SUNDAY, JUNE 23 2024 - DAVID & GOLIATH
June 23, 2024
Carolyn Smith
David & Goliath
What a great song, thanks Catherine. These kids were from across the country, just like
our United Church youth are gathering in 2 weeks for Audacious Hope. Brave kids,
Audacious Kids... that energy feels hopeful and encouraging! I think that giving kids
success stories like this song recording, and good events and community who SEES them,
and learns and thrives with them, is a real gift for everyone in a tough world.
It was fun to pull out a good old bible story today, about David and the Giant Goliath,
about overcoming evil, staring down the enemy and toppling him with a tiny stone. Oh
how the mighty has fallen! About the strength of true faith against true evil. Now, I’m
not sure if it happened just like this or not, but I know this story is true. It’s a story
we hold on to through the years, as we read the news, as we face our giant fears in life.
Kids, we bring you to church, and have spent our lives here standing strong on stories
like David and Goliath.
So I’m not going to upend this and pick it apart, I’m not smarter than this Hero story,
but one thing we preachers and teachers get to do is take a closer look. Play with the
story a bit, and learn about the background and what came after, so I’ve been seeing
David and Goliath everywhere.. And I’ve done that while going to church meetings
about our future, reading the Israel/Palestine/and Ukraine/Russian news, worrying about
climate change and this heat wave... Who is the David in those places, where do we find
Goliath? Who is the Mighty Giant? Who is the brave hero? What is good, or evil?
What is the happily ever after?
Because this story is one of the favourites.. and if we here, today, could harness the
message, the audacious brave and hopeful energy of this story, we can charge out of here
and change the world. Ha, I have high hopes ;)
So let me guess... when you read this story, with images in your mind, you see yourself
as David. Wily, young and energetic, smart, faithful, adept with a few smooth stones and
brave. Of course we are.
And Goliath is our biggest problem: a bully, the wrong-headed government or uprising
force, the corporations or organizations doing things with greed instead of the way we’d
like. And often, the giant is your deep fears and a frustrating habit you wish you could
get around. Of course this is our Goliath. So it’s big. We’re David, rolling that small
stone between our fingers, sizing up the enemy, knowing that we’ll know when we’re
ready, when it’s time. Bam, we’ll be able to take down that giant once and for all.
All of this is real. This battle of the underdog against the giant is everywhere around us.
And still, a third party kept complicating the duality of this hero/villain story. I’m not
going to upend it, but we’re going to spend these few moments today exploring.
Between two seasoned armies, one young fellow is the hero. How did David turn out
to be the only hope? If this is more than fairytale, if it actually applies with the real
issues around us and in our hearts and minds and worries, then there is backstory. We
can ask ‘why on earth were things so bad in the first place,’ and ‘what happens next.’
When we dig into this bible here and use these scripture stories, especially one
specifically about an army of Israelites, I can’t help but think about Israel and Palestine. If
a David hero walked into the middle of that battle today, from which side does he come?
Whose traditions does he uphold, or stand against? And what happens next, after his
swift stone brings the enemy to its knees?
So we know that does David come from the side of the army of Saul, a Hebrew army of
Judah with not a shred of bravery to try to fight this giant. Is David an outsider? Or at
least a objective 3rd party? Or a voice of reason? 3 sides to consider. Who is Saul’s
Army? While David is clearly OF that side, of the Hebrew people, and friend to Saul’s
cause, who is Saul’s army in our fairytale?
Saul the King has for several chapters before, led these people, watched and strategized
and given orders and led battles. The priests of the Hebrew faith are the king’s advisors,
their teachings are about the same faith that David leans on and succeeds with. It hasn’t
gone well for this army, even as the soldiers are told they are “chosen.” And still here
they are quaking in their boots, day after 40 days without faith, courage or strategy.
And The Philistines - they’re an army mostly of mercenaries - driven by personal gain,
struggle & self-protection, so loyalty in the ranks is thin, it’s a sham, their purpose is
individual, they gather as an army only where they think they can live another day, and
willing to fight only for the time it seems more profitable than bailing out and leaving.
The Philistines side is greedy and cutthroat.
The Saul side is siding with tradition but not faith itself, siding with stories of promised
land, but not trusting it. They’re Aimless & terrified when it comes down to it.
King Saul’s track record as a military leader was lousy. This book of Samuel, along with
Kings and Chronicles are the books of the kingdomes, you can imagine dusty little
people in a dusty room writing and writing down the stories to keep the leaders and
priests satisfied. It often means of course that they get to write their history books
their way. So it’s telling that In the Samuel chapters leading up to this battle, King Saul
looks inept and miserable: they’ve been fighting enemies for weeks, he starved his
troops, using punishment instead of faithful vision; making a Vow to the Almighty that
they wouldn’t eat or rest until the battle was won, and so his exhausted troops were
decimated. He raged at them that they had broken scripture rules because they’d
desperately given into hunger over grovelling before a Fire and brimstone God. Sure,
there are laws and practices like that written into scripture here and there, but by the
time of King Saul, generations of Hebrew people and faith had evolved. We’re way past
the time of Jacob and ISaac, Abraham and Sarah and Moses...so those little pesky
traditions we find scattered in scripture - what kind of food we eat and when, the kinds
of clothes we wear, or whether shrimp is ok or pork - they’ve been held in contrast to
the steadfast forgiving God, one who feeds people and helps them flourish ... King Saul
has chosen minutia, cherry picked if you will, those narrow traditions OVER others - like
the blessing of a Sabbath people - faithful people who rest and cherish God, people who
share and celebrate and steward life together. Angry, scared, narrow-minded King Saul
has built an army of people forbidden to rest and honour. Who aren’t strengthened by
their faith, but beaten down by it, and as they flail about and starve and fight, they have
zero faith or hope to sustain them.
Aimless, fearful and hopeless. An army of God’s people? It sounds like they need rescue.
So in the world around us, where we have found brave Davids rising up, and evil Goliaths
looming, where do we find this King Saul and his loyal fearful followers squandering good
possibilities?
In Gaza? In eastern Europe & Nato. In Canada. In our climate emergency or
housing affordability? In the internal David and Goliath story you’re wrestling with
personally?
How did these situations deteriorate to a place where we needed David?
David from outside the fray, from left-field, poet and dreamer yes, but also the capable
defender who knew and trusted his Source of strength.
When he sees Goliath, he sizes him up and knows he is strong enough to overcome.
When he meets King Saul- they pile on the heavy armour but David sheds it... because
the might of the armour isn’t the Source of protection that will help him, it’s a clumsy
false hope. When he’s offered a sword, he knows his strength lies elsewhere. The
measures of strength and might and winning that the Army held onto hadn’t even served
them well. And David knows he’s better off light and quick, calm and able to see clearly,
with well-practiced tools in his hand.
Goliath too can’t believe his eyes - his own strength is in greed and survival, living to
fight and plunder another day, but here comes a boy who could have just run away. A
boy with no might or muscle or weapons, not even an army worth a hill of beans behind
him.
No one on either side recognizes anything about David as strength.
I know that you folks aren’t often out being Goliath to anyone. Maybe it’s crept in when
we’ve voted in favour of self-protection rather than what the community or
sustainability OR equality needs. Or perhaps we’ve been heavy-handed with someone
who needed grace and forgiveness. Or chosen convenience instead of a higher good.
Mostly, I have faith that you’re trying. Me too.
And I know you dream of being David - you KNOW it would be right and true and good
to count on a your faith in a loving world, one of redemption and wisdom and
community. I am 99% sure that even better than David, our St. Paul’s folks will skip the
part about slaying the giant, and choose to meeting a mercenary’s needs and win him
over with promise & example of a better life, and a good lunch. Who could resist
learning to trust in that??
When are we falling down, into King Saul’s narrow-minded thinking, or the spineless
army saying, ‘just following orders!” The Side that chose pride and tradition and vows like
“as God is my witness,” or “Over my dead body...” rather than remembering that our faith
is actually in a loving Spirit of community strengthened by each other, thriving, resting
and nourished, sharing together.
The old testament and all these old old stories we tell - its filled with fire and
brimstone, but we don’t hold those up as Truth. The armies and the nations fell time and
again, in all the fighting. But Yahweh, Almighty God, a spirit of Love showed itself to be
ever-present, rising again, and steadfast part: our Faith Story was goodness, righteousness
and striving for peace.
David, we imagine, penned the words, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow, I
will fear no evil. For thou art with me.
Pick up that metaphorical stone and roll it around, smooth, small, strong. I will fear no
evil for though art with me.
You and I both knew that Goliaths need to be toppled. Those other folks though, King
Saul’s army - forgetting their true source of hope and courage, - there are so many
more like that, us included sometimes. The source is so much more wonderful.
May we find our faith, stand encouraged and rise together.
Amen.
Today’s Benediction
Within you is the love that is your power.
Divine, loving and Spirit-led.
Take your love to the world around, and together,
We bring heaven on earth.
May it be so, Amen.