5th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

Everyone knows the story of David and Goliath.

It’s the subject of Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture. It’s built into the vernacular of the English language to describe someone small and weak taking on and besting a far more powerful adversary. You hear it in sports commentary all the time. (Or at least I assume you do. I don’t really listen to sports commentary very often.)

The point is: We know this story. Or at least we know the basic outline of the story.

But as we dive in, let me be clear on one point. I don’t think our take-away lesson should be: “If you have enough faith, God will help you kill your enemy.” In fact, the story isn’t really about Goliath at all. He’s simply a brutish caricature we instinctively despise because he’s like so many caricatures from stories we know. He’s Brutus from Popeye. He’s Moe from Calvin and Hobbes. He’s the big, formidable brute, without depth or reason, of all childhood fear.

Goliath has his role to play in the story. Certainly. But the central point of this story is not “the weak taking on the mighty.” The real drama – the real, human, complex drama – is the story that unfolds between David and his fellow Israelites. It is the story of an adult fear – a fear that knows the world and has learned to tremble appropriately before it – confronted by a youthful, innocent faith that still believes God is more real than our fears.

The Israelites, the grown men – King Saul, the soldiers, David’s brothers – all of them are described in terms of their fear and anxiety.

Verse 11: When Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

Verse 24: All the Israelites, when they saw the man, fled from him and were very much afraid.

Verse 28: David’s brother Eliab (ei-LAI-ab) treats him with scorn and derision. But beneath the bluster, what’s obvious is his anxiety and embarrassment – that his little brother found him cowering before the enemy.

Goliath is a towering beast. He’s nine feet tall, wearing 125 pounds of armor. But the point is, Goliath is all of our adult fears. Goliath is the days of waiting for the lab results. Goliath is our children, our grandchildren, succumbing to addiction. Goliath is our credit card debt. Goliath is the presidential election. And every morning when we awake, these Goliaths stride onto the battle field of our day, to mock us and taunt us, knowing we’re too weak to take them on.

Oh, yes, we adults know Goliath well. Like King Saul, we’re afraid we don’t have what it takes to lead our families or communities during times of crisis. Like the soldiers, we run away from Goliath, pretending the debt’s not there. Yet all the while it grows, and our fear along with it. Like Eliab (ei-LAI-ab), we treat the people around us badly – finding someone else to mock or to blame to conceal our own self-loathing and shame. We’ve grown up and developed our grown-up sensibilities about this threatening world we live in. But perhaps all we’ve done is learn to be afraid.

Surely it must be this grown-up fear that Jesus is responding to when he tells his grown-up followers: Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3).

Become like David, traipsing onto the battlefield with a “God-dominated imagination.”[1] He can’t believe what he encounters in these men. Why on earth should they tremble before this uncircumcised Philistine? Is God “God” or not? He’s acting like a child, who doesn’t know any better.

Or… he’s acting like a child of God, the only one in that valley who sees reality as it is.

You know how the story goes from there: the five smooth stones, the fling of his sling, and down comes the mighty giant.

But what do we do with this information? How do we adults, with our grown-up knowledge of this world, foster a child-like faith?

Like Kathryn when she was little. She epitomized this vision of childlike faith. She strode into the world with absolute confidence that “all would be well,” that the waters would part before her, that every obstacle was but a temporary thing. I remember watching her with amazement and pride: four years old, on a beach, walking straight up to some older boys she didn’t even know, calling them to her, then setting them to work, building the sand-castle city she imagined. Of course they would do it. That’s how her world worked.

She remembers the moment when this childish faith was broken. She had a ring that was precious to her. And one day, at Albertson’s with Cynthia, it fell off and rolled away. They searched and searched and couldn’t find it. And at one point, Cynthia declared it lost and time to carry on with the shopping. So they walked away, leaving the ring behind. And for her (in a sense), leaving childhood behind.

Because, of course, in this grown-up world, not every problem can be solved the way we want, no matter how much faith we have.

I think, when Jesus is calling us to have “faith like a child,” or in this case, “faith like David,” it’s not a naïve faith that everything will go the way we want it to or that God’s job is to make it so. Rather, it is a faith that God is real, and that the ways of God are dependable and true – that we can stride onto the battlefield (as it were) trusting God to meet us as we align ourselves with the purposes of God – which will always boil down to just two things: Love God. Love your neighbor.

To grow in faith is to move away from our self-centered fear: What’s going to happen to me? How do I protect myself? What will people think of me? Will there be enough for me?

And, likewise, it’s to move away from religious belief that is equally driven by self-centered fear: What must I do to be saved? How do I appease an angry god? Who can I point to who’s a worse sinner than I am?

It’s to move away from our perpetual fear-driven, self-centeredness and towards an awareness of the other with a willful desire to contribute to – to become part of – their wellbeing with the belief, that in so doing, God will meet us there.

A grown-up, childlike faith is one where we actually choose to live our daily lives as if we believed what Jesus said:

• It is better to give than to receive
• love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
• forgive those who have hurt you

It’s a grown-up, childlike faith that chooses to live as if God were real and the ways of God were trustworthy and true. And it’s never too late to begin.

It’s about a twelve-hour drive between Gig Harbor and Rocklin, California where my brother Mike lives. And whenever I make this drive, it’s the last stretch that’s the worst. It’s always dark by then. I’m tired. It’s a two-lane road with headlights in my eyes. And I’m always so tense, so aware of how vulnerable I am, how easily I could swerve into the oncoming traffic. But last year, for the first time, I made that same trip driving a friend’s car that had an Advanced Driver’s Assistance System. It’s like Cruise Control, but smarter. If I started to veer towards the edge of the lane, the steering wheel would pull the car back to the center. If the car in front of me slowed down, my car would slow down, too. It was a little strange at first. But then it became wonderful. I felt so much safer. I arrived in Rocklin so much more relaxed. It was like I hadn’t been the only one driving the car or paying attention. It didn’t all depend on me. I wasn’t alone.

And this is what faith is like, what the journey of faith is like. When faith becomes less,
“Believe the right things” and more, “Live the right way,” we find we’re not alone. There’s an aliveness in it, a “god-ness” – “God,” in fact. God is with us. We’re still in the driver’s seat. Our actions matter. Our choices matter. We need to stay awake. But we’re not doing it alone. We can feel God’s presence and participation, pulling our car to the center of the lane, applying the brakes.

And as we find ourselves entering into the last stretch of the journey – tired and vulnerable, in so many ways – perhaps this can be a new season of faith, a childlike faith that’s willing to live as if the ways of God were true…

• No longer just believing that generosity is virtuous, but being
• No longer just believing that forgiveness is godly, but actually

A faith that’s ready to say, “I’m tired of being so riled up and easily offended, holding onto grudges and having to be in control of everything. You do whatever you want. That’s your choice. I’m just gonna love – flagrantly.”

We don’t need to let fear control us, no matter how many fearful forces surround us. They may be real. In fact, they are. They may even kill us in the end. But they won’t destroy us, because they don’t have that power. There is just on power in the end. And that power God. And that God is love. And that love shall triumph. This is our faith. And faith shall set us free. And we shall be free, indeed. Amen.

[1] Eugene Peterson, First and Second Samuel