The Secret Chord: God Chooses the Overlooked

A Moment of Illumination

Lent, week four, is traditionally a moment of illumination — a pause in the Lenten journey where God's light breaks through our assumptions and reveals something deeper.

I'd like to bring three thoughts together in three questions. First: what is the secret chord that pleases the Lord, from Leonard Cohen's famous song Hallelujah? Second: where is your heart at as we journey toward Easter? And third: what is the action and attitude of humility that we see in the calling of David in 1 Samuel 16 — and how is it relevant to us as we watch Jesus walk toward the cross?

The Unexpected King

What is it about this famous figure called David that resonates throughout history — this leader of leaders? What is it that he brought to us that we see again in the Messiah?

When we look at 1 Samuel 16, we see someone who was overlooked, someone who was missed, the youngest of the brothers, the least looked at. Saul, the current king, was strong, tall, and good looking. And Samuel was clearly looking for the same kind of person — the same kind of leader, the same kind of king.

What does he find? None of those things. God's hand was not on the other brothers, the ones who looked more likely. Some would even consider David to be Plan B.

The Lord does not see as mortals see. — 1 Samuel 16:7

God refuses the obvious. God bypasses the expected. God chooses the forgotten ones.

Walter Brueggemann, in his description of what the story of David means in The Prophetic Imagination, describes how the anointing speaks to a profound truth: God does not work according to human expectation, and the one chosen is often the least expected. This is not only about David — it is about the very nature of God's imagination, the nature of God's kingdom.

The Secret Chord

Leonard Cohen's beloved song captures something of this mystery. Consider the words:

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That pleased the Lord, but you don't really care for music, do you?
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift,
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

What we hear in the chord progression itself tells the story: a minor chord and a major chord, a subordinate chord, a loss and a depth, a rising and then a falling. There was something secret in those elements that sums up the question Leonard Cohen poses to us.

What is it that struck the heart of God — that David had? What is it in his heart that was recognized by God? Not only as the shepherd boy who writes Psalm 23, but as the king who is baffled and unsure, crying out in repentance in Psalm 51. We find ourselves in the unexpected place of asking: what is it that God reveals that we often miss, that we often look past?

Humility in Action: A Story of Saying Sorry

Let me share what this looked like in my own life. In 2008, I was a minister in Surrey Hills, Sydney — unsure of myself, coming from a country background. I found myself working alongside gay and lesbian members of the community across the inner city. They were asking a painful question: Why do we feel so judged and ashamed of who we are by the church?

A group of ministers — Reverend John Owen, Reverend Heather McClellan, Reverend Ray Nikon, and myself — formed a small organization called A Hundred Revs. We sat with the reality that the judgment poured upon our LGBTQ+ community had left them ashamed, disempowered, and afraid to come into our churches.

As a leader and minister, I thought I was the most unlikely person to be put forward to help this community. But the illumination of God's Spirit came to us — not just as a group of leaders or ministers, but as fellow parishioners. How do we respond to what God is calling us to?

It was summed up in two words: I'm sorry.

We recognized that we needed humility. We needed to acknowledge our wrong. We needed to recognize that there were attitudes in us that the gay and lesbian community needed to hear us name and repent of.

And so a group of us — ultimately a hundred ministers — marched in Mardi Gras in 2008. We were uncertain. We were afraid. We were not quite sure why we were there. Many thought we shouldn't be there. But we felt called to bring love, mercy, and justice.

As we walked the streets of Oxford Street that day, many people came up to us and said, "This means so much to me. I was in Sunday School, but I felt judged, and so I left the church. For you to say sorry means a great deal." Many found their pathways back to church in the months that followed.

The illumination of God's Holy Spirit came through the humility of a discerning group of ministers across denominations choosing to say sorry. We weren't the first choices. We were the choice God decided to use to bring healing into the community.

Where Is Your Heart?

I'm asking you the question: where is your heart at? Where is your heart at — that God could hear your stirring toward his people, toward his community, toward those who are the least, the lost, and the last?

Is that not the Easter message we should be taking to our communities? That all are welcome in the house of God. That God's illumination doesn't always pick the first — maybe not even the second. Like David, God chooses to call all of us into his house and into his arms.