Rev. Anne J. Scalfaro Year B Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – 9:30 a.m. Calvary Baptist Church 24 June 2018 Denver, Colorado “Facing God, Not Goliath” 1 Samuel 17:1-50 (The Message) When is the last time you read the Saul hadn’t defeated the full story of David and Goliath? Philistines. He was too scared. He It’s a doozy! We hear it very didn’t put himself before Goliath. differently as adults than we do as And yet here was young David children, don’t we? willing to go before this giant of a threat. He could have just stayed As children the story is shortened with his sheep and been safe and and really boiled down to a simple, fine and no one would have ever yet powerful point: “God uses thought twice about it because he ordinary people and unlikely wasn’t supposed to be a hero. At means to accomplish improbable least not yet. feats.”1 David’s also not that ordinary But is David really that because he had just been picked ordinary…and is his means that out by Samuel in a line up against unlikely…and is his feat that all of his other older, stronger, and improbable? more “adept at fighting” brothers to be the next King after Saul. At Well, for one, he’s not that this point all we know about David ordinary because David willingly is that he’s a shepherd and a song- volunteers to go up against Goliath writer and he could sooth Saul – who was supposedly the “warrior with his music. Not exactly of all warriors” in the Philistine military credentials. Surprisingly, army – which was the enemy that the gentle David of 1 Samuel Israel had been trying to defeat for chapter 16 really turns barbaric at a long, long time. In fact, the the end of chapter 17. We didn’t reason the Israelites demanded a read it, but verse 51 has David King in the first place was so that cutting off Goliath’s head and someone could help them defeat taking it back with him to the Philistines. That’s why Saul Jerusalem as a sort of trophy became King. And guess what? prize…bragging rights, if you will. 1 Daniel B. Clendenin, “After He Killed Him, He Cut Off His Jesus (21 June 2009), accessed on June 24, 2018 at Head: David, Goliath, and Sacred Violence,” Journey with https://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20090615JJ.shtml. Like the image on the cover of thrown by even the finest of your Order of Worship, we have baseball pitchers!)2 this image of David being this small boy with a sling-shot, very More than that, the stones in the innocent and naïve almost. But Valley of Elah were not normal shepherds were not weak, nor were rocks. They were barium sulphate, they naïve. As David himself said which are rocks twice the density in the text, he knew what it was to of normal stones. If you do the go head to head with lions and calculations on the ballistics, on bears. the stopping power of the rock fired from David's sling, it's So, he was not that ordinary, and roughly equal to the stopping his means – the sling – was not power of a [.45 caliber] handgun. that unlikely. Because that’s what This is no toy sling shot! We’re he used to kill lions and bears and talking about an incredibly protect his sheep! As one scholar devastating weapon.3 explains: “In ancient warfare, there are three kinds of warriors. There's And, we know from historical cavalry, men on horseback and records that experienced slingers with chariots. There's heavy could hit and maim or even kill a infantry, which are armed foot target at distances of up to 200 soldiers with swords and shields yards. From medieval tapestries, and some kind of armor. And we know that slingers were there's artillery, and artillery are capable of hitting birds in flight. archers, but, more importantly, They were incredibly accurate. slingers. And a slinger is someone When David stands before Goliath, who has a leather pouch with two he has every intention and every long cords attached to it, and they expectation of being able to hit put a projectile, either a rock or a Goliath at his most vulnerable spot lead ball, inside the pouch, and between his eyes. If you go back they whirl it around (6-7 over the history of ancient warfare, revolutions a second) and the rock you will find time and time again goes flying. That means that when that slingers were often the the rock is released, it's going decisive factor against infantry in forward really fast, probably 35 one kind of battle or another.”4 meters per second. (That's substantially faster than a baseball 2 Malcolm Gladwell, “The Unheard Story of David and https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_s Goliath,” TEDTalks (Sept. 2013), accessed on 24 June 2018 tory_of_david_and_goliath/transcript. at 3 Gladwell, ibid. 4 Gladwell, ibid. 2 So, not only was David not grow on your pituitary gland and ordinary, and his means not causes people to keep growing – unlikely…his feat wasn’t that which would explain Goliath’s improbable once you consider a size, and it would also explain why few things about Goliath. he has an attendant with him to guide him on the battle field and You see, Goliath wasn’t as mighty why he keeps asking David to as he might have seemed to be at come to him and why he thinks first. He was not artillery, he was David is carrying multiple sticks heavy infantry, decked out in all of when he really is only carrying one his armor. He thought he would be stick…because loss of eyesight is engaging in hand to hand combat, another side effect of acromegaly. which is why he kept saying to Do you remember the wrestler David, “come to me;” he thought André the Giant? Famous. He had they’d be fighting up close. King acromegaly. 6 Saul clearly thought the same thing, which is why he tried to The point in all of this being: outfit David in his armor, which of When the Israelites are up on the course, David doesn’t go for mountain ridge looking down on because he can barely move in it Goliath they thought he was this and he knows he needs freedom of extraordinarily powerful enemy. movement to have the right kind of What they didn't understand was agility for his mode of battle. that the very thing that was the source of Goliath’s apparent And comparatively, Goliath was, strength was also the source of his in essence, a lumbering giant greatest weakness.7 weighed down by a hundred pounds of armor and these Now, did David know all of this incredibly heavy weapons that are about Goliath before he faced him? useful only in short-range combat. No, of course not. But he did know As popular author, Malcolm that he was really good with a Gladwell says, “Goliath is a sitting sling. So he’s not really as weak duck. He doesn't have a chance.”5 and as vulnerable as we all imagine him to be from our Gladwell also points out that childhood story Bibles. But, even Goliath probably had a medical more than his skill, he also had condition called acromegaly, courage – and his courage came which causes a benign tumor to quite directly, the text says, from 5 Gladwell, ibid. 7 Gladwell, ibid. 6 Gladwell, ibid. 3 the Lord. The Lord, who saved me female. For you are all one in from the paw of the lion and from Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:28). the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” The Old Testament contains (v37) And later David says to violence that is divinely Goliath, “You come to me with sanctioned, at least according to its sword and spear and javelin; but I writers. But in the New Testament come to you in the name of the there are really only two examples Lord of hosts, the God of the when the followers of Jesus armies of Israel, whom you have wanted to use violent means for defied…” (v45). their cause — when James and John wanted to call down fire upon This idea of invoking God’s name the Samaritans because of their and “God being on our side” is the unbelief (Luke 9:51–55), and in context of the biblical authors, and the Garden of Gethsemane when especially of those writing the Jesus’ disciples tried to prevent his history of Israel in books like 1 arrest (Mark 14:47). In both and 2 Samuel. But theologically instances Jesus rebukes those who speaking, committing violence in try to show their allegiance to him the name of God and saying that through violent means. Instead, he God is on “my side” is insists that his Father in heaven troublesome today, isn’t it? This is causes his sun to shine on both the because 1) it implies that God is wicked and the righteous. He tells not on the “side” of whoever you us to love our enemies and to do are against – like those football good to those who persecute us, teams that pray for God to be on because in the end the ultimate their side in their locker room measure of our love for God is our before a game while across the love for our neighbor.”8…and yes, field in a different locker room even our enemy.