* This sermon remains unpreached so I guess it is more of an essay or reflection than sermon. I do plan to preach it at some point. I am publishing it on here after a number of troubling conversations and messages in recent days. One of the deepest and most profound problems with our society is the tendency to deal in absolutes to the point that disagreement necessarily becomes something akin to hatred. That leads to coarsened language and perspectives on the world and one another.
Stones or Cross?
1 Samuel 17
The Rev. Dr.
Robert Wm Lowry
David put his hand in his bag, took
out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
He stood ten feet tall, this
Philistine, this one called Goliath. The
breadth of his shoulders matched only by the sight of his armor. The earth must have shook under his feet as
he emerged from behind the lines of Philistine chariots perched atop the
mountain. They too would have been a
site to behold; the smoke rising behind them from the encampment, the noise of
armaments being prepared for battle, the sound of thousands of men shuffling
around, finding their places in line and dressing ranks to face the enemy.
Facing them across the valley on
the opposite side were the Israelites.
Led by Saul, they gathered to face this long time nemesis. The battle would not be a fair match. It never was.
The Philistines always seemed to have more men, more arms,
more…luck. The Israelites, making due
with what they had, managed to win a few battles, skirmishes really, but all in
all the scales tipped on the Philistines side.
Surely the appearance of Goliath
would signal yet another trouncing at the hands of the Philistines. Taunting the Israelites, Goliath issues a
challenge. If the Israelites can find
one man who will fight Goliath and defeat him, the Philistines will not only
surrender their army, but they will surrender their very selves as servants to
Israel.
Certainly there is one. There must be one man.
There must be one in the whole
nation of Israel who can face down the giant and free the people from the
threat of the Philistines.
Of course there was. YHWH would choose one from among the whole of
the people. An unexpected choice to be
certain, but YHWH’s choice nonetheless.
David. The shepherd boy. The son of Jesse.
Met with derision and surprise, he
snaked his way through the lines of soldiers.
After long machinations and negotiations, he is finally led to the field
of battle to face Goliath.
The shepherd boy and the Philistine
giant face to face.
So, David put his hand in his bag,
took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
Facing Goliath would certainly have
been frightening for young David but killing him was easy. This was not a man it was a Philistine.
As a Philistine, Goliath was an
outsider; a worthy target of David’s stone.
Philistines were unclean, undesirable, uncircumcised and, in short, unimportant. They lived outside the covenant and were,
therefore, completely expendable. The
represented everything the Israelites were charged by God not to be.
Killing Goliath was not merely a military
act, it was an act of faith. It was the
killing of that which the nation of Israel saw as opposed God and God’s
command. Philistines were not, after
all, real people. They were
caricatures. They were the cartoons
drawn to show the folly of all that was outside the nation.
When David put his hand in his bag,
took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine, he was striking a blow
for purity. He was striking down the
other, the unclean, the great unwashed.
It is certainly easy to stand there
cheering David on to victory. I know
that I locate myself there in the story around verse 51 when young David stands
over the body of the slain Goliath and raises the giant’s sword over his head. I can feel the sun on my face, smell the dust
in the air and see the sights of the battlefield. Fists pumping in the air, I join my voice
with the crowd I imagine starting to gather to cheer on the boy who slew the
giant. Chanting DAVID, DAVID, DAVID!
And surely this is a moment worthy
of praise!
Lying there on the ground is the
greatest Philistine, the greatest unbeliever, the greatest of the unclean,
unworthy and unfaithful. The
representative of all that is reprehensible, lay dead on the ground and the
people were finally free of this menace.
If I could find the way, I wouldn’t mind arriving on the scene a few
verses earlier. Somewhere around verse
48, when Goliath walks out on the battlefield, because then I could pick up a
rock. I could stand there with David and
strike a blow for good over evil.
Eye to eye with evil, David put his
hand in his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
And if David is a hero for his
victory so, certainly, are we heroes when we cast a stone in the name of
good. Right?
Standing there over the body of the
giant with my fingers clinched around the stone I so want to throw, I begin to
wonder. Is this stone really the way
past this giant? Am I really throwing
this stone to defeat an enemy of good or am I throwing this stone to defeat my
enemy?
My quarrel is not with David. Even I, with all the things I throw out to
you, am not going to second guess the motivation of Israel’s great king. I chose to believe at face value what
scripture tells us here; that the Giant’s challenge was truly a threat that
demanded response from the people.
No, it is not David who is indicted
here, it is we. We who make up the
cheering crowd gathered around the body of the fallen giant. We, who, with our bags full of stones, looking
for places to throw them, seeing in our own reflections the face of God’s
anointed, too easily find Philistines behind every corner. We who locate ourselves in solidarity
with the hero king and place on our own shoulders the mantle of responsibility
for freeing God’s church, God’s world, even God’s very people from the threat
of the Philistines of our own age.
David put his hand in his bag, took
out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
The windswept winter landscape of
Wyoming probably did not resemble much of that battlefield of ancient
Israel. There were no armies, no grand
generals. Yet, I imagine that somewhere
in their minds Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney thought they were facing a
Philistine giant. Before them was their
Philistine. He was the embodiment of all
that is wrong, even evil. Before them
was the face of that which needed to be destroyed. This giant certainly did not strike the same
physical presence as the giant of old.
This giant stood barely 5’7 and may have weighed 8 stone soaking
wet. Nonetheless, these two warriors for
good reached into their bags, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the
Philistine. In fact they struck this
Philistine over and over and over again.
Standing in victory like David,
they looked down on the broken body of Matthew Shepherd and knew that they had
done what was good, what was holy, what was right.
They were heroes.
They were David.
Right?
After all, David put his hand in
his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
The sanctuary of First Presbyterian
Church is the last place you would think to find a Philistine giant. Yet there she was. Standing at the microphone, recounting the
tenants of her personal faith, with her every word the threat grew greater and
greater. We began to squirm in our seats,
quietly caucusing in whispers to affirm that we were really hearing what we
thought we were hearing. Short notes
passed from one to another until finally she finished and in that moment it was
as if she had just emerged from the line of chariots to issue her
challenge. Two of the pastors sitting
there in their discomfort, their bags of stones fastened around their waists,
stepped to the microphone. This
Philistine, this conservative, was not going to enter their presbytery without
a fight. One by one they reached into
their bags, took out a stone, threw it and struck the Philistine. In fact the stones were thrown one after the
other until finally this giant, rather than laying dead on the battlefield,
stood defeated in the chancel. A blow
was struck by those pastors for theological purity.
We were heroes.
We were David.
Right?
After all, David put his hand in
his bag, took out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine.
Standing around the fallen giant,
seeing in the face of the young heroic shepherd boy David the reflection of our
own faces, it is just so easy to appoint ourselves defenders of the right and purveyors
of divine justice.
And like David, we put our hands in
our bags, take out a stone, throw it, and strike the Philistine.
We set ourselves up as defenders
and saviors forgetting that it is in truth we who are the defended and we are
the saved. And it is not by the casting
of stones but the tragedy of the cross.
In Christ, we are relieved of the
burden of our bag of stones.
In Christ, we are delivered from
the prison of our fears and even the Philistine giant, the other, the outsider,
the object of our deepest fears is made whole.
David put his hand in his bag, took
out a stone, threw it, and struck the Philistine, but Christ stretched out his
arms, submitted to the cross and once and for all brought the outsider into the
fold.
We, who reside on the near side of
the resurrection, are called not to clutch our stones prepared to cast them at
the enemy, but to free our hands so we may carry their crosses and our own.
In recent weeks, I have been
reminded of how easily our fear can lead us to lay down the cross and take up
stones. Yes, yes our fear says it is all
well and good that Christ lived, died and rose again to make us all one and to
make us whole, but just in case we’d better throw a few stones at those
undesirables just in case. And if we
look in David’s face and see our own looking back, then the face of the
Philistine must be the face of the other; of them. So we
let loose with the stones. And let’s
face it; it is a hell of a lot easier to throw stones at something we don’t
like than to accept that in Christ we are made one with them. It is easier to reach into a bag and grab a
stone than to reach out beyond our fears to the Philistine’s of our imagination
and with them take up the cross of Jesus Christ.
The apostle Paul wrote that there
is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female because we are all
one in Christ Jesus. He might have added
that there is no longer young shepherd boy and giant Philistine.
Whether, like those misguided men
on a cold Wyoming night, we throw our stones at the object of our fear in the
world or, like we misguided pastors judging one of our own, we throw them at
the object of our fear in the church, we must put down the cross of Christ to
take up the stones.
David put his hand in his bag, took
out a stone, threw it and struck the Philistine.
Christ spread wide his arms and
submitted to the cross.
By which example shall we
live? In which is true victory won?
In the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
