Orienting With the Word Storyteller - Naomi Yoder-Hess | Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
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Naomi Yoder-Hess shares a personal account from an "Orienting with the Word" session at East Scotan, focusing on the biblical text of 1 Samuel 16 where Samuel anoints David. Initially, she prepared her lesson around the comforting theme that God sees the heart, valuing people beyond their external status or power. However, the group's engagement naturally shifted when they examined the immediate context preceding this passage. They discovered in chapter 15 that King Saul had been rejected by God for disobeying a command to completely destroy the Amalekites; instead, Saul spared valuable livestock and the enemy king out of fear and greed, leading to his rejection.
This backstory introduced a profound sense of discomfort among the group, raising difficult questions about how a loving God could command such brutal violence and reject a human being for failing to murder. The participants struggled with the tension between proclaiming Jesus as the Prince of Peace and encountering these harsh narratives in Scripture that seem to glorify slaughter rather than condemn it. This internal conflict left them unsettled as they moved into their artful response and worship time, causing Naomi to doubt her initial plans and feel that the session was not going as intended.
Despite these uncertainties, Naomi decided to follow a suggestion from the "Orienting with the Word" materials for the conclusion of the worship service, which involved anointing one another with oil and offering the blessing, "God sees your heart." The group passed a vial of oil around a circle, applying it to each other's hands while calling them by name. This act transformed the experience from a simple affirmation of worth into a sacred space that acknowledged the complexity of their engagement with the Bible, encompassing both confusion and delight, grief and inspiration.
Ultimately, the session concluded with a deep sense of gratitude for this reminder that God sees the hearts of those engaging with the Bible's wild and unwieldy texts. The act of anointing one another felt like receiving the Holy Spirit's blessing for the sacred work of studying Scripture together, providing healing balm for the difficult stories and big questions they faced. Naomi expressed that even when the text is horrifying or inspiring, the assurance remains that God values them for who they are at their core, offering a grace that sustains them through the complexities of biblical interpretation.
Read the full video transcript
So, as Melinda said, my name is Naomi
Yoder Hes and I'm just going to share
one um one experience from our orienting
with the word practice at East Scotan.
It It hadn't been an easy session. It
had not gone as I intended.
The text for the week was 1st Samuel 16
where the prophet Samuel is tasked with
finding God's next anointed among
Jesse's sons and finds and anoints
David.
And as I was preparing I really
resonated with the theme that was
suggested by the orienting with the word
provided commentary and the theme was
God sees the heart.
In a world where so often we are judged
by status or strength, by the external,
by our power, by our privilege, God sees
through all those things and knows us
and values us for who we are. God sees
the heart. It's a reminder I feel like
we all always need. And so I had
structured a lot of my lesson plans
around it. Some of the ideas for the
artful response, some of my plans for
the worship time.
But that is not where our study and
engagement took us. See, one of the
practices for that time is to look at
the immediate biblical setting, the text
around the text. What comes right
before? What comes right after? And what
does that have to say for the passage
for today?
At the beginning of 1st Samuel 16, it
says that King Saul had been rejected by
God as the king of Israel. And so
someone in our group naturally wondered
why. And so he went back to chapter 15.
And what he found there was the
absolutely brutal backstory.
See, the reason why Israel needed a new
king is because God had commanded Saul
to kill all of the Amalachite people.
The text actually reads, "Spare no one.
Kill men and women, children and
infants, sheep and oxen, camels and
donkeys.
Spare no one.
But Saul, out of fear and perhaps greed,
kept alive the best of the livestock,
everything of value, and the king of the
Amalachite people, a gag.
And we're told God was upset.
God rejects Saul and the prophet Samuel
has to carry this message to Saul. And
then when Saul will not kill the
Amalachite king, the text says that
Samuel cut a gag to pieces in the
presence of the Lord.
That story struck hard on our hearts in
our orienting with the word session.
And it echoed so much of the discomfort
and so many of the questions that had
been raised over our weeks together.
Why if as we proclaim Jesus is the
prince of peace are so many stories in
the Bible filled with this brutal
violence and violence that God not only
doesn't seem to condemn but actually
commands.
How could our God, who we say is love
itself,
reject someone for not murdering and
then require a prophet, a messenger of
God to brutally slaughter another human
made in God's own image?
We were still pretty unsettled as we
moved into artful response and into
worship. And so I was quite doubtful of
my preparations. I made a few tweaks
trying to adjust as we went along.
But I decided to stick with a suggestion
from the orienting with the word
material for the conclusion of worship,
which was inspired by Samuel's anointing
of David to anoint one another with oil
and to offer the simple blessing, God
sees your heart.
So we took our little vial of oil and we
passed it around the circle. Each of us
put oil on our thumb and made the sign
of the cross on the hand of the person
next to us.
We called each other by name and said,
"God sees your heart."
It was different than I imagined, but it
was such holy space.
Instead of an affirmation of our worth,
it felt like a blessing of the
complexity that each one of us hold as
we engage the Bible.
In your confusion,
in your delight,
in your grief, and in your inspiration,
God sees your heart.
As you engage these stories, the stories
you have loved since Sunday school and
the stories you are shocked and
horrified to find in our holy text. God
sees your heart. It felt like as we
turned towards each other around the
table and offered the touch of oil and
words of blessing that the Holy Spirit
anointed us for the sacred work of
studying scripture together
and anointed us with healing balm for
the hard stories and the big questions
that we find there.
I am so grateful for that reminder that
as we engage the beautiful and holy and
horrifying and inspiring and wild and
unwieldy texts of our beloved Bible, God
sees our hearts.