Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-41; Mark 9:43-47; Genesis 28:10-17; Exodus 3:1-6 Series: Lent
A 4th-Sunday-in-Lent sermon pairing Samuel’s anointing of David with the healing of the man born blind in John 9 to ask where we encounter the presence of God. Drawing on Amy Kenny’s disability theology, the preacher argues God’s light shines not where culture expects (potential, ability, outward appearance) but among those society dismisses; the able-bodied may face a greater spiritual challenge of self-deception. The call is to abandon the dehumanizing gaze, receive every neighbor as a gift made in God’s image, and remember we were loved before we could do anything.
Illustrations: jacob-divine-encounters, moses-burning-bush, nfl-draft-scouts, amy-kenny-zach
March 15, 2026
4th Sunday in Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13 John 9:1-41
In the Presence
1 Samuel 16:1-13
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” 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.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
John 9:1-25
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
In the Presence of God
What does it mean to be in the presence of something beyond ourselves—when we are in awe, amazed at what is happening, and don’t quite have the words?
Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with moments such as these. In Genesis, we have the moment of Jacob’s ladder, when Jacob, the scheming second son of Isaac who deceives his father and brother, has this vision from heaven. He has another moment where he wrestles with the angel, where he knows he is in a divine presence. We have Moses and the burning bush, where the words of God tell Moses to take off his shoes, for he is standing on holy ground.
The presence of God is found in those moments beyond ourself, where our experience transcends us. It can be on a mountaintop or a quiet in a storm, in the touch of a child, or the comfort of a friend.
How do we deal with the presence of God? How do we remember the presence of God during those seasons when the light shines dimly in our lives, or when our loved ones no longer see the light?
In our reading from Samuel, the prophet is concerned about the direction of the country, and God tells him to go to a strange place in order to anoint the next king. Samuel, who has dedicated his life to God, who speaks with God, is still concerned and perplexed. He doesn’t know what is going to happen. And the presence of God is revealed in the most surprising of ways. The youngest son—the most insignificant one—is designated as the king, the anointed, the successor who will grow up to be handsome and strong, a great warrior, a poet. But he starts in the most surprising way, in a manner that can only point to God’s glory and the presence of God.
The point is not that God saw the potential of David. God chose David to reveal God’s power. There is a synergistic relationship going on. Samuel doesn’t go to Jesse’s house to try and pick a king based on their potential or who they will grow up to be. Sometimes we read the story and imagine a secular world where there is no supernatural power, no divinity, no spirit that interacts with the world. Instead, it’s kind of like the NFL draft, and we’ve got scouts coming in trying to predict how these boys are going to king in the future.
No—God is a part of the future of David and the transformation that will take place in David’s life. David was chosen to glorify God, to reveal God’s presence to Samuel and to the people.
When we turn to the Gospel of John, we have a feel-good story. John chapter nine is a feel-good story at first glance. But many of the ways in which it has been read have been deeply problematic and dehumanizing to people with disabilities.
Amy Kenny, in her book, My Body is not a Prayer Request, offers another interpretation.
At the beginning of John 9, when the disciples of Jesus are debating whether the man born blind is blind because of his sin or his parents’ sin. As Amy Kenny writes, “They are so caught up in prescribing the cause of his disability that we don’t even learn his name. Do they even know it, I wonder?” She names him Zechariah or Zach to humanize him.
This is how she characterizes Jesus’ response to the behavior of the other people towards Zach:
Jesus is having none of it. Jesus inverts their idea of blindness by showing the disciples that disability becomes a place of encounter with the glory of God. Jesus interacts with Zach directly, talking not just about him, but to him and with him. According to Jesus, Zach’s blindness didn’t result from his or his parents’ sin, but instead his blindness displays God. What a powerful, subversive statement: disability helps reveal the Light of the World to people who think of themselves as holier than disabled people. Disability is no longer a symbol of sin but one of being open to revelation. Disability unveils God’s work to the community, if only people are willing to receive it.
What are our entry points into the presence of God? That’s what this passage is about. And the presence of God may be more difficult to reach as an able-bodied person.
You may think this reading is a stretch but it follows the original Greek more closely. I translate verse 3 in the following way: Jesus answered, ‘Neither this one sinned, nor his parents, but it was that the works of God should be displayed in him.’
Jesus doesn’t justify suffering. To read it this way is to equate a lack of sight with suffering. God is displayed in the lives of those dismissed by society.
Earlier in her book, Kenny writes about the moment Jesus tells people to cut off their arm if it sins. Here is the full passage.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out” (Mark 9:43–47 ESV). We get it, Jesus. It’s better to be lame, blind, and crippled than go to hell. It feels a little extreme to perform voluntary amputations to avoid sin. We’d have a lot more folks with amputations in our midst if we took this literally. Yet Jesus still claims that disability becomes a way to encounter God or a preventative remedy for sin, suggesting that being nondisabled might enhance temptation.
This may be a radically different reading than you are used to. Our society constantly others and pities and dismisses those with bodies and minds which are non-standard. This dehumanizing gaze is not based in the Bible or a theological understanding of who God is or how God created us. If we believe everyone was made in the image of God, there is no deficiency to that image based on ability. We don’t earn it. It is gift.
And to be healed as the world sees it, is not to make life automatically better. In John 9, Zach’s life is not better once he sees. People question him continually. Most of the chapter is made up of people questioning him and suspicious of what happened. They don’t see the presence of God. They still see a deficit.
To be in the presence of God takes a journey. It takes a decision and a realization.
And there may be a greater spiritual challenge for the able-bodied than the disabled. Able-bodiedness can easily lead to a self-deception that denies our connection to God and to our community.
God’s light is not often found where our culture tells us it will be. The story of David illustrates this, as does the story of Zach in John. Jesus is the light of the world but that light shines where Jesus wills, not where we want to see it. The light of Christ comforts the forgotten of society. If we want to be in the presence of God, we need to be willing to leave what is comfortable to go where God already is.
In this season of Lent, may you take the opportunity to seek the presence of God in new ways. May you let go of the patterns of the dehumanizing gaze of a culture that judges people on assumptions of ability instead of receiving every neighbor as a gift from God. Our neighbors aren’t objects we use to navigate in this world. We aren’t objects in someone else’s life. You matter to God, and so does your neighbor. Whether the world thinks so or not, you matter to God. As we get closer to Holy Week and we reflect on Christ’s great sacrifice for us. May we remember that God didn’t choose us based on what we can do. We were loved before we could do anything.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.