June 24th:
Call: Psalm 9 (749)
Text: 1 Samuel 17 (entire chapter)
The Real Big Guy
David and Goliath!
You know the story!
I know the story!
Christians and Jews throughout the entire world know the story.
In fact, I'll bet this story is better known
By people who have never set foot in a church or a synagogue
By people who have never even opened a Bible
Than any other scripture.
And I'll bet too that the terms "David and Goliath"
are used on secular occasions
Sporting events, political campaigns
Contests of all sorts
More than any other scripture terms.
This morning, I'd like to read the story to you. [1 Samuel 17]
When the story ends, don't you just want to stand up and cheer.
This little guy - a mere boy -
Stood up to a human menace so large that
King Saul and his soldiers were too intimidated to face him.
And cowered before him.
And not only did this little guy stand up to that giant menace
He "whupped" him good!
He knocked him down and he destroyed him
No longer were the Israelites going to quake in fear of Goliath.
If we were not so constrained by trying to exercise refinement and proper decorum in the sanctuary,
You and I would have leaped to our feet and shouted
"Hallelujah!"
"Great job David!"
"Take that, you Philistines!"
And hopefully "Thank you God!"
We feel like applauding, laughing, dancing, and crying.
We feel like
getting on our computers and our notebooks, and our cell phones
and contacting others with the good news
"Let me tell you about what David did."
[pause]
This joy and excitement is a lot different than what we felt last week.
For that week's scripture about God getting upset with Saul
Got us upset with God.
Upset Because we didn't think it fair for God to be so angry at Saul
for sparing rather than killing the Amalekite king
Upset Because we didn't think it fair for God to be so angry at Saul
for not slaughtering all of the Amalekite animals
Instead bringing the best home
to offer as a sacrifice to the very God
who was so upset over it that he told Samuel
"I regret having made Saul king."
And it was only after we came to understand
that what God was angry about was
Saul's having substituted his own judgment
For God's judgment.
That we could begrudgingly accept the scripture.
And start taking its lesson to heart.
Last week we didn't have any desire to cheer.
This week, we can scarcely restrain ourselves.
But I would suggest that a subtle danger lurks in
our enthusiastic and often uncritical response
to David's dramatic and inspiring victory over Goliath.
For it is very easy to cheer God for being on our side
And so, as we hear this story
we cheer what we perceive as
God being on the side of David and the Israelites.
It is easy to cheer God for being on the side we want to win
Whether in sports, in politics, in arguments - or in war.
This week marks the sesquicentennial of the death of Samuel Marsh
Physician, teacher, and Methodist preacher
Part of our congregation
Who was mortally wounded several hundred miles south of here
In Gaines Mill, VA At the end of June 1862
During a battle of a war that pitted brother against brother
With each army believing that God was on its side.
Thinking that God is on our side is backwards reasoning
It is selfish and self centered thinking
It is an ignorant approach to our relationship with God.
For the question is not whether God is on our side
The question is whether we are on God's side.
When we ask the wrong question, it is the equivalent of thinking
That God works for us
Instead of understanding
That we work for God.
I believe that this faulty way of thinking poisons our relationship
And lessens our love, our respect, and our obedience for our God.
I believe that if we are to call ourselves Christians
We have to get this question right
And that we then have to strive to answer the correct question
By figuring out what it is that God wants us to do
And who it is that God wants us to be.
We want to do that, but we can't if we ask the wrong question.
For the past five Sundays,we've been preparing to get the question right
On the first of those Sundays
Christ at his ascension told us, charged us, and commissioned us
To be his witnesses and to make disciples for him.
On the second of those Sundays
The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples
Empowering them and empowering us
Assuring them and assuring us
That we could do what we were charged to do.
On the third
We met ourselves in a man named Nicodemus
Who sought to follow Christ
But who struggled because he thought like a human being
And apparently struggled successfully
for he was the one who helped Joseph of Arimathea
place Jesus in the tomb.
We talked that day about beginning our graduate work or on the job training.
Using Nicodemus as an example of
who we are and how we think
and as an example of
who we can be if we keep seeking and struggling.
Then on the fourth and fifth Sundays
We encountered ourselves again
First in the Israelites demanding a king
And then in Saul, the first of those kings
Learning that we often
Both collectively and individually
Substitute our judgment for God's
And now today we discover in one of the best known scriptural stories
The fatal flaw in our relationship with God:
Our desiring to have God on our side
Instead of desiring that we be on God's side.
It is essential that
we recognize our flawed way of approaching our relationship with God
If we do,
And if we put our minds to our graduate work or on the job training
With prayer and worship
With serving, giving, and loving
In a way that demonstrates that we understand
that what we do to the least of the people
we do to Christ,
Then like Nicodemus
We will come to understand what we should do
And will become effective witnesses and disciple makers
For Jesus Christ.
Goliath was a really big man and he lost
God is the Real Big "Man" and God always wins
I for one, want to be on God's side