3rd Sunday in Pentecost, St. Paul’s Otto, I Samuel 17
The three hags in the fourth act of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth stand around their boiling pot, chanting, “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
Today we come upon a bubbling cauldron which is the Valley of Elah where the army of Judah is encamped, just twelve miles west of Bethlehem. The Philistines are occupying Judean territory. Eugene Peterson describes the scene in his book Leap over the Wall, “The air is heavy with hostility. There isn’t a man on either side of the valley who isn’t hefting a spear, sharpening a sword, getting ready to kill. The Valley of Elah is a cauldron in which fear and hate and arrogance have been stirred and cooked for weeks into what’s now a volatile and lethal brew.”
For forty straight days, as the morning sun heated the valley floor the Judean and Philistine forces lined up on either side of the canyon, a dry river bed bisected a sort of no man’s land. The roar of battle cry echoed off the canyon walls. Then, a champion would step out from the Philistine line into the no man’s land and shout, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine…? I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.” However, when Saul and all Israel heard these words…”they were dismayed and greatly afraid.” No Israelite man stepped into that no man’s land to fight the giant.
Indeed, Goliath was a giant. His 9 feet 9 inch frame was covered from head to foot with 125 pounds of the latest in heavy metal armor. His weapons were technologically advanced. The head of his spear was made of iron, weighing about 25 lbs, which he twirled with the careless ease of a cheerleader twirling her baton. Goliath’s weapons of destruction and words of defiance, filled the forces of Saul with dismal dread at the prospect of fighting such a formidable foe He stood at the center of their world teasing and taunting them.
Then at the end of the day, as the army of Israel retreated to their encampment, Goliath stepped out into no man’s land again and with the sun setting behind him, repeated his insults and challenges to the backs of the Israelites. In the face of the giant, Israel did not remember that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
Martin Luther based his hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God, on that verse from Psalm 46. One translation of his second stanza promises that in the face of formidable foes, “But now a champion comes to fight, whom God himself elected. Ask who this may be; Lord of hosts is he! Christ Jesus our Lord, God’s only Son, adored. He holds the field victorious.” We sing that hymn with conviction. Would that we showed such conviction when we face our own Goliaths that taunt us morning and the evening.
Periodically, I meet a woman who lives near by walking her dog in the cemetery. One day I was out earlier than usual. She happened to come out at the same time, because as she explained, “I just had to get away from the news. Every report was worse than the previous one.” The world can seem like a gigantic cauldron of trouble from which there is no escape and which we have little hope of defeating. A critic reviewing the movie, the Valley of Elah, which is named after the battle site of today’s text, wrote, “Similar to that battle, there are so many battles going on daily between countries, between governments and their people, between the people themselves, and within us as well.” The giant in our lives may well be the turmoil within us that robs us of sleep at night and leaves us exhausted at the start of the day, or a conflict between people or a battle with the government or getting caught up in a war, whether its in Iraq or Afghanistan. The giant before us or within us grows larger and larger and stronger and stronger and becomes the center of our world.
But back on the farm near Bethlehem, Jesse tells the kid, his eighth born son, David to take some provisions to his three older brothers who have enlisted in Saul’s army. So it happens that on the forty first day of Goliath’s taunting the kid shows up. Now here’s a hint of where we are going with this. Sometime before, we have been told that the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul. We also learn that when Samuel anointed David with a flask full of oil, “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.”
The kid arrives just in time to hear the giant’s taunts and to see the men of Israel fleeing. David asks, “Who is this fore skinned Philistine that he should insult the battle-ranks of the living God?” Well there’s something new. Those men scampering up the side of the canyon are the army of the living God.
Remember, last week, we learned that God doesn’t look on the appearance of man but on the attitude of the heart. Now Eliab the oldest brother shows what is in his heart. He belittles his kid brother, accusing him of abandoning the sheep and just wanting to come and gawk. Never mind that Jesse their father had sent David to them with provisions and to check on their welfare. Never mind that the army of the living God has been abandoning the field of battle for forty days and doing nothing other than gawking at the giant.
Undaunted, David went to Saul and volunteered; “Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.” “You can’t fight him,” Saul says, “You’re just a kid and he has been a man of war since he was a kid.” David retorts, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this fore skinned Philistine who has defiled the armies of the living God.” Then we have the comedy in which David is dressed in Saul’s armor. It renders him immobile. So he sheds the protective armor and Saul’s sword.
David goes to the creek, kneels down, picks up five smooth stone and approaches the Philistine. Goliath scoffs, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?” David calls out, “That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,” he runs toward the Philistine, takes a stone from his bag, puts it in the sling and with a couple of looping twirls and a perfect release point, sinks a stone in Goliath’s forehead. After forty one days of shouting and insults it was all over in the blink of an eye. The giant lay crumpled face down on the ground.
The God who won the victory over the giant, Goliath, is the same God who stood in a boat in our gospel lesson and said to the storm, “Peace! Be still.” This is the same God, who in the person of a descendant of David, named Jesus delivered us from the threat of sin, death and devil with two crossed sticks.
Whatever giant may enter our life and stand in between ourselves and God, know that God, in Jesus Christ, has stood there too and has already defeated whatever giant looms before and robs us of our days and nights. He it is who like David before him was sent by his Father to us today for provisions for our living. Today we too have the word which by its speaking fells the devil, sin and death and provides us with forgiveness, life and salvation. Next Sunday we will once again be bolstered in our life and faith through his Body and Blood. But like David and like Jesus we too have been anointed with the Holy Spirit which contains the promise, though you have faith no larger than a mustard seed you can say, “Away with you giant, you’re blocking my view of the living God, and the giant must be gone.” After all, the Psalmist writes, “You, O Lord, will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble.”
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