Stones or Cross?

* This sermon is a revision of one I posted on my theology blog a few days ago.  In the wake of the tragedy in Aurora, CO I felt that the time was ripe for preaching this sermon. 

1 Samuel 17

First Presbyterian, Clarksville

Harmony Presbyterian

July 22, 2012

Ordinary 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.

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 20yo 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.

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.

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 of Christ.

Christ’s victory was won not on the battlefield with heavy stones or weapons of any kind.  His victory, our victory is won in an empty tomb.  It is won over the true enemy- eternal death has been supplanted by eternal life not through great acts of war but a whispered act of obedience… “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

It is in Christ that we are saved.

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 light of the events in Aurora, CO and the bombings in eastern Europe and the Middle East, 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.  

To be sure, it is within us to overcome that fear and find forgiveness inside our souls.  You may recall a few years ago when a troubled man entered an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and killed several children and adults.  In the wake of the slaughter of their families and neighbors, the first public act of that Amish community was not to condemn but to pray for the man who pulled the trigger and offer their full and public forgiveness.

But the Amish are the exception to so many rules.  For most of us, we are defined by the language of vengeance and retribution in our culture.  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.  It is easier to pick up a stone and hurl it at a man who brought terror to an average community at a family movie theatre than it is to seek him out in the prison of his soul and, in the name of Jesus Christ, visit him and extend the hand of forgiveness.

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 the Christian life truly found?

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.