But it dawned on me that his calling in God was much more scandalous than we might imagine -- certainly he would offend our high standards of propriety with his family troubles, marital indiscretions, treasonous behavior, and the bloody path he left in his wake. But I'm not talking about any of the obvious scandals: Bathsheba and Uriah, Absalom and Tamar and Amnon, or the 85 priests killed by Saul.

No, I'm talking about the very beginning of David's public life: Have you ever considered how scandalous it must have been to the nation of Israel to have David anointed as King? Let's take a look, and see if we can find a modern example that would resonate with us today:

First of all, there is the fact that Israel already had a King: Saul was still on the throne! From hindsight, we have no problem with this. But imagine how you would feel if you heard on the news that Billy Graham had announced that God was taking the presidency out of the hands of the person WE voted for and given it to someone else! What would we do? Somehow I doubt we would simply accept this -- I'm sure the Supreme Court would be called in to issue their opinion on the matter.

But this still isn't scandalous enough. After all, God didn't choose Saul's son Jonathan. So let's figure out what a modern version of David might look like. Let's start by saying, for instance, that the new President isn't even old enough to be eligible for the office! And further, let's say that the new President hails from some small town which no one would ever expect to produce a great world leader -- certainly not a New York or Los Angeles, nor a Chicago, Boston, or Houston. Let's say God chooses some teenager from Laramie, Wyoming -- some place the cosmopolitan elite would look down their noses at. This is what God does by picking the youngest child of a no-name family in Bethlehem.

But I'm not sure this yet captures the full scandal of God's choice. Perhaps we are too convinced of the notion that anyone can be President to think of this as being scandalous. So let's look further at who would constitute the most unlikely choice to lead the world's "greatest" nation. First of all, let's say that our new President is a teenage girl -- someone with Britney Spears and Gillian Anderson posters on her wall. Her only claim to fame might be singing solos in church and having once won a bronco-busting contest at a rodeo. These may be qualifications enough for God, but would we abide by God's decision here?

At this point, I'm being as imaginative as I can, but I think it might be interesting if God chose someone who wasn't even born in the country -- maybe our new President is an illegal immigrant, like David's grandmother Ruth, and perhaps of mixed race, as David was (consider Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar, all foreigners). These might not necessarily be scandalous, but they would probably raise eyebrows. But to top it all off, let's look at the questionable pasts of Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar, and say that there is some question about the legitimacy of David's birth. Nothing definite, but enough to feed the tabloids.

Oh, and one more thing: she's a little bit TOO faithful to God – certainly her family (maybe a mix of Catholic and Jewish) should take religion much more seriously than most Washingtonians.

So imagine Billy Graham introducing this young farm-girl, of questionable birth, ancestry, sexuality, nationality, religious allegiance and political awareness, and telling us that God has anointed her as the new President to replace the current occupant, whom the people voted for and who still had three more years in office. How do you think we would react? Would we look at this young girl and see past all of our prejudices and accept her as God's gift to our country, or would we immediately start picking her apart for all the ways she doesn't fit our "profile" of what an "acceptable" president is?

This is my imagination's take on David, my way of recovering the real reaction to his calling: God chooses the person least likely to rise to power on his own and anoints him King over Israel -- the model of the eternal kingship of Jesus. He is God's choice, and God establishes him and is faithful to him and does great things through him. But would we ever have thrown our support behind this unlikely candidate?