There Might Be Giants

Every day he came out from the camp of the Philistines. He stood there in the valley between the Philistines and the Israelites and he yelled up at the Israelites, “Hey, you! What’s the matter? Don’t you want to fight me?”

He got their attention. After all, the man was six and a half cubits tall. Do you know how tall that is? Neither do I, but trust me, it’s big -- somewhere between six and half and nine feet tall. He was a Goliath of a man. And his name was…Goliath.

He wore a bronze helmet on his head and scaly armor on his body that weighed five thousand shekels. Do you know how much that weighs? I was really hoping that you did. It’s something over 100 pounds. And that doesn’t even count the bronze greaves around his legs and the bronze javelin he carried slung on his back, the spear that he carried which had a huge shaft and an iron point, and the huge shield that went before him. He was physically powerfully, super strong and he could burn down city walls with his laser vision eyes. Well, maybe not that last one, but he might as well have been able to do that. He terrified the Israelites.

He would stand there in the valley and say, “Come on out and fight me! Don’t you have a man up there who is up to it? Look, all you have to do is kill me and all of this army will be your slaves. But if I kill your champion, you will be our slaves. Seems like a pretty easy thing to do, Israel. I defy you! I unclog my nose in your direction, you silly window dressers!” My translation of the Bible is a little loose in this section.

No one would dare to confront Goliath, though. The scriptures say that all the Israelites were “broken and very afraid.” Even King Saul was afraid. So day after day, at dawn and sunset, Goliath would come out and taunt the Israelites and they would cower behind the rocks.

Now in the Israelite army were three brothers, Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah. They were sons of Jesse of Bethlehem. The oldest of eight sons that Jesse had. They were among those listening day after day as Goliath came out to taunt the army. They had a younger brother, the youngest, whose name was David. He had stayed at home to watch his father’s flocks.

One day, Jesse called David to him and sent him up to the front lines with some food for the older brothers. You know what army food is like. Nothing special. So Jesse was supplementing the supplies with some bread cakes and cheese and little bit of parched grain. He was also fishing for some news about how the war was going, so he told David to bring him back a full report.

Now we know something special about David, because in 1 Samuel chapter sixteen, right before this story, the prophet Samuel anointed David to be Israel’s new king. But the word is not out on the streets yet. Saul, the current king, hasn’t heard the word. David himself is not telling anybody. But we know that God has chosen David for a great task, despite that fact that he’s just a shepherd boy.

That’s how his brothers thought of him. When he showed up at the front lines he arrived just as the Israelites were stoking themselves up for a battle. They had arranged in battle lines and were peeking out from behind the rocks, trying to get a war cry going. Somebody was trying to do the wave. But then Goliath came out again. “Come on down here! Is there a man among you who has the courage to face me down? Send him out. I defy you, Israel! I despise you! Your mother wears combat boots!”

David was listening to all this and he turned to the soldier around him and said, “Did he just say that our mother wears combat boots? Are you going to let him get away with that?”

The people around him said, “He’s been doing this for forty days now. He defies us. He despises us. He insults our mothers and our God. The king will give great wealth to anybody who kills him. Money and he’ll let him marry his daughter and he will free his father’s house.”

This got David’s attention. “What did you say?” He stood up. “What did you say would be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this taunt from Israel? Who is this foreskinned Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

So they told him again. And it only made David bolder. Which only made his brothers angry. Eliab came dome and said, “What are you doing here David? Who’s looking after the sheep? You just came down here to hang out around the battle and get in on the action.”

David responded like any younger brother would. He said, “What have I done now? It was just a question!” But it wasn’t just a question. David got it into his head that if nobody else was going to stand up to this giant, then he would have to. So he kept asking until finally Saul heard about this boy who had showed up at camp.

He called him in and David immediately started telling him what he was going to do. “Don’t let anybody lose heart on account of this Philistine. I’ll go fight him.”

Saul must have laughed at this. He said to David, “You can’t fight him. You’re just a boy and Goliath has been a fighter since he was a boy.”

Then David listed off his qualifications. “Look, I know how to handle stuff. I watch sheep and when a lion or a bear comes out after a sheep I go after it and I beat it with my staff until it lets the sheep go. Once I grabbed a lion by the mane and struck it and killed it. I can do the same with bear and I can do the same with this Philistine who defies the living God! The God who saved me from the paw of the bear will save me from this giant.”

It’s an impressive speech and you almost believe that David can pull it off until you remember that he’s a boy and Goliath is 30 feet tall and dressed in 300 pounds of armor. (Might as well be.) But Saul is willing to give him a chance and he gives him his own personal armor. He puts a bronze helmet on his head and body armor on. He puts a sword over his tunic.

It doesn’t fit. It won’t work. David knows it won’t work. It might have worked fine for Saul, but it’s a new day and David is trying a new approach.

It’s the same dynamic that we have sometimes in the church. We keep doing things the same way because they worked for us in the past. And when a new generation comes along we believe that if they just use the same tools and the same models, it will work for them, too.

What we are beginning to learn as a conference is that we have to open ourselves up to new ways of doing things. Last year we approved a proposal called All Things New that is aimed at changing the culture of our conference in the direction of fruitfulness. We’re going to build 250 new faith communities in 30 years.

Last week at Annual Conference we approved a 15-year, $15 million capital campaign to begin this effort. We struggled over it because that’s a lot of money, but when you think about it it’s really not much at all. $15 million dollars to start 8 new faith communities a year? Somebody pointed out that it’s about $60,000 per start. You can’t staff a church, build a building, establish programming on $60,000 a year. And where are we going to find the leaders for these new starts?

We are imagining churches like we’ve got today, though. The church of the future may look very different. There will still be places like Franktown that build off of their traditions in new ways, but there will be other places that will look differently. House churches. Small groups that meet in coffeehouses and bars. Storefront ministries. There is one church that meets in Waco, Texas under an interstate bridge. You know what it’s called? The Church Under the Bridge. It began as an outreach to homeless folks and now all kinds of people meet there. And these are the places that will produce new leaders. Church is going to be different if we let new people lead us.

Back to David. He gave Saul his armor back and he went down in a dry wadi. He looked around and picked up five small stones. He put them in his shepherd’s bag and then he went out to face down the giant. Big, ol’ Goliath, 50 feet tall with 500 pounds of weapons and armor – little ol’ David, with a staff and a slingshot and a pouch of small stones.

Goliath went out to face his opponent and he had so much stuff that he needed a helper to carry his shield. He looked down at David and he was disgusted. “I asked for a worthy opponent and you send me a boy with a shepherd’s staff? What do you think I am? A dog?” And he let out a string of curses directed at David. “You come on over here and I’ll leave you as a good dinner for the birds and the beasts.”

Now just about anybody else would have been quaking in his or her boots at this point. But not David. He may have been small but somebody big had his back. He knew that he was not facing the giant alone. He was facing the giant with the God who had helped him in the past.

“You come at me with a sword and a spear and a javelin,” David said. “But I come at you in the name of Yahweh Sabaoth, God of the armies of the Israel, whom you defied. So let me tell you what’s going to happen to you. Yahweh will give you into my hand and I will strike you down and separate you from your head. And it won’t be me lying out for the birds and the beasts; it will be you. People will know then that there is a god for Israel. And people will know that it’s not by sword and spear that Yahweh saves, because the battle belongs to the Lord.”

Then it happened…just like David said. Goliath moved up and drew near to attack David. David moved quickly and started running toward him. On the way he reached his hand into that shepherd’s bag and pulled out one of those smooth stones. He put it in his sling and twirled it around and that stone came flying out and hit that giant right square in the forehead. He fell flat on his face in the earth. Ding, dong, the witch was dead. Or the giant…

It’s a great story, isn’t it? The little guy beats the giant. A small stone in a sling beats the best military technology of the day. A boy has more faith and confidence than the king and not only says he believes in God but acts like he does. It makes you believe that a new day could be possible.

This week we’ve been watching the news out of Iran. They had an election there and all the polls seemed to indicate that a reform candidate by the name of Mousavi was going to beat the current president, Ahmadenijad. Thousands of young people were in the streets anticipating a new day when Iran would turn away from repression and towards justice.

Then the election results were announced. The current president was said to have won in a landslide although most people believed that there was massive fraud. The vote count was strictly controlled by the government. Riot police lined the street. Communication with the outside world was reduced to Twitter.

Then the protests began and they were largely peaceful. Thousands, then hundreds of thousands of people went into the streets. The reform supporters wore green and chanted “Allahu Akbar.” “God is great. God is great.” All night long they shouted this from the rooftops, “Allahu Akbar. God is great.” Every night they go to the rooftops and they shout, “Allahu Akbar. God is great.” And they expect a new day.

There was a picture from the middle of the week. It shows one of the reform protestors – a man who looks to be in his 30s or 40s. He is hurling something in the air at the policeman who have come to confront them. He’s got his arm back to fling the object and his feet are off the ground because he is throwing this object with all of his might. What he is throwing is a bouquet of flowers. Flowers. To think that a regime might come down because people throw flowers at the giants.

I have to believe that God is calling us to the same sort of new day. We all face giants of some sort or another in our lives. We know their names and we tremble in their path. Maybe it’s depression that stands like a Goliath in front of you. That’s certainly been a giant in my life from time to time. Maybe it’s an addiction. Maybe it’s an old wound in your soul that has more power than it ought to. Maybe it’s a relationship that is going sour. Maybe it’s a bully.

There may be giants in this world. But no giant you can face is greater than the power of God. In the end Goliaths fall and fail, but God never does. And the people who find wholeness and salvation are those who know this and act on it. Who do not fear what can be done to the body but who put their confidence and trust in the one who comes to make all things new.

We’ve got some giant-slaying to do in this world. But we don’t have to do it alone. God is with us. God is great. Thanks be to God.

1 Samuel 17:1-49 (NRSV)

The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field."

But David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand."

When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.