Facing our Giants

The story of David and Goliath is a story about how to beat giants. Like so many epic tales, it spells out the truth behind the phrase, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” This story is about what we can do to overcome the impossible, and how faith in God can help us to stand up against things that are absolutely terrifying. We are facing some massive problems – political and personal – and it feels unfair sometimes, but we don’t have the option of living in a world without giants. Not yet.

All our ancestors dealt with impossible giants too, with many names and faces. As we remember our founders today, we know that they were in the struggle for abolition, and equality, and justice. When I feel hopeless, I like to remember how many impossible things have been accomplished already. I can stand in the pulpit as an ordained woman only because of the people who faced impossible things before me. We remember the ones who once stood where we stand, and we honor them by continuing their work.

So how do we take on things that feel massive? Even the things that are so big it feels like we could never beat them. How do we find the courage to even try? That is what the story of David and Goliath can tell us. Today I’m going to give you five smooth stones from this story for the current moment, that I think might help us to beat our giants now.

Number one: Face the giants.

This seems obvious but remember that Goliath terrorized the Israelites for forty days without having to fight anyone. For most of the story, Goliath does nothing but strut around outside of their camp, showing off his shiny bronze armor and his heavy iron spear. He talks a lot, so no one takes him on. For forty days they cower as he mocks them. They listen to his speeches, and they are terrorized into non-action. Goliath doesn’t even really have to try. He wins every day by default without resistance. He is bigger and stronger than any soldier Israel has, but he doesn’t have to work to control them. He just has to be scary enough that they stay in their tents. His power over them comes from fear – from being so frightening that no one dares to resist him.

So, face the giants. Don’t give them the luxury of going unresisted. No matter how loud and vulgar they are, a bully is still a bully. They hurl insults to make you doubt yourself and everyone else, and they gain confidence from making you feel bad and alone. Do not give the giants that satisfaction. Be defiant like a weed that can’t be killed. Oppose their hateful words by flourishing in spite of them. Build up your strength and refuse to sit by and let them determine your future.

Number two: Use the strengths you already have.

When David offers to battle Goliath, Saul says, “You can’t do that! You’re just a kid! Don’t you know that he’s a trained warrior, and you aren’t?” And I love David’s response. I’m paraphrasing, but he basically says, “Actually I’ve faced worse things than him before and won.” David is the youngest and the shortest of Jesse’s sons, and I can tell you as someone who is also short and who has been called too young and inexperienced on more than a few occasions, there is nothing more motivating than being told what you can’t do. Oh, you think I can’t fight? That’s hilarious. These hands have killed lions to protect my flock. I can scare off a bear and then settle the sheep down afterwards by playing them a song on my lyre. It may not be military training, but it definitely ain’t weakness.

When you have some kind of built-in perceived disadvantage, like being young, or a woman, or a person of color, or queer – you learn how to fight for things. Never let anyone belittle those gifts. Know your strengths and use them because they might be just what’s needed, even if they’re not what someone else thinks you need to have. When I read this story I notice that the Israelites actually do have a seasoned warrior. One who is exceptionally tall, reportedly head and shoulders above everyone else. One who also wields their best weapons and wears their best armor. That person is Saul. Yet, just as Samuel predicted, Saul is a king, and kings don’t fight our battles for us. Kings send other people to fight for them. So, it should strike us as symbolic and kind of funny when Saul places his armor onto David.

Saul practically breathes a sigh of relief as he hands over his armor and weapons to someone he has just finished calling a kid who doesn’t stand a chance. Even with the future of Israel on the line, Saul waits for someone else to have the courage to fight, instead of him. David doesn’t need Saul’s armor; it would just weigh him down. He isn’t familiar with swords or shields, so he doesn’t take those either. He has gone up against lions and bears. He can protect the flock. He is equipped for this. You are equipped too.

Use your strengths, whatever they are, to change the world around you. You don’t need to wear someone else’s armor or wield someone else’s weapons to take down giants. You just need to be who God made you to be, yourself. Put on your own armor and pick up the tools you’ve been given. Take down giants using the skills you’ve already sharpened. They may be exactly what is needed. It’s not heroic sword swinging, but the community building, peace-making, joy-lifting, neighbor-serving skills of God’s people, that are needed most of all.

Number Three: Giants fall because they underestimate the little things.

Goliath’s downfall is that he underestimates David. While he’s busy with his usual crowing and strutting routine, David is out picking up pebbles, more of them than he actually ends up needing. Goliath is so sure of himself. He thinks he can easily beat someone smaller than him, but he doesn’t know how to fight someone with a slings, and he either doesn’t have enough practice dodging or he is just too big to avoid a well-aimed throw. He probably expects that David’s rocks are going to bounce right off him, but they don’t. David beats him with one shot, before he can even lift his sword. A lowly pebble from a nearby creek bed makes the giant fall and his army scatter.

Small things can beat giants. Things that they don’t take seriously, but that just might be small enough to hit them in a weak spot they didn’t know they had. It’s like the torpedo that blows up the death star by hitting an exhaust port. Small things can slip right by a giant’s defenses before they even know what happened. So do little things with great love. Focus on your small actions not just the big ones. Build community. Connect with neighbors. Learn about the issues that matter to you and teach others how to make a difference. Love humanity enough to fight for it, because that is the greatest strength of all, and one that giants will never possess.

Number Four: You won’t beat giants by becoming them.

God does not save by the sword and spear, David says. If you seek to beat giants by becoming just as big and as bad as they are, fighting them the way that they fight you, then you will only ensure your own downfall. Remember that Goliath made the offer that leads to his doom. It is Goliath who says to the army at his back, “stand down you guys, I’ll handle this.” Goliath wants the glory of beating Israel, so he puts himself out there completely alone, but a one-man-army can’t stand for long.

Becoming so powerful changes you, and giants fall because they no longer believe they can. It is Goliath’s pride that David leverages to topple him. The youngest and the least qualified on paper, the lowly shepherd boy, wins because he is not like Goliath. David stands with God, and you won’t ever win favor with God by becoming the biggest, baddest, and most self-absorbed guy around. God empowers the humble, the meek, and the righteous. God chooses the underdog, time and time again.

God is not on team Goliath, but on the side of everyone poor and oppressed by them. Always look for the powerless and outcast, the immigrant, widow, and orphan. That’s who Jesus stands with as he saves us through the power of love, never sword and spear. If we want to beat giants, we must be their opposite. We can’t stand alone; we must stand together. We don’t harass and heckle our enemies, but we defend our neighbor’s dignity and work together to make peace more abundant. To beat giants, we build connections that can resist them. Like the network of rebels it took to get the death star plans to Princess Leia. Giants do not go down easy, but they can and do fall whenever humble people stand up against them.

Number Five: The battle belongs to God.

David is clear that he isn’t fighting Goliath by himself. “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine” he says. What David needed to beat Goliath was not a bigger sword or better armor, but to know that God had his back. He trusts in God, and he moves in that trust by doing what is right in that moment. His confidence seems to comes beyond himself, from the source of all being – who is bigger and wiser than we know. David steps out onto the battlefield and says right to Goliath’s face. “The battle is God’s, whom you will no longer be allowed to defy. Today I will strike you down.” Rooted in faith, we can stand confidently against giants. We don’t need more muscle than them, but we do need more hope. We don’t need bigger weapons than them, but we do need more conviction.

David’s armor is like the armor of God Paul describes in Ephesians chapter 6. Truth makes him courageous. Righteousness gives him power. His helmet is the salvation that comes from God, and his sword is the word of God which is still on his lips. That is how we resist rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and giants: with all the armor and weapons that are much too lowly for them to wield: prayer, hope, faith, and love. We have a strength that is not ours alone. We carry the subversive power of God’s love with us, just like all the saints who lived before us. The battle belongs to God, no matter where evil rises next. As it has always been, it is our purpose to resist evil in its many forms.

We are the body of Christ who is alive now. This battle is so much bigger than any one of us, but don’t lose heart. Your heart is your biggest strength, and we need more hearts, not less of them. Together we are strong enough to take on the giants of the cosmos. Trust that even if you are small like David, the battle belongs to God. Through faith and persistence, we can defeat giants with a few smooth stones. Face them. Use the strengths you already have. Let them fall because they underestimate the little things. Do not become them. Remember the battle is God’s.

Whichever giant you decide to face next, do so with a confidence that it is bigger than you. Trust in God who is bigger than all the boogeymen and resist the giants in whatever ways you can, including rest and joy because they are part of our resistance! Stand so that all the earth may know that there is a God, and she is stirring up something new again right now. Move with Christ toward the day when we will rid ourselves of the ways of death and be reconciled to God our creator. Fight with humility, praise, and gratitude for the love that made you, the love that equips you, and the love that is our stronghold. Find your place within the Body of Christ and take each next step through your belief in the power of what we can do together. Fight like David, not Goliath, because the battle belongs to God. Amen.