The Pastor: Eugene Peterson on Ministry and Story

My favorite story from those years was Samuel’s anointing of David to be king. The story began in my mother’s telling of it with Samuel, an old man with his beard down to his knees. He was a thick, stocky man, built like a fire hydrant, who from a distance looked like a fountain, white hair pouring from his head.

There was an unhurried air about him, leisurely even. The kind of relaxed leisureliness that flows from a person who knows what he’s about, who knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. No need for hurry if you’re confident in who you are.

Samuel was headed for Bethlehem, a small town nearly identical with the one we lived in, surrounded by forested hills that were ominous with wild beasts. Three boys, out searching in the fields for Canaanite arrowheads—arrowheads were all the rage that year, and every boy in Bethlehem had his treasured collection—spotted him and ran back to town to report what they had seen. The news spread rapidly: God’s prophet was approaching the village! Legendary Samuel. Fierce and famous Samuel. Fear gripped every heart. What had they done wrong? Who had sinned? Samuel wasn’t known for his casual, drop-in visits. His enormous reputation didn’t rest on a lifetime of accumulated small talk. What terrible misdoing in Bethlehem that required prophetic visitation had reached the ears of Samuel?

But the anxiety soon gave way to anticipation. Samuel let them know that he had come to lead them in festive worship, gather them in celebration before God. Word got around. The mood shifted from guilt to gaiety in no time. A heifer was killed and a barbecue pit prepared. Before long the entire village was caught up in something that resembled what I knew as the county fair that arrived the first week in August and was the high point of every summer for me.

As she told the story, my mother didn’t herself introduce carnival rides and kewpie dolls, cotton candy and the aroma of hot dogs into Iron Age Bethlehem, but she did nothing to interfere with my imagination. I filled in all the details required to make me fully at home in the story: calf-roping, bullriding, the greased pig, a Ferris wheel, all my friends with their 4-H animals, cowgirls and cowboys from miles around resplendent in sequined shirts and shining boots.

As it turned out, there was more to Samuel’s visit than a villagewide celebration as the people of God. A local farmer named Jesse and his eight sons were singled out for attention. Why Samuel was interested in Jesse and his sons wasn’t made clear to the villagers, and very likely the general festivities in which everyone was caught up distracted people from noticing the prophet’s interest in the Jesse family, which is exactly what they were intended to do. But I knew why Samuel was interested. The storyteller had confided in me; I had insider information: Samuel was out looking for a replacement for King Saul.

Having located Jesse and his sons, Samuel proceeded to interview and examine each of them. I pictured this as taking place at the grandstand in the fairgrounds with Samuel, severe and venerable, out in the middle of the field at the judge’s stand. Jesse brought his sons before Samuel one at a time, like prize farm animals on halters. The grandstand was packed with spectators.

Eliab, the eldest son and a swaggering bully, was the first. His mountainous size and rough-hewn looks commanded attention. Samuel was impressed. Who could not be impressed? Hulking and brutish Eliab was used to getting his own way by sheer force of muscle. He had a black mop of hair that he never bothered to brush. His nose wandered down his face looking, until it was almost too late, for a good place to stop. He dressed in bib overalls and wore hobnailed boots. He never changed his socks. It mattered little whether people liked or disliked what they saw—Eliab dominated. Clearly, here was a man who could get things done. Samuel, like everyone else in the community, was taken in by his appearance. But soon Samuel’s God-trained prophetic eye penetrated the surface appearance to Eliab’s interior. There he didn’t see much to write home about. No king material within.

Abinadab, the next, was an intellectual snob. A tall, stringy beanpole, he stood before Samuel with sneering arrogance. He was the only brother who had been to college. He used big words, showing off his prestigious learning every chance he got. He had squinty eyes behind thick Coke-bottle glasses. Samuel dismissed him with a gesture.

Shammah, also called Shimea, was third. Shammah was a mincing little sophisticate in Calvin Klein jeans and alligator cowboy boots. He hated living in backwater Bethlehem. He could hardly get across the street without getting cow flop on his boots. Mingling with all these common people, with their vulgar games and coarse entertainment, was torture for him. He didn’t know what Samuel was up to, but it looked as if it could be a ticket to a finer life—a life of culture and taste. But Samuel dismissed him with a shake of his head.

After the third son, the Bible quits naming. It was years before I knew that, for my mother named them all. It didn’t matter that the names departed substantially from Semitic sounds; they served her purpose and my imagination well enough. Ole was the fourth, then Gump, Klug, and finally Chugger.

Proudly presented by Jesse, each stood before Samuel. As each in turn was rejected, tension built up—this son, certainly, would be chosen. Yet none was chosen.

The show was over. Jesse was pathetic in his disappointment. The seven sons were humiliated. The grandstand and bleacher crowds were starting to get restless, feeling gypped, some of them demanding their money back. They had paid a good price, after all, to see Samuel in his prophetic appearance. And the performance had started off well enough as he got everyone’s attention, skillfully building to a climax. And now this . . . this, nothing.

Samuel was bewildered. Had he missed a key element in God’s message? Was he losing his prophetic edge? Did he have the right town? “This is Bethlehem, isn’t it?” Did he have the right family? “You are Jesse, aren’t you?”

Well—there must be another son.

As it turned out, and as the whole world now knows, there was another son—David. But he enters the story unnamed, dismissively referred to by his father as “the baby brother”—in Hebrew, haqqaton, the youngest, in effect saying: “Well, there’s the baby brother, but he’s out tending the sheep.” If you are the youngest of eight brothers, you’re probably never going to be thought of as other than the kid brother. Haqqaton carries undertones of insignificance, of not counting for very much—certainly not a prime candidate for prestigious work. The family runt.

His father’s condescending opinion of him (shared presumably by his brothers) is confirmed by the job to which he’s assigned—”tending the sheep.” The least demanding of all jobs on the farm, the place where he could do the least damage. Babysitting for a neighbor or sacking groceries at the supermarket would be equivalent jobs in our economy.

Because David was out of the way and mostly ignored as he tended the sheep, nobody had thought to bring him to Bethlehem that day. Yet it was David who was chosen. Chosen and anointed. Chosen not for what anybody saw in him—not his father, his brothers, not even Samuel—but because of what God saw in him. And then anointed as king by God through Samuel to live to God’s glory.

As so often happens in things like this, the dissonance between what was done and what people expected was so great that it’s unlikely anyone in Bethlehem “saw” the anointing. In looking back, they would have remembered that David had showed up late as usual. But those memories would have faded fast. It wouldn’t have been long before the seven brothers were dominating the town again with their pushiness and David was out with his sheep, out of sight and out of mind.

But I didn’t forget. Throughout my childhood, in my mother’s telling of the story, I became David. I was always David. I’m still David.