Too Big to Miss

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

1 Samuel 17:41-51

January 5, 2014 • Portage First UMC

Well, Christmas is over, and now it’s time to get back to real life. The decorations are gone, the radio stations have gone back to “regular” music (whatever that is), and New Year has come and the family that has been visiting has gone back to their homes. Tomorrow, the kids go back to school and everything will settle back into the regular routine. And that’s unfortunate, for so many reasons. Christmas comes to us as an intrusion, in many ways. Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol, says Christmas is “a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man’s pockets.” For Scrooge, Christmas was a huge intrusion. It interrupted his business, but for many if not most of the rest of us, Christmas interrupts us in good ways. People tend to be more giving, somewhat kinder (unless you got the last toy off the shelf that someone else wanted), and we take at least a day or two to spend time with our family. Then, it’s back to “real life.” After all, that’s where we live.

But what if “real life” could take on more of the characteristics of the Christmas season? What if we could find a way to incorporate the love, joy, peace, and hope that God pours out on us at Christmas into “real life”? This morning, we’re going to be starting a sermon series asking just that question. Not necessarily how we can make the whole year like Christmas, but more how we can make the whole year and our “real life” look more the way God desires it. We live “real life,” and so did one of the Bible’s towering figures. He faced so many challenges and difficulties in his life, and yet he remained, to the end of his days, a “man after God’s own heart” (cf. Acts 13:22). What is it about David that kept him so focused, even on days when it wasn’t a religious holiday? And what can we learn from David that can help us become people after God’s own heart, right in the middle of our own “real life”? So over the next several weeks, we’re going to be looking at different moments in the life of David, to see how he dealt with temptation, with lust, with anger, with family betrayal and even with death. David has much to teach us about real life, but we begin this morning with David as a young boy, kneeling by the side of a brook in the Valley of Elah.

David, as we will see in the weeks to come, becomes a significant figure in the Old Testament, but at this point in his story, he is just a shepherd boy. He’s the runt of the litter, the youngest son out of eight boys, a nobody from the nowhere town of Bethlehem. It’s likely David spent much of his time away from home, tending the sheep out in the wilderness. He could be gone for days at a time doing that, because you had to take the sheep where you could find water and grass, and that’s not plentiful in the desert surrounding Bethlehem and its neighboring town, Jerusalem. David is the youngest, and his brothers and their father thought he wouldn’t amount to much of anything. So we can understand why they are shocked when, in the chapter just before this, the prophet Samuel shows up and says one of the eight boys will be Israel’s next king. Lo and behold, it turns out that God has chosen the runt, David, to be the king. And yet, after Samuel anoints David and proclaims him to be the next king, life seems to just go on as it always had. David does go to work for the current king, Saul, for a time, but Saul doesn’t seem to notice anything about him. At the end of today’s story, he doesn’t even recognize this boy, this runt who has been in his service for at least a little while.

So, in the story we read this morning, David has come to the battlefield—not as a soldier, but as a sort of pack mule. He’s come to bring supplies. Three of his older brothers had volunteered in the war against the Philistines, so they were with King Saul on the battlefield in the Valley of Elah. David is sent to bring bread, cheese and roasted grain to those on the battlefield, and to find out for his father how everyone is doing (16:1-19). When David arrives, though, he quickly forgets about the food because he’s appalled at what he sees. You see, the Philistines had come up with a somewhat more humane way of deciding the outcome of this battle. Rather than both sides killing each other until no one is left, the Philistines had proposed that each side bring out their strongest warrior and the two of them would fight. The loser’s side would become the servants of the winner’s side. Scholar John Goldingay comments it would be even more sensible if they decided it based on a soccer tournament or a game of chess, but then again, he is British (1 & 2 Samuel for Everyone, pg. 83). So the Philistines make their challenge: send out your best warrior. And they send theirs out, a man whose name has become synonymous with “giant.” His name is Goliath.

It’s hard to picture what he must have looked like. The Bible tells us he was “six cubits and a span” (17:4). That’s over nine feet tall by modern measurements. Add to that his strength; 1 Samuel says he wore armor that weighed about 126 pounds—and that was just on his torso. He also wore protection on his head and legs, and carried a javelin and a spear. The spear point itself weighed over 15 pounds, and on top of all of that, as if his size wasn’t intimidating enough, he had a shield bearer that went ahead of him. Goliath is tall, strong and well protected (cf. Baldwin, 1 & 2 Samuel [Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries], pgs. 125-126). Now, Saul, the Israelite king, was no slouch. He is described as being “a head taller than any of the others” (10:23), and he had armor that was quite extensive and heavy itself. So the Philistines probably expected the king himself to take on their champion. But Saul doesn’t want to. Like his men, he’s hiding in the tents. He’s afraid of the giant. The Bible says he is “dismayed and terrified” (17:11). So it’s even more striking when this little runt, who is not a trained soldier, comes into the camp, hears Goliath cursing Israel and her God, learns this has been going on for forty days (17:16), and says, “Are you going to let him get away with that?”

Sometimes taunts like that can be hurtful. Or sometimes it’s exactly what you need to hear. For some reason, as I read this, I thought of one of the first Mayor’s Prayer Breakfasts I attended here in Portage, several years ago, and the invitation was given to come to the buffet, but those at our table held back. Until we were corrected, and pointed in the right direction. Robin Wilkening, who was sitting with the fire department, came by our table and straightened us out: “Why are you Methodists still sitting here when there’s a food line? Get up and move! You’re embarrassing me!” Of course, Robin was teasing us, but it was enough for us to get up and move—and have a great breakfast! David’s question is meant in the same way. Why are you still sitting here, Saul? Why hasn’t someone answered the challenge this giant is giving? And if they won’t move, David will. Even though his brothers are ashamed of him, David’s determined that no one will mock God or Israel while he’s around. Even when King Saul protests, David insists he is more than able to take on this giant. “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (17:37). After one awkward attempt to put David in Saul’s armor (sort of like trying to put an adult’s clothes on a toddler), Saul gives in. Even if David loses, he supposes, they won’t be any worse off.

And that’s when we find David kneeling down by the brook. He’s testing stones, checking their weight, their balance. He’s vulnerable, unprotected. There’s nothing to stop Goliath from killing him right then and there, except it seems that Goliath is amused by David. “Am I a dog,” he asks, “that you come at me with sticks?” (17:43). No, David doesn’t see Goliath as a dog. He sees him as someone who is on the wrong side of God. He will not allow this man, who worships an idol, to talk down about the living God. So he carefully selects five smooth stones, and then he stands up and faces Goliath. “The battle is the Lord’s,” David says, “and he will give all of you into our hands” (17:47).

That is what we most forget when we face giants. Oh, I know we’ve not faced men ten feet tall. Our giants are much more commonplace. Cancer. Joblessness. Family struggles. Grief. Divorce. Loneliness. Betrayal. Debt. Foreclosure. Death. The list could on and on. The giants we face are common to many of us, but no less threatening. They whisper, “God can’t really get out of this. God isn’t listening to you. Look at you—all those years of going to church and serving on committees and putting money in the offering plate and see where it's gotten you. God has abandoned you. No one loves you.” Maybe they do more than whisper. Maybe they stand on the hillside and shout at you. Maybe the voices never quit. You even hear them in your sleep. And you know they are false. You know the words are lies, and yet they are so insistent, so repetitive, that it’s easy to begin to believe them. They’re so much louder than the still, small voice of the one, true God. You know Goliath, and maybe you’ve become convinced that you don’t have enough weapons to win the battle. The voices echo through our soul, maybe even from well-meaning “friends.” That’s the way it was for David. The same sort of voices that treated Goliath as important and undefeatable also treated David as insignificant. His own family is telling him he can’t win. After forty days of listening to Goliath’s voice, they’ve begun to believe him. His truth has become their truth, but that doesn’t make it the real truth. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “The moment we permit evil to control our imaginations, dictate the way we think, and shape our responses, we at the same time become incapable of seeing the good and the true and the beautiful” (Leap Over a Wall, pg. 39). And so David kneels at the brook, looking not for bigger weapons, but for five smooth stones. Echoing this story, the prophet Zechariah once said the battle is won “not by might, nor by power, but by God’s spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).

One of the best movies of last year, in my opinion, was the story of baseball player Jackie Robinson as told in the film 42. Many of you know the story, even if you haven’t seen the film. Robinson was the first African-American to play in major league baseball, and he faced a huge giant in his time called racism. But his manager, Branch Rickey, was motivated by his faith in God to bring Robinson up into the big leagues, to make a difference for generations to come. Together, they faced Goliath—multiple Goliaths—as they sought to end discrimination in baseball. There are many great scenes in the film, but this scene probably best sums up the giant they faced.

VIDEO: 42, “Do You Think God Likes Baseball?” (edit)

The rest of David’s story is well-known, and, oddly enough, is told in rather quick fashion considering all the build up in the story thus far. David goes out, puts one stone in his sling and hurls it toward Goliath. This would have not been a slingshot like you might have played with as a child. The first time I was in Israel, in the town of Bethany a man had a sling that was like the one David would have used and he demonstrated how it worked by putting a stone in it, swinging it around a couple of times, then letting one end of the sling go. The stone went flying a long distance over the houses of Bethany. I wouldn’t have wanted to be where it landed! The man smiled at us as we watched it go and said, “My mother-in-law lives over there.” So David hurls the stone at his enemy. Everyone else thought this enemy was too big to take on, too intimidating, too scary. But David saw this enemy, this giant as being “too big to miss.” Now, some commentators want to downplay what happens here. The sling, they say, would have allowed David to operate quite a distance away, outside the range of Goliath’s weapons, and, they say, David somehow managed to hit the only vulnerable spot in Goliath’s armor—his forehead (cf. Baldwin 128). Some commentaries want to make it all about David’s skill. And while he was undoubtedly very skilled, and all of that may be true, it misses the main point of the story: David is not fighting for himself or even really for Israel. David is taking on the giant so that he can defend God’s name, God’s reputation. He believes no one should be allowed to speak ill of the God who has walked with David from early in his life. It’s his faith in God that gives David the strength to confront the giant and to kill him. It’s a story that is so well-known that it’s often used today in political and sports metaphors to describe a small opponent taking on a much larger one. Not long ago, a Florida candidate for the senate was told he was the David in the election, the underdog, and he responded, “Remember, David won” (cf. Goldingay 83). And so David did (I don’t know about the politician). But when did David win? I believe he really won long before the stone was put in the sling.

David won when he recognized what was really going on here, that this wasn’t a physical battle so much as a spiritual battle. Israel had forgotten God. The king had forgotten God. David won when he helped them remember God. And David won when he stepped out of the king’s armor. For David to try to go out into battle with someone else’s armor would have been a disaster. Can you imagine little David trying to wear armor designed for a man who stood head and shoulders above most other men? David needed to enter the battle in a way that was authentic to him. That’s why he was by the brook, and that’s where he really won the battle. Down on his knees, refusing to use weapons that the world thought were appropriate. David’s looking for five smooth stones because he needed something authentic to who he was (Peterson 42).

When I was younger, the giant that most threatened me was fear—specifically, fear of death. Not my own; it was more a fear of being left alone. I don’t know what triggered it, or even exactly when it started. But I remember it would sometimes take over my whole thought process. Somehow I got it in my head as a kid that if, before I went to bed, I told my parents, “I’ll see you in the morning,” then nothing bad would happen to me or them during the night. And that fear, that giant, dogged me for a long time. Those “end times” movies that made the circuit of churches in the seventies didn’t help any. The giant continued laughing at me, screaming my name, and threatening to be my undoing, telling me, “You don’t have any real faith! A real Christian wouldn’t struggle with this!” And I was convinced of that for a long time. Like Saul’s men hiding in the tents, I spent a lot of energy—emotional and spiritual energy—fighting the giant without ever really facing it. There were two things that finally brought me peace. One was studying the Bible and learning better theology than I had taken from Sunday School. And the other was the same thing that sustained David. Like David, I needed to spend some time kneeling so that I could adequately face the giant.

David pulls five smooth stones out of the water, but he only needs one.  When he stands up, he’s ready to face Goliath. “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin,” he says, “but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands” (17:45-46). While David was kneeling at the brook, he was praying, asking God for the strength to stand up for what was right. And that’s why, there by the brook, David won the battle. Whether he lived or died (though he was pretty sure he would live), it didn’t matter. He was, in that moment, his most authentic self, on his knees, in the presence of his God.

You see, when the giants come after us, we really have only two choices: fear or faith. The one “stone” that we need is not summoning up within ourselves some faith (as the self-help gurus would tell us). No, the one “stone” we need is prayer, because that’s what connects us to the God who is bigger than any giant that will come our way (cf. Lucado, Facing Your Giants, pg. 168). Paul says, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying” (Ephesians 6:18). We have to face the giant on our knees; no one else can defeat our giant for us. A counselor can’t, a pastor can’t, a good friend can’t. You have to face your own giant on your knees. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “Every person learns the way of faith freshly or not at all” (43). Others can pray for us, but we need to be on our knees ourselves as well. Will we face the giants and live our lives on our knees? Will we be shaped by our fear of Goliath or our faith in God? One of the big themes of the Bible is that God delights to do is turn the odds upside down (Goldingay 84). Over and over again, the one who shouldn’t win does and the one who is the “least of these” becomes the greatest. The biggest example of this, the pinnacle of God’s work, is when Jesus was crucified. To the world, it was a shameful death. To the world, it was the end. Death was the end. The rulers and powers of this world had finally silenced this one who threatened them so much, and when the stone was sealed in front of his tomb, there were those who believed it was done. He was done. They wouldn’t be bothered by Jesus anymore. But God takes those odds and turns them around. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, put it this way: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27; cf. Arnold, NIV Application Commentary: 1 & 2 Samuel, pg. 264). Before too long, the shepherd boy who was kneeling by the brook is standing over the giant who was shouting. The giant is dead, and God is not. We have only two choices in the face of posturing giants: fear or faith.

What is your giant? What is it that’s facing you, intimidating you, telling you that you can’t make it? What threatens you in this new year? In just a few moments, we’re going to have holy communion, and during that time, you're invited to come to the front and write your giant on one of these canvases. Just pick a short name for your giant. Some will be easy to describe: “cancer” or “health,” “family” or “stress.” Others may not be so easy to name; some may be too personal. You may just need to write “Goliath” on the canvas. But this morning, as you come, this is an act of faith, of facing down the fear that surrounds that giant. Sometimes we just need to name it because the giant has been hiding in the shadows and yelling at us from the sidelines, and it’s time to put a stop to that. The canvases are conveniently located next to the kneelers, providing a place for you to pray as well this morning, to get on your knees like David did and place your trust in the God who will not fail you. The bread and the cup this morning serve to remind us that God loves to overcome the odds, that God always brings life out of death, that no giant can stand up against the God of the universe.

As we head into the new year, you may find yourself facing that giant again and again. Just naming it here may not take away the fear immediately. I prayed and prayed and prayed for a long time before I was able to defeat the giant that had followed me since I was young. And there are still times when he peeks his head around the corner, but I’m holding on to the fact that my God is bigger than the giants, and that there is no evil he can’t defeat. But that assurance has only come with a long period of prayer and a lot of patience and perseverance. You may need someone to walk with you, to pray with you, to remind you to be on your knees, and if you do, please talk to Pastor Deb or I. We’d love to connect you with a Congregational Care Minister who can be there and pray for you. Sometimes we just need help finding our voice as we face the giant.

In the coming weeks, we're going to be looking at David even more closely, and we’ll learn that Goliath is not that last giant he faces, but it is here, in the Valley of Elah, where he learns what it takes to defeat the foes that face him. David is a man after God’s own heart, and when the giants come, as they will, he constantly returns to prayer, for he knows, as John would later write, that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). That giant isn’t too big to face; he’s too big to miss. In that confidence, you’re invited to come this morning; receive communion, name your giant and pray. Let’s prepare our hearts for holy communion.