Pentecost 5B - "Bullies, Fear & Faith"

 Samuel 17 (Selected Verses) and Mark 4:35–41

Considering the subject the book had a very strange title.  It was called Goliath, and it was about the life of Robert H. Schuller of Crystal Cathedral and “possibility thinking” fame whose “Hour of Power” broadcast was a staple on many television stations in the 1970s and ‘80s. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I hardly ever missed the first 20 or so minutes because the music was fantastic.  The choir, the organ, the instrumentalists were all first rate.  But I usually tuned out when Schuller started preaching his theology of unbridled self-esteem.  “If you can dream it, you can do it.” he would tell his listeners most of whom had forgotten their childhood dream of scoring the game winning goal in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup playoffs only to discover, like me, that they had virtually no hand eye coordination.

He turned Jesus’ beatitudes into a book called The Be-Happy Attitudes. Get it? Be happy attitudes.  I gave it once to a friend when he was asked to serve on the call committee of his church.  It didn’t work. He was on a call committee.  Why I expected it to work I’ll never know.  Even though the person called turned out to be just fine Lowell was miserable through the whole process.  

To put it mildly, Schuller was not a bible scholar because as any little kiddo with a first grade, felt board, knowledge of Scripture could have told him that to name his biography Goliath was to name it after a biblical character who took a rock in the middle of his forehead leading to his sudden, unexpected, demise.

Schuller’s downfall was slower and possibly more painful.  As soon as he began to show signs of failing health his children started fighting over who should be in charge of the ministry. Viewership declined and before long they were bankrupt.  Fortunately, the Diocese of Orange County stepped in, remodeled the building into a more liturgical space; restored the organ to its magnificent splendor and renamed the place Christ Cathedral. 

Either by a stone in the forehead or a mountain of debt Goliaths tend to fall.

That’s maybe why adults and children alike love this story.  We love the idea of the little person winning.  We root for the underdog.  We love rags to riches stories.  We love stories of bullies being cut down to size, and that is exactly what we have before us today.

If Goliath was nothing else, he was a bully and a big bully at that.  The overly fertile minds tell us that “Goliath is 6 cubits and a span {9'6"} – and this is clearly our most fascinating textual variant maybe in all of Scripture: the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript of 1 Samuel has him at a mere 4 cubits, and a span of {6'6"} huge by ancient standards.”1

It is the temptation to make any foe, bigger, larger, more insurmountable. It is the exaggeration of my fisherman uncles and neighbors who were known to say: “I caught a fish the other day that was so big that when we took a picture of it, the picture weighed ten pounds.”

It might be better for us to think about it this way.  While “the average size of an NFL player is about 6’2” 245 lbs,”2  it is all muscle.  They are built like schools, fire plugs.  Think about any of us going one-on-one against them.  We would be killed.

This allowed Goliath to be a bully.  It allowed him, by his mere size and presence, to strike terror in any and all he met.  In that sense he was the consummate bully and for awhile he was able to do what is the deepest desire in the heart of every bully – to strike terror and fear in everyone he met.

For the Israelite army, Goliath and the fear he invoked in them had become the center of their universe, the most important thing in their lives; they can do nothing but watch and listen to every move makes and every word he utters. 

So, they wait, doing nothing, trying not to antagonize their enemy. They seem to think that if they hold very, very still, if they barely breathe, maybe, just maybe, Goliath and his army will give up and go away. King Saul and his army can only imagine two options: send someone to battle Goliath or do nothing and hope the Philistine army and their awful giant will get bored and leave them alone. Needless to say, morale is low. They are paralyzed by fear.3  

Bullies can do that to us but “David shows them —and us — a different way.

Since all the armour that Saul offers him is way too big and cumbersome David decides to go it alone.  He is only going to bring two things with him: His slingshot and his faith.

Goliath is stunned.  He can’t believe what he is seeing!  It’s not so much the size of his adversary but that somebody, anybody is challenging him. Nobody has ever done that before.  Because of his size and bluster he has pretty much had his own way in life.

He’s stunned. Frozen!  He doesn’t know what to do because bullies have no idea how to play defense.

He tries a little bluster.  “Am I a dog that you come after me with a stick?”  “Come on,” said the Philistine. “I’ll make roadkill of you for the buzzards. I’ll turn you into a tasty morsel for the field mice.”4

David’s only verbal reply is: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty...”5

Join your imagination with mine as we watch the scene in slow motion and try to hear what the bully is saying in his head.  “Oh my!  This kid is not going to back down!  He’s coming at me!  He’s really going to challenge me!  Nobody has ever done that before!  I’ve never had to play defence before!  What am I going to do?”  And before he can even think about what his next move should be, frozen in time, he stands there like a lummox and takes one square in the in the noggin.

Now this sweet little children’s story (Which, if you go home and read the rest of it, isn’t so sweet) is not so much about the triumph of the underdog it is a story about the faith and fear that every disciple knows.

Fear can be a bully.  Don’t let anybody fool you.  Don’t let anybody tell you that all they do when they wake up in the middle of the night fighting with the storm of some seemingly insurmountable problem is say a few comforting words to themselves and then go back to sleep.  

Unless they are some superstar of the faith what they say is probably more like: “do you not care that we are perishing?”6

“Why are we afraid?” asks the always wonderful preacher Debbi Thomas. 

Why are we afraid in the midst of earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, droughts, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, mass graves, large-scale starvation and catastrophic disease?  Why are we afraid when we face broken marriages, depressed children, unfriendly neighbors, grinding jobs, and financial uncertainty? 

Um, because we're human?  Because fear is a reasonable response to a frightening world?7

Then she goes on to point out something I never really thought about.

{I}n Mark’s story of the storm, the obvious (but wholly overlooked) fact is that Jesus is just as present in the raging water as he is in the soothing calm that follows.  Despite the disciples’ inability to perceive it, there is no point in the night when God is absent or even distant.  In that vulnerable boat, surrounded by that swelling, terrifying water, the disciples are in the intimate company of Jesus.  He rests in their midst, tossed as they are tossed, soaked as they are soaked.

 This, she says, is grace, pure grace.

{T}he grace to experience God’s presence in the storm.  The grace to know that I am accompanied by the divine in the bleakest, most treacherous places. The grace to trust that Jesus cares even when I’m drowning.  The grace to believe in both the existence and the power of Love even when Jesus “sleeps.”  Even when the miraculous calm doesn’t come.8

This was the grace that was shown to David who, with stomach churning and not much else to go on, confronted a bully.  This was the grace that was shown to the disciples as they caught their breath and wondered about this Jesus guy who can still a storm with a word.  And this is the grace that comes to us in our baptism.

Jesus is with us.  He is with us in our storms.  He is with us when bullies come.  He is with us.

If you have been paying close attention to our baptisms of late you’ve noticed something and perhaps laughed with me.  For the most part the little ones were quite calm but, for the last two – for Zoey and Max, when I started to stir up the waters and read the words about how the spirit moved over the waters of creation.  Both of them loved the splashing, and the churning, and the waves so much that, it was clear by the expression on their faces that they wanted to dive right in.  

When the water was calm, they weren’t interested but add a little chaos and they were ready to go.  

We’re going back to the font again today with bulletins and hymnal in hand to welcome Azalia into the family of God trusting that in the power of water and the word Christ will give her the power to overcome any bully who might cross her pass and be with her in every storm she might face.

That is Christ’s gift to her.  That is Christ’s promise to us.  And it is more than enough for even the hottest of hot days.  

Don’t you think?

________________

1. James C. C Howell, “What Can We Say June 23? 5th after Pentecost,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, January 1, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/2020/07/what-can-we-say-june-20-4th-after.html.

2. Cole R. Blender, “Average NFL Height by Weight and Position,” uidaho.edu, accessed June 22, 2024, https://webpages.uidaho.edu/~renaes/251/HON/Student PPTs/Avg NFL ht wt.pdf.

3. Amy Starr Redwine, “Sermon - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - Year B,” A Sermon for Every Sunday, June 19, 2024, https://asermonforeverysunday.com/tag/amy-starr-redwine/.

4. 1 Samuel 17:43-44. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, with Topical Concordance (NavPress, 2005).]

5. 1 Samual 17:45.  (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

6. St. Mark 4:38b. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

7. Debie Thomas, “‘Listening for the Questions,’” Journey with Jesus, June 14, 2015, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/231-listening-for-the-questions.

8.    Debie Thomas, “Don’t You Care?,” Journey with Jesus, June 13, 2021, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3045-don-t-you-care.

Pentecost 4B - "Meager Expectations"

 1 Samual 15:34–16:13 and Saint Mark 4:26–34

"The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”1

Those wise words, spoken to Samuel while he is in the process of looking for a new King, are the very reason why we are going to spending many of our summer Sunday’s this year looking at readings from the Hebrew Tradition.  They are great stories about real people who are called to do things that sometimes work out and sometimes do not. These readings from the Good Book tell us about the real struggles of real people who sometimes succeed and sometimes fail miserably.  They are stories that begin, like most stories, with meager expectations.

In that sense they are just like all of our stories which is why their stories and worth hearing and worth telling.  And we’ll meet three characters, whom we have all heard of, today in Saul, Samuel, and David.

The people had long wanted a king, a single, strong leader who they could look to whenever times got tough as they often did.  They looked for a leader whose face they could carve on a mountain.  They didn’t have meagre expectations but high hopes. “High apple pie, in the sky hopes” wanting someone who was physically strong, mentally awake and morally upright. 

They had high expectations for their King and what they got in their first King was Saul who, as the story of his kingship moves along, is “portrayed as growing ever more deranged and incompetent.”2 To make matters worse he seems to be more than a little paranoid, suffering from bouts of depression and thinking that people are out to get him.  “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”3 Saul could have said with Shakespear’s Henry IV. 

No doubt that while some were satisfied with deranged and incompetent leadership others felt that it was time for a change, so they turned to the prophet Samuel to look for a new king.

With the help of the Holy Spirit Samuel choses the house of a faithful servant of the Lord, Jesse as the one from which the new king should come.

As you heard, “in this passage, Samuel is shown the new king in a most unusual manner — a kind of contest.  Each son of Jesse is ‘displayed’ before Samuel”4 and down the line he goes starting with the eldest.

Both Samuel and Eliab, the eldest and by tradition and appearance the most likely, is a sure winner but the LORD says to Samuel: “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for... The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”5

Advice we might well heed during our never-ending election season particularly because, in a poem by Philip Kolin in The Christian Century, Eliab is crying foul. The election was stolen! It was rigged! Samuel is out to get him! He was robbed!

I had all the qualifications: the prerogatives of the firstborn, the stature of a man of authority, a Goliath, good looks and regal gait. I had splendor and grace. I prayed loudly, devoutly. I came from good roots...Why wasn’t that good enough for God?

How could my kid brother be anointed, the one with rosacea, looks like carpenter’s shavings, the smell of sheep dung on his hands, who roamed the fields looking for a lost lamb.

My name alone should have given me the edge in the kingdom. Any fool could see that.6

The rest of Jesse’s boys could have said the same thing when each one of them was rejected forcing Samuel to ask:  “Are these all there are?”

The rest of Jesse’s boys could have said the same thing when each one of them was rejected forcing Samuel to ask:  “Are these all there are?”

“Well, there is the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep.”

“Send for him at once,” Samuel said.7

And what was brought to him was David.  Not Michelangelo’s king David but David in his teenage years.  Perhaps a little scrawny from too much campfire cooking, not quite filled out, never-the-less we are told, at first glance, “the very picture of health—bright-eyed, good-looking.”8

While I know people who have chosen candidates for exactly those same qualifications, I wonder if there shouldn’t be something more.  A little more experience like those David brought to the job “his responsibilities—to care for the flock, insure they got food and water, protect them from harm, bring them safely home—were identical to those of the good ruler.”

Don’t many of our stories wind up like David’s? Public events and private lives twist, turn, and collide. The pursuit of power and pleasure gets mixed up with efforts to be pious and faithful, and the results are mixed: some success and some disaster. This is life in God’s world: we do our best, but then cruel processes of history steamroll everybody—yet somehow, they almost accidentally further God’s kingdom.9

At first glance, except for his appearance, not much was expected of future King David.  They were meager, yet somehow, he was used and in spite of our meager expectations God uses us. 

In that sense all David and all of us are like that mustard seed that Jesus was talking about.

Just as some eyes were raised when David was anointed as King many more eyes were raised when Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed. “You have to be joking,” the listeners might have said to Jesus and perhaps he was. 

As Biblical scholar Dr. Matthew Skinner of Luther Seminary reminds us:

This is not the kind of crop most people would sow. Where Jesus lived, mustard was prolific like a common and sturdy weed. It could pop up almost anywhere and start multiplying. Some of Jesus’ listeners must have groaned or chuckled. Imagine him speaking today of thistles or ground-ivy. In any case, the reign of God apparently isn’t much of a cash crop. Yet it grows. It is not easily eradicated. Good luck keeping it out of your well manicured garden or your farmland.

{Never-the-less} Jesus describes the fully grown mustard plant as “the greatest of all shrubs.” At this point, some of his auditors probably snorted and blew milk out of their noses. It can grow dense, but it is hardly magnificent. Jesus must be grinning as he speaks. He is not aiming to impart insights about the relative worth of shrubberies but to shock people into a new way of perceiving greatness.10

Just as David may not have been perceived as great when he strode upon the scene so few could have seen the potential in a mustard seed that Jesus did.

Few outside of the church will see any significance in what we are doing today. That’s because they have meager expections for what is happening.

While I would never call Max a mustard seed much less a shrub (Unless it was as a term of endearment) what we are doing today along with him and his wonderful family, whether we can see it or not, is causing

Christ’s kingdom to grow.  

As the congregation walks back to the font, bulletins and hymnals in hand, to meet him  at the font we will affirm that Christ is near us and is stretching our meager expectations beyond our wildest imaginations.

Christ comes in forms we least expect.  Simple water that is turned into a font of blessing at our baptisms.  Bread and wine, Christ’s very own presence with us, as we come forward to feast at his table.

If we live beyond our meager expectations, we’ll believe that even a lowly shepherd can become a great king and even something as small as a mustard seed in Jesus’ eyes can be something of great worth. 

And, who knows, maybe washed in the waters of baptism and nourished at the Lord’s table even you and I can do great things for the Jesus’ reign and rule? 

________________

1. 1 Samuel 16:7. (NLT) [NLT=The New Living Translation.  (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015)]

2. Daniel Smith Christopher, “1 Samuel 15:34--16:13,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, 3, no. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2021): 73– 75.

3. William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2 - Entire Play,” Folger Shakespeare Library, accessed June 15, 2024, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/henry-iv-part-2/read/.

4. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “1 Samuel 15:3-4--16:13,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, 3, no. 3 (Louisville, KY:Westminister|John Knox Press, 2021) p. 73 – 75.

5. 1 Samuel 16:7. (NLT) [NLT=The New Living Translation.  (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015)]

6. Philip C. Kolin, “Eliab’s Complain,” The Christian Century, December 24, 2014, https://www.christiancentury.org/artsculture/poems/eliab-s-complaint 

7. 1 Samuel 16:10-11. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible.  (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishing, 1971)]

8. 1 Samuel 16:12. (MESSAGE)  [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, with Topical Concordance (NavPress, 2005).]

9. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say June 16? 4th After Pentecost,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, accessed June 15, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

10. Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 4:26-34,” Working Preacher , November 11, 2020, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-11-2/commentary-on-mark-426-34-4.