thing. God's only Son, coming to live in flesh and die a horrible, excruciating death. It would be terrible if all of that was in vain. So sometimes, I think that God saves me because He's already paid for it; it'd be a shame (an even greater shame) for the Cross to go to waste. 

Then, I read in 2 Samuel the real truth about things. Not that there might not be a nugget of truth in each of these ideas, but the heart of the matter is right there in one of David's victory songs. The king sings, "He led me out onto a broad plain; He delivered me because of His delight in me." 

And there it is. 

God has saved me because He delights in me. Because, if we were to use another term, He loves me. 

The same is true for you. God has saved you because He delights in you. 

God Speaks Bluntly

Do you ever have moments in your life when things are going poorly, and you're sure that God is mad at you? That He's disappointed in something you've done or someone you've become? 

We spend so much of our time looking at the unwelcome circumstances in our lives, understanding them as judgment, then digging through them to find the smallest little bit of a hint as to what we've done wrong. If we're being honest, though, most of us have no shortage of a list of things we've done wrong. We can immediately bring them to mind - big, small, things everyone noticed, things no one noticed, things we've almost forgotten about, except...well, except that life suddenly got hard, and was it because I.....? 

We have a sense that we get some kind of bonus points for knowing what we've done wrong or for figuring it out ourselves. We think that God knows, so we should probably know, and if we don't know, then maybe we don't know God as well as we thought. Maybe our faith isn't as strong as we thought. I mean, if we can't even figure out why God's upset with us. 

There's a story in 2 Samuel that always helps me with this. It's the story of a famine that lasted 3 years in Israel. 

Chapter 21 opens and says, "after the people had suffered from a famine for three successive years, David asked the Lord why the famine lingered." 

Now, the people of Israel (and of all nations at that time, really) understood famine to be a judgment of the gods. In Israel's case, of the Lord. Famine didn't just happen because of environmental conditions or bad weather; it was an unignorable sign that something was wrong somewhere in the community, in the people. So the people of Israel had some story they were telling themselves about why they were in famine, and they were digging through the smallest details to try to find the finest point of error and atone for themselves. 

So there's been a famine for three years in a row, the people have exhausted their limited understanding, and David finally just asks God what's up. Why the famine? Why can't we shake it? 

And here's the best part: God answered him. Not in some riddle. Not in some hidden message. Not in some thunder and lightning. God just answered him. Straight up, here's what you did. 

Now, Israel can finally make proper atonement. Now, they can finally repent. Now, they understand. 

So if you're spending your time trying to figure out what you've done to upset God, assuming you've done anything at all - if you feel like God is upset with you for some reason...ask Him. He'll tell you. Straight up. 

Then, you'll be able to eat.  

God of Better

There comes a point when even the man after God's own heart's life gets messy. Yes, we're talking about David. And we're talking about when his son, Absalom, starts trying to usurp authority and take over the kingdom of Israel for himself. 

Absalom is not a dumb guy. Foolish, maybe, but not dumb. He knows that he needs some guidance on what he wants to do. So he goes and he asks a good friend how he should approach his battle against his own father. And he gets some advice. 

But just to be sure, he goes and gets some other advice. And now, he has a decision to make. 

What's interesting here is that God actually leads him to make the more foolish choice. God leads Absalom to accept Hushai's plan over Ahithophel's, even though it's clear to anyone else looking at the data that Ahithophel's plan is literally dripping with wisdom and good battle strategy. 

This is a challenge for all of us who tend to make our decisions by doing whatever seems good. We think that if we just look at the evidence and choose the "good" thing, then we will be doing God's will - we will be following God's plan and making the choice that God would want us to make. 

What this story reminds us is that God doesn't always condone the obviously good plan...and when He doesn't, it's because He is doing something better. 

Yes, that's right - sometimes God isn't doing what is obviously good because He's doing something better. 

Of course, we have several other factors playing into this particular story in 2 Samuel 17. We have the sin of Absalom, of course. We have the sin of David. We have the brokenness of Israel as a people. We have all kinds of things going on here that influence what God determines is best here, rather than what just looks subjectively good on the outside. 

But isn't that true of our own lives, as well? We are always dealing with our own sin. And the sin of others. And the brokenness of the human species. And all kinds of other things that influence the way that God probably sees things. 

So it is wise for us, then, to not only look for what seems obviously good, but to continually ask God. Because sometimes, as this story tells us, God has planned to thwart what is good...for the sake of something better.