But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’ (1 Samuel 16.7)
This week's news
The word ‘selfie’ is not as new as we might think. While it’s been in common usage for a couple of years, according to Oxford Dictionaries, who made it their ‘Word of the Year' for 2013, it first appeared in 2002.
The selfie – or selfy, either will do, although your PC’s autocorrect may not like either – began as a photograph that someone took of themselves. Now it is so much more. David Cameron has been mocked not once, but twice, for his selfies.
Selfies often have their own special duck-face pout and, more seriously, th ough possibly not true, they have been blamed for a rise in the demand for plastic surgery amongst young women.
Most recently there has been a campaign to highlight breast cancer in which women have taken selfies without make-up – bare-faced selfies.
Under the skin is a new film by Jonathan Glazer in which the American actress, Scarlett Johansson, plays an alien in human guise who preys on Glasgow men who are lustful and lonely. One of the men she picks up suffers from a severe facial disfigurement, but through her alien eyes she doesn’t comprehend that he is any different from the other men she has snared.
Reflection
While there shouldn’t be a correlation between being physically attractive and being successful, there is.
Research shows that people who are accepted as being more attractive get on better in their careers and earn more money.
More specifically, taller people are believed to be better leaders than their shorter colleagues and shorter people suffer discrimination in various aspects of living.
The first television debates connected to a significant election took place in 1960 between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Kennedy was inexperienced in comparison to Nixon, but his relaxed, charming appearance won over the minds and, perhaps more importantly, the hearts of the American voters.
God scolds Samuel for looking at Eliab, the first of Jesse’s sons to parade past him and assumes that, because of his appearance and his height, he must be, ‘the one’. God does not; God tells Samuel, ‘look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’
There is an irony in the writer’s narration of David’s arrival. It is almost as if he has not listened to what he has just written. David, he notes, was, ‘glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features.’
Perhaps this just goes to show how hard we have to fight to resist our natural tendency to look more favourably on those with height and beauty advantages. God looks through ‘alien eyes’ and we are called to emulate God’s height and appearance ‘blindness’.
Prayer
Our God,
we are told ‘not to judge a book by its cover’,
but we find it hard not to see what we expect to see
and hear what we expect to hear.
Help us to look with ‘alien’ eyes and ears
and see and hear what is really there
and what is really important.
We thank you for people who do good work
and especially we pray for those who do good work,
but who have ‘nothing in their appearance that we should desire them’.
Forgive us for the times that we have overlooked people
who have been less attractive than others
in their appearance or way of speaking.
We pray, too, for those for whom
their own good looks can be a hindrance.
While it might be hard for us to feel to sorry for them,
we know that it is frustrating
when others fail to take them seriously.
We pray for ourselves.
Some of us are insecure about our appearance
– about the way we look, or our sense of style.
We are ashamed of our accent
or any manner of other defects that we may have
or perceive ourselves of having.
We know that you love us as we are,
because this is how you have made us.
May we accept that we are worthy in your sight,
and in so-doing may we accept ourselves as we are.
Amen.
Questions
- How do we make ourselves ‘blind’ to people’s physical appearance?
- Have there been instances in your life, or in the lives of people known to you when you/they have been incorrectly judged on appearance or voice?
Action
It is sometimes said that people have ‘a good face for radio’. You could find pictures of radio presenters and make recordings of their voices and see if people can match the face with the voice.
Young People
Gather together some of the current celebrity magazines and see if you can list what features class someone as ‘beautiful’.
If you can find pictures of people from earlier generations – photographs or paintings – you could compare how our ideas of beauty have changed.
Simon Carver is a Baptist Minister in St Albans and takes a particular interest in film.
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