3rd Sunday after Pentecost - 21 June 2009

3rd Sunday after Pentecost - 21 June 2009 - Proper 7 B
1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41
James V. Stockton

I read a story. It the tale of some hardy folks, and rowdy, too: a farmer and three sons, Jimmy, Johnny, and Joe-Bob. None of them ever goes to church. None ever takes time to inquire after the things of God. They do speak God’s name once in a while, but not in any way that is reverent or respectful. The priest of the nearby church has been trying for years to draw Pa and the boys to God and to the people of God. The members of the church have done the same, but it seems their efforts have proven futile. Jimmy, Johnny, Joe-Bob and Pa are content to manage their lives, their joys, and their challenges, without benefit of God’s presence, help, or blessings.

The story of David and Goliath is a story that says much about adversity and how people face it. The story is well-known, at least in the broad strokes. As recently as the NBA match up between the Los Angles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, the drama of a sports team that starts the season with low expectations all around, then working its way into contention for the championship is characterized as a ‘David vs. Goliath’ match-up. In their struggles to defy their government’s repressive ban on media, the people of Iran are using cell phones, Twitter, and You Tube to get out the truth to the world around them. Their efforts are being written of as “a cyber David doing battle with a theocratic Goliath.”


Anytime a single individual or a small group of people stands up against political corruption or corporate irresponsibility, the tale is told as ‘a real David vs. Goliath story.’ The point of which is to say that someone emerges to challenge an opponent whose victory is a foregone conclusion. A David vs. Goliath tale is one in which a small group, or a solitary person, steps up and speaks out. And whether or not the story leads to confrontation on the ball court or to defiance in the street, every David vs. Goliath begins with challenge to a prevailing assumption.

The Philistines are the bad guys in the Biblical story. It is difficult to know with certainty what it is that makes them the bad guys. Perhaps they are greedy, cruel, corrupt, and merciless; we cannot know for sure. It is believed that they are a people who arrived in Palestine from elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean and slowly conquered the inhabitants of the land. What is certain is that the Philistines are a people who want nothing to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses and the Israelites.

Today, when someone is smug and ignorant, or is indifferent or hostile toward artistic and cultural values, he or she is sometimes described as a ‘Philistine.’ Goliath is the epitome of Philistine smugness and indifference. And why not? They are a strong and powerful people, they have a military might that goes largely unchallenged and always undefeated.

And so the Philistines reject any notion that they might want or need God, and they resent the people of God. And why not? The foregone conclusion is that the Israelites, like everyone before them, will fall defeated by the Philistines.

Back at the farm, one day Joe-Bob is clearing away some brush. In the midst of moving a log, he is bitten by a rattlesnake. Pa, Jimmy, and Johnny, rush Joe-Bob to the nearest clinic. There, the doctor tells them that it does not look good for Joe-Bob. Up against a situation that they cannot handle in their own hardy rowdy way, finally, they decide to turn for help elsewhere. Desperate, they contact the priest at the local church. Pa, Jimmy, and Johnny explain about Joe-Bob, and the priest agrees to come over to the clinic to pray.

While no one else will do so, while all others are paralyzed with fear, David can volunteer to take on the giant Philistine named Goliath. And the most significant part of the story is not that David defeats Goliath. This ending to the story is not to be dismissed. But what makes it a great ending is that David steps up in the first place, fully knowing that what he is attempting to do seems impossible to everyone else around him.

David is a boy. And this descriptor is here in the story deliberately. David is a youngster. You and I can imagine easily the assumptions that go along with this. Here at the front lines, strangers on both sides of the battle see him, and immediately know that he is inexperienced and therefore naïve, probably idealistic and altruistic. They all know that he has not yet learned to be realistic and pragmatic. He may have friends among the Israelites, and they see this youngster as perhaps so energetic that he is still a bit scattered, unable yet to focus his attention and efforts in a way that is proper and mature. David’s own brothers, all of them older than he, hear his voice and are not encouraged themselves by its boyish pitch, by the simplistic questions that it asks.

No one, upon noticing David, draws the conclusion that, ‘Here, now, is our champion.’ And if these are the assumptions about David that prevail among the people around him, almost certainly the same is true for David’s assumptions about himself. David is here to bring lunch to his brothers; that’s all. He is following up on his father’s wishes to check in on his sons and to find out how well or how poorly the battle is moving along. Then he is to return to the pasture and take care of the sheep. David holds himself to be no hero. But unlike his brothers and his friends, unlike the strangers around him and the enemy before him, David assumes that the importance of the sovereignty of God, of the primacy of truth, of right, of good, of justice, is greater than the stature of the enemy before him.

That David defeats a literal giant of man is a wonderful miracle, no doubt. But David’s choice would be no less faithful if Goliath were someone of normal size, or even if were a mouthy pip-squeak. His battle is not his own, he is not fighting for his glory or reputation. David does battle against ignorance, arrogance, smugness, basically against the human tendency toward self-deification, all menacingly personified in this one extra-large person with the extra-large ego.

David does battle with the enemy before him, yes. But, ultimately, David does battle with everything about his enemies, about his friends, about strangers, about family, about even himself, that keeps people from trusting first in God.

The priest arrives at the clinic. There is Joe-Bob suffering from his snake bite, with Pa, and Jimmy and Johnny beside his bed. The priest nods at them. “Let us pray,” says the priest. “O wise and righteous God,” the priest begins; “we give you thanks that in your wisdom you sent a rattlesnake to bite Joe-Bob. Joe-Bob has never been inside the church,” continues the priest, “and it’s likely that in all his life, he has never prayed to you or acknowledged your existence. Now we pray that this experience might be a valuable lesson to him that may lead to his truly turning to you. For years,” prays the priest, “we’ve tried to get this family to turn to you, but it’s all been in vain. It seems, then, that the rattlesnake has done what we could not. And so, O God,” prays the priest, “will you send more rattlesnakes; one to bite Jimmy, one to bite Johnny, and a really big one to bite Pa? A-men.”

They may not face giants, they may not face rattlesnakes, but everyone faces adversity. Except for David, the Israelites cannot defeat the Philistines. Without Jesus, his disciples cannot survive the storm. Apart from the presence of something greater than ourselves, you and I and people around us cannot hope to overcome the challenges around us or the fears within. And we, like David, can do something about that.

Today, tomorrow, this week, and in the coming months, you and I can call forward that ‘David-defeats-Goliath’ story that God continues writing all the time into your life and mine. We can continue stepping up, speaking out, challenging assumptions with our own belief that human arrogance is tamed, human ignorance defeated, by the justice, the mercy, the goodness, and the truth, of God. We can continue this story by the presence of its author in your life and mine, and in families and friends, in strangers all around us, people eager to find their own stories written into the story of God’s victory, into our story here, together.

And so may God the Almighty, who has bound us together in common purpose, grant that by our witness to the power and the Love of God we may bless those who do not know them, encourage one another, and bring glory to God’s Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009, James V. Stockton