Scripture: 1 Samuel 17
Video of the sermon here (from 38 minutes 30)
Audio of the sermon here
Good Morning Israel. Wakey, wakey boys! Rise and Shine!
Day after day it was the same. For forty days the two armies had stood on hills, either side of the mile-wide Valley of Elah. They were camped in places with the kind of names that makes people really glad they weren’t asked to do the scripture reading.
Day one of this stalemate seemed a long time ago. Back then the mood in the Israelite camp had been upbeat. No longer was Israel blundering along from crisis to crisis, looking for someone to lead them.
No, now they had a King. And what a King!
He stood head and shoulders above the rest of the people. He was exactly the kind of man you wanted in a military situation. Not only that, things looked good for the future. This king had a son who was already showing tremendous promise.
In a world where diplomatic relations meant little more than scrapping over every little piece of land, these two were a God-send. And this people understood the term literally. Under Saul and Jonathan, the Philistine threat, constant over the past seventy years or so, had finally begun to recede.
Until now.
Until Goliath.
They thought Saul had been big, but this… well they reckoned he must be about 9ft! Almost three metres of solid killing machine. And he was well tooled up. Hardly an inch of his massive frame was bare of armour. The main body of chain mail alone weighed around 60 kilos. He carried a bronze javelin, a spear was about 2.5 inches thick. Its iron point alone weighed nearly 7 kilos.
The guy was huge, seemingly without a weak point.
Invincible.
And here he was, in their face, throwing down the gauntlet.
He’s called a Champion, which is an odd word. It only appears here in the Bible. It literally means one who goes between, or who stands between. And that’s what he was doing. Stepping out between the armies.
Come on he shouts. We don’t need a war to settle this! Let’s see what you have to offer! Send out your best solider to fight me. Winner takes all!
In one sense Saul was the obvious candidate to go out and take this guy on. He was the largest among them. He was the leader.
Yet suddenly Saul didn’t seem so big. He was as frightened and dismayed as the rest of them. And he’d give anything to avoid the fight. Riches, a princess’s hand in marriage, a family-wide tax break – all these were offered to the person who stepped forward to challenge the giant.
Unsurprisingly there were no takers. After all, what incentive is a reward like that when you’re not going to be around to enjoy it?
Day and night, for forty days Goliath came out and taunted the Israelite army. As time wore on and he sensed no challenger was likely to step forward, he grew cockier. Rather than simply waiting for a warrior to come down to him, he started making a move up towards them. He started to come up their hill, onto their territory, confident that no one had the guts to do anything about it.
Goliath was smart. He made certain he was there as they started their day, ensuring their confidence was shattered before they even got going.
He was there at night, making sure they went to bed with thoughts of a giant swirling around their head, a giant who probably got larger as the night wore on.
Day and night he haunted them, chipped away at them, made sure morale was at an all-time low.
It’s one of the greatest and best-loved stories, not just in the Bible, but in all literature. David and Goliath. The odds seemed insurmountable, defeat seemed inevitable, the opposition one of terrifying relentless power, to even try to face him down seemed like madness. Yet the young shepherd boy, armed with nothing but a sling, takes out a mighty, well armed giant. It’s often referenced in sport, say if a team like Wealdstone took on Man City in the Cup. It’s the backdrop of films from the science fiction of Star Wars, to the true story Erin Brockovich.
Why do such stories have such resonance with us? Why do they encourage or inspire us?
Is it because they speak to us of our own experience?
How at times each of us comes up against something which just seems to big, too great for us to face? Which leaves us frightened, dismayed, powerless?
It’s interesting, the battle itself takes up the smallest part of the whole story. It was quite a chunk Sian had to read, but the actual fight is over in a couple of verses. The trash talk between the two as they face off gets more space.
Whereas Goliath’s armour…. It’s quite unusual for the Bible to be quite so detailed about stuff like that. It’s like it’s trying to draw you into the fear, building your mental picture of just how huge this guy is and how there really seems no way through his defences, no point at which to attack. Each detail offers another reason why you should be afraid. His size and appearance fill your imagination as you read.
Yet it comes quite literally right after a chapter in which the key message has been … Do not consider his appearance or his height…The Lord does not look at the things people look at. You look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Although I knew both of those stories, I’d never noticed how they say sit pretty much right next to one another.
But how quickly we forget all that as soon as the next giant appears. You see, we don’t have to be combatants in a 3000-year-old story to encounter giants. They don’t have to be 9ft human terminators. Giants can come in all sorts of guises…
those circumstances at home and work,
failures in your past,
addictions that you can’t shake off,
the battles with your health,
hurts you have failed to come to terms with,
temptations you just can’t help yourself with.
The list is endless.
They can be so individual. What seems huge to me may not bother you. And the reverse is also true.
And, so often, the giants we face act in similar ways to Goliath. They leave you feeling helpless, dismayed. They come at you day and night, they hit you at your weakest, they dominate your thinking. They don’t leave you alone. They invade every aspect of your life. They keep your attention firmly fixed on just how big your giant is. How strong, how dominant, impenetrable, invincible.
They make you forget your successes, even of the recent past. Even for people of faith you can forget all the times you have been close to God, when God has pulled you through. Even as you pray for help, they invade your thought processes, show just how big they are, leaving you wondering just how God could ever deal with them, particularly if someone as feeble as you or me is involved.
Giants leave you feeling forsaken, isolated, joyless and demoralised.
Giants are bullies. That’s what giants do best.
The sun rises on another day of the Battle of the Valley of Elah. Once more Goliath’s wake up call resounds around the valley. The sense of resignation weighs heavily in the air around the Israelite camp.
Except today things are different. Early that morning a young shepherd boy left his father’s flock in the care of a hired hand. He loaded up provisions for his brothers and set out from Bethlehem. Perhaps he timed it so that he would get there just in time to see some action. Little did he know he’d be at the heart of it.
Sure enough, as he arrives he sees the two armies lining up and hears the war cry. He leaves his things with the keeper of supplies and dashes off to meet his brothers.
And that’s when David hears the cry of Goliath. The same taunt that had come at this army day after day, night after night for forty days.
But today Goliath has a new audience. David, the young shepherd boy, who’s never seen this giant, never even heard of him.
And what’s more he doesn’t care much for what he’s heard. Suddenly he’s left standing alone as everyone around him runs for cover.
Not only is this giant heard with new ears – he is seen with different eyes.
Who does this guy think he is to talk like this about God? thinks David.
As David sees it, it’s not Saul or Israel whose honour is at stake here – it’s God.
It’s not as big a leap in thinking as we might imagine. Armies of this time did link their success or failure to their God. ‘Representative combat’ the kind of fighting to which Goliath was challenging the Israelites, was not as common a practice as some people who write on this story suggest, certainly not in that part of the world. Like Goliath himself, it has its roots in Greece. And it’s more often associated with battles between gods, rather than people.
It might be a bit fanciful to suggest that the young David was aware of this, but it’s clear that he saw this battle in such terms. This wasn’t about Saul or Israel, Goliath or Philistines. It was about God and whether God was in control. And that made all the difference to how he approached the situation. If you read what David says to Goliath as they approach one another, he mentions God no fewer than 7 times.
It’s a sign of just how desperate things had become that Saul even considered listening to a young boy. Perhaps when he heard that finally somebody was prepared to take on the giant his heart had leapt, only to sink again when a scrap of a lad came before him. At first he tries to discourage David. I mean, look at you, David. Have you seen him?
It’s unlikely that he was overly convinced by the lions and bear stories. Perhaps it was in sheer desperation that Saul allowed David to go.
Or maybe there was something of David’s confidence in God reminded Saul of headier days, when he himself had known God’s blessing and been empowered by God.
Either way, if Saul is going to send out a champion to fight for him, he can at least go out in the best armour available. He kits David out in the King’s armour. But again David proves wiser than the king. I can’t fight with this stuff he says. It’s too big and heavy for me. I’m not used to it. If I’m going to win I’m going to stick to what I’m good at.
So he strips down to shepherd clothing. If he is going to face this giant he can’t do it like Saul. He has to do it as David. He might know nothing about armour, but he knows how to use a sling shot.
And that’s quite important for how this story plays out. You see in ancient warfare there were 3 types of soldier. There was the cavalry, armed men on horseback or in chariots. Then there was infantry. Foot soldiers wearing heavy armour and carrying shields. Goliath was one of those. Then there were what we would call artillery. Projectile warriors, like archers… or slingers.
Now have you ever played rock, paper, scissors? It’s a game, normally between two people, where there is no guaranteed way to win. The outcome depends not just on what you do, but on what the other does. The rock blunts the scissors, the scissors cut the paper, and the paper wraps the rock.
With their long pikes and armour, infantry could beat cavalry. Cavalry could take out artillery cos the horses moved too quickly to take proper aim. And slingers could take out infantry who were large and weighed down with armour. To slingers, infantry were effectively sitting ducks.
Slinging took an extraordinary amount of skill and practice. But in the right hands the sling was devastating. In the book of Judges slingers were said to be accurate within a hair’s breadth. An experienced slinger could take out a target from 200 yards away. And you shouldn’t think of this as a little pebble. It would probably have been roughly the size of a cricket or tennis ball.
Goliath tells David to come here. He needs David at close quarters if he’s going to fight him. When he laid down the challenge he assumed that the one sent out to fight him would fight on the same terms. That’s why he’s so insulted by David’s stick. He thinks that’s his weapon.
And David keeps his attention there. Twice, as they approach one another David mentions the sword and the spear. He doesn’t want Goliath thinking about what else he is carrying. For David has no intention of fighting as Goliath expects. Rock, paper, scissors. Slinger takes out infantry.
He steps out in the battle area. As Goliath approaches he mocks the youngster coming to meet him. David however remains unfazed. It’s not his battle – it’s God’s. David is not doing it in his own strength, but God’s. As he leaves the Israelite line he remembers the lion and the bear.
As he is mocked, I wonder if those words spoken to Samuel not so long ago ring in his ears. ‘Remember’ he thinks, ‘God does not look at the things people look at.’ Today he was fighting for God’s honour, no-one else’s. And as the giant approaches, David rushes to meet him.
Goliath wouldn’t have seen it coming. It’s estimated that David could have slung and hit Goliath in little over a second and that the stone would have struck him at a speed possibly in excess of 80mph. With a single sling shot Israel’s forty days of hurt comes to a dramatic end on the valley of Elah. The giant, as they would say back in Ireland, crashes down like a sack of spuds.
It might sound like I’m taking the divine out of the story, but that’s not it at all. David holds his confidence in himself and his trust in God, seeing them as deeply connected. He might not know how, but they are. If he shows no courage and shrewdness he dies. But without God he dies too. It need both. Remember, without God we cannot, without us God will not.
But what are we to take away from this today? I’ll tell you this is often used. It’s a motivational peptalk. Be more David. You gotta get out there and fight that giant and WIN!
And sometimes we may need to hear that. And it can sound really great, particularly if it comes from someone fired up and charismatic. But then life hits, the giants come and attack you and you feel overwhelmed, helpless, dismayed, demoralised all over again.
Cos at the end of the day most of us are less like David and more like Israel. In fact, I’d suggest to you that at some point all of us wind up facing a giant we can’t take on. If we don’t do it in life, we’ll meet it in death.
I do wrestle with how I approach this passage in an age when I know that battles still rage over these same pieces of land and names of God are often in the background.
But I want to find Jesus in here. I want to find Gospel. And the Gospel isn’t sort yourself out, be more David, kill your giants. God didn’t give us a peptalk. He sent us a Saviour. A Champion.
Into our helplessness God sent us a boy from Bethlehem. One who was called the Son of David. He lived most of his life in obscurity, and when he came amongst us he looked a lot lower than we might have expected. Remember Samuel anointed David as the future king in the previous chapter. But David doesn’t show up and tell Saul to get off the throne, or say that if Saul was any kind of king he’d stop snivelling and get out there and fight like one. No, it’s not so obvious in the translation we shared this morning, but when David stands before Saul, offering to fight Goliath, three times David refers to himself as your servant.
He approached it not as a king, but as a servant.
Like David, Jesus was mocked and disbelieved by those closest to him, including his own brothers. And when he went into his greatest battle he didn’t look like much. He looked small and weak in the face of the all the power of those who sent him to the cross. Call yourself a Saviour Jesus? Don’t look much like one now. If you are the son of God come down off the cross.
But Jesus refused to fight on the terms of this world, for his Kingdom was not of this world. He went in armed only with love and forgiveness and absorbed all that the inflicted on him. And he looked well and truly defeated.
For a couple of days. When some women went to the tomb and found it empty.
When he appeared to Mary in the garden, to his followers in the upper room, to two disheartened, dismayed, defeated, one-time believers on the road out of town.
And he showed them that he had overcome and destroyed the one who had the power of death. He was literally our Champion. He had stepped between us and all that would keep us from God and his love. And he won. He took the greatest enemy we have – death – and turned it against itself, making it the doorway to new life.
There’s a story told of the Spartans and why they were so brave. It was said that it was because their king didn’t stand at the back directing the battle. He went before them and they followed him and it gave them courage. One said knowing we are loved and loving him makes us brave.
Jesus, your champion invites you to look at your giant with new eyes. You are his, you belong to Jesus. Your battle is his battle. He has gone before you. You are truly loved.
He invites you to think back over times when he has been close to you. David remembered the lion and the bear. Remembering those victories gave him the confidence in God to go down into the battle. It’s true that so often when we face our giants we fail to remember our victories. Instead we remember every lurid detail of past failure – and we’re beaten before we start. Well this morning, allow God, through his Holy Spirit to remind you of those times when he has been with you. Hold them, cherish them, carry them with you, no matter how trivial you may think they are. They might just give you the strength you need to face your giants.
And this morning he invites you to remember that he loves you. The symbols of his love are spread before us – bread and wine. The body broken, the blood spilt as our champion faced that ultimate giant, death, and emerged triumphant. He offers us that strength as we face our giants. He invites us to his table. To eat, to drink, to remember, be equipped and be strengthened and to celebrate that ultimately the giants aren’t there for you to defeat. The might scream and taunt, but they have already been defeated. For a better David, the Son of David, Jesus, is our Champion.
paper dolls 