...but the Lord looks on the heart.

My friends, it's time we dispense with the small talk.

You may very well recognize the source of these words - 1 Samuel 16:7, as God is directing the prophet Samuel in his search for who will become God's new chosen person to rule over Israel (spoiler alert: it's David).  As we enter the second week of our summer worship series focused in on David, these words stand at the center of the reading we'll hear in worship at Grace...and at the center of my own thoughts as I try, as Karl Barth said, to live with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

The whole verse: "But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (NRSV)

The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance....but the Lord looks on the heart.  Even taken in relative isolation, the verse draws a stark contrast between how view the world, and other people in it, and the way that God does.  

This is probably most clearly seen in the two topics which have filled up my Facebook newsfeed for the past week or so - Caitlyn Jenner and McKinney, Texas.  My friend group on Facebook is split more-or-less evenly around both matters, so I've had the opportunity to hear quite a bit of the conversation from some very different angles.

I'm, frankly, too tired emotionally to make some sort of bold, prophetic declaration about racism or discrimination against people whose sexuality or gender identities do not match up neatly with what has traditionally been seen as normative or morally upright.  I am not a warrior; I'm a scholar.  I'm a bookish, nerdy pastor whose preferred pastimes include praying the hours, reading and writing, working with biblical texts in their original languages, and playing dorky historical simulation/strategy games.  I admire, deeply, my friends who feel called to march and speak loudly, but I've made my peace with the fact that my own call looks and feels a bit different.

That said, in all of my praying and meditating, I cannot escape the clear truth laid out in God's words to Samuel - "but the Lord looks on the heart."  We fixate on the outward - the person who we label a freak or sinner, the skin color of someone who we've been trained by society to view in certain ways because of their appearance.  We give ourselves over to a smug sense of superiority that *we* are better, that *we* have it all figured out, and that *they* don't and just need to shut up and sit down.

...but the Lord looks on the heart.

The truth that cuts through all of it is that our human systems of conveniently packaging people into neat, little census-style check boxes are rooted deeply in our humanity, and thus our own sinfulness, rather than in any sort of divine mandate.  It's no wonder that our very worst actions and instincts come out to play when these issues of identity come up.  I am of the opinion that racism, and all other forms of identity-based hatred and discrimination, are, at their core, blasphemy, because they are an active denial that God actually *did* call the creation good.  To call anyone not good, or less good, because of identity factors inherent to their being is to say that God lied, that they are not made in God's image.  I believe this to my core.

If we want to talk about sin, then let's talk about this one first and foremost.  After that, let's talk about compassion - feeling with, and even suffering with, those who are suffering.  It's what Christ is depicted as doing multiple times - my Greek-loving nerd-self must point out here that a verb used 12 times in the three synoptic gospel (splagxnizomai) describes Jesus feeling so deeply for the plight of others that it's literally gut-wrenching.  It's not a hand-wringing, "Church Lady" conservative sense of moral superiority...or a smug, NPR-listening liberal one, for that matter.  It is genuine love for all people.  Black and brown people, white people, transgender people, cisgender (look it up) people, all people.  Because the Lord looks on the heart and sees right past whatever stigmatization we try to attach to outside realities, and is so moved by what he sees that he allows NOTHING to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

We need, and should have, conversations about what that love of God looks like, for us, in concrete terms as we try to live out what we've first received.  That may be difficult, as there are clearly different perspectives enough to go around, but we are invited (nay, called) to look and act with compassion toward those around us who differ or even offend us...because the Lord looks on the heart, and invites us to listen to his voice as he teaches us to do the same.