A Reflection for Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
Not as man sees does God see,
because he sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart.
As we re-enter Ordinary Time, it can be tempting to think of the liturgical transition as a return to the mundane, a slow trudge through green Sundays until we reach the main events: Advent, Christmas, Lent, the Triduum, Easter, Pentecost. Especially now, one week into this short Ordinary Time between the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, it can feel as though we are in a holding pattern, waiting for the next big thing to come.
It is not difficult to see God in the splendor of a grand cathedral celebrating Mass on Christmas day. It is a greater challenge to see God on a Tuesday in Ordinary Time. Jesuit spirituality encourages us to find God in all things, but I would be lying if I said I always feel God’s presence on an early morning subway ride to work after a long weekend.
But today’s first reading serves as a reminder that God is not like us, seeking out power and extravagance. Instead, God works through ordinary, humble people in ordinary, humble circumstances.
God does not choose some towering figure, like Eliab, to rule Israel. Eliab was tall and handsome, a leader in the community. He would have made sense to replace King Saul, who had shown his hubris by disobeying God’s commandments. But God does not choose Eliab, nor does he choose any of the elders of Bethlehem who gather before Samuel.
Samuel instead asks Jesse to send for his youngest son, a ruddy and slight shepherd named David. I imagine David entering the banquet hall after a long day of tending the flocks, weary and perhaps a bit sunburnt, the smell of the sheep still lingering on his clothes. The Lord delights in this “splendid appearance” and commands Samuel to anoint David.
Then, “The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David,” hearkening back to what Samuel told Saul at his anointing: “The spirit of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will… become a changed man” (1 Sm 10:6). Saul’s reign was ill-fated because he did not keep the Lord’s commandments. In his hubris, Saul believed in his might and power more than he believed in God’s word.
David, on the other hand, was a lowly shepherd, entirely ordinary. And because he was ordinary, he had the humility to keep fidelity to God's word. His humility allowed the Spirit of The Lord to form him into the ruler that Israel needed, one who was not always perfect but was always after God’s own heart, loving the Lord completely. As Pedro Arrupe, S.J. wrote, what a person loves decides everything.
What we love determines who we are, and if we are after God’s heart, as David was, we should seek to love what God does. Throughout Scripture, God loves the ordinary, the humble and makes himself known in ordinary places. Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, was born the son of a carpenter and laid in a manger where animals grazed. Perhaps he too smelled of sheep.
If we are truly after God’s heart, we will recognize that his saving work happens in ordinary times. This is true in the liturgical sense, but it can also be said of a crowded, sweaty subway ride on a Tuesday morning. How much holier would we be if we saw the ordinary times in our lives that feel like holding patterns as opportunities for the Spirit of the Lord to enter our hearts and change us?
