this sermon was preached by Dr. Lisa Patterson, the Associate Pastor at St. Andrew. She has just returned from a four-month sabbatical funded by the Clergy Renewal program of the Lilly Endowment.
Sunday, September 10, 2023
1 Samuel 17: 1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49
David’s Vision
Sermon
My sabbatical journey has been a long journey. It started18 months ago, when it was approved, and it came to an end on August 31 of this year, when I returned after four months. In Winter 2022, the Session of St. Andrew granted my request for a sabbatical and its theme of gathering around tables for renewal, and the Clergy Renewal Committee and I started writing a grant proposal for international travel to Italy. Thankfully that was granted.
Why did I choose to travel to Italy with the enthusiastic support of my family? There so many reasons to go which so many of you have enumerated to me! My family and I enjoyed every single one of them – food, art, culture, wineries, churches, the colosseum, history, olive oil, the people, beauty of the countryside. As one of our guides told us, the people of Italy claim, “All roads lead to Rome and that was true for me, because I was in Rome four different times during my three weeks in Italy.
But the overarching reason I went to Italy was to see The David. The famous 17-foot sculpture by Michelangelo, which is arguably the most famous sculpture in the world, and which I bet so many of you are picturing in your mind’s eye right now. Why, did I want to see this one statue? Well…Whether you have spent time in the church or out, the story of David, the story of David and Goliath, have captured our imaginations and provided a common language in the broader culture throughout the ages. David’s story was so full of stunning success and brutal failure that it seems to represent the story of the common human journey. It had always been a hope of mine to see this statue one day. And, it is truly breath-taking to see in all its stunning beauty created by one of the most iconic sculptors of all time.
It is thought that Michelangelo carved the statue right at the moment when David is poised to cast the stone at Goliath. He is standing on his right leg with his left leg bent and poised to begin the rotation with the slingshot. The tendons in his leg are so clearly defined, and his gaze is intense, focused, and purposeful that you feel the story come alive. The statue on its own without the story was worth seeing, but the story gave the experience a greater depth for me and probably others as well.
The story Karen and I just read is the one that inspired this great sculpture. The text for today follows the moment when David had been secretly anointed king by the prophet, Samuel, at God’s command. David, who was the youngest and the most surprising choice out of Jesse’s eight sons – God moves in surprising ways once again.
In today’s story, we read that David had been left at home to tend the sheep while the older and more experienced brothers served at the front line in Israel’s army to fight the Philistines. The only reason David, the newly anointed king, was sent to the front line to run an errand for his father. He was sent as the errand boy to deliver food to his brothers, and to replenish the storehouse of supplies for the army.
David arrived and found the Israelite army in chaos, clearly lacking direction. King Saul, the tallest person in the kingdom, wasn’t known for his leadership skills. The two armies were lined up on opposing sides, ready to fight. But there had been a 40-day delay.
The Philistine warrior, Goliath, had for 40 days prior to this day, marched ceremoniously onto the battlefield 80 different times - twice a day for 40 days. He did this to issue a challenge to the Israelite army. Fight Goliath and win and the Israelites would triumph over the Philistines, who would become their slaves. Lose, and the Israelites would be slaves to the Philistines. 80 announcements, 40 day’s time, no takers, and we could guess why.
David’s brothers and the army were intimidated and afraid of this giant. They were frozen and could not act. They realized that in traditional hand-to-hand combat, no one could defeat Goliath, not even King Saul, who had armor just as fine as Goliath’s. Everyone accepted the facts as they could see them – Goliath was unbeatable. I wonder what the giants are in our day that seem just as daunting.
When David arrived and saw what was happening on the front lines, he was surprised that the army of the living God didn’t realize who they served, and he said so. He also started asking questions. His older brother, Eliab, yelled at him for being so presumptuous. David was an errand boy, the younger brother – what could he possibly add to the conversation? The discussion was reported to King Saul, and he sent for David, and David didn’t hold back. I don’t think David ever held back – with God or with his community! David knew who the Israelite army served and the Philistines were defying this God.
So David volunteered to fight Goliath. To Saul’s credit, he resisted. He said David was just a boy who couldn’t possibly fight a seasoned warrior. But David wasn’t deterred, and he got out his resume. He presented his credentials. David told the king, he had fought bears and lions and defeated them to protect the sheep, rescuing the lambs from their jaws and catching them by the jaw and killing them with only a staff and slingshot. Saul readily accepted his offer to fight Goliath. There wasn’t exactly a line forming.
When we read this story we know so well, we are reminded that David’s brothers, Saul, the Israelite army all focused on Goliath rather than God. They supersized the warrior, to the diminishment of God. David’s reality, fresh from the field, instead, supersized God and not Goliath. Eugene Peterson, pastor and theologian wrote, “David entered the valley with a God-dominated imagination.”
Instead of seeing Goliath’s size only, David saw God and was attentive to God. David kept his eyes firmly trained on God, and his focus on the one he served. He had learned to trust God and David had developed a God-dominated lens, maybe when he was out in the fields alone with only God and the sheep for company. The only help from bears and lions would have been God.
Saul wanted to help David, and he did it the only way he knew how by piling his ill-fitting, heavy armor on David. The same armor that didn’t qualify Saul to fight Goliath now was offered to David, who cannot even walk in the heavy equipment. David removes the heavy armor.
He chooses, instead, to be David in the ways that God called him to be rather a copy of someone else. David was the one who realized the only way to fight Saul’s battle was God’s way. Saul and the rest of the army still hadn’t recognized that God’s ways were not conventional.
And God, through David, defeated Goliath with no armor other than a slingshot and five stones picked up in the valley plus his shepherd staff – plus God. David’s stone connected with the only unprotected area - his forehead.
To interpret the accounts of that fateful day, only a God-dominated mind would be able to understand the events. A Goliath-dominated mind could not conceive it for it was not conventional wisdom but holy wisdom in action. We love this underdog story, but that isn’t really what it is. David knew he was not fighting for the underdog. He was serving the living God whom the giant had dared to defy by threatening to bring harm to God’s people. David needed to set this right with the means at his disposal, using his skills and gifts.
I told you earlier that the reason I wanted to go to Italy was to see David. I wanted to see the beauty of this statue that Michelangelo had brought forth from one piece of stone, but it was also the subject that has so fascinated me through the years. David was a person whose mind was so dominated by God that all events were interpreted through that lens.
I wanted to see this sculpture of a young man by a brilliant, conflicted artist in his own right, who was willing to live his life fully and completely before God and in his community with all his excellence and imperfections fully on display. David kept coming back to God in both spectacular and flawed ways, and the biblical writers didn’t try and clean up the accounts.
I keep wondering what if we tried to do the same? Live a life fully and completely before God and community, with our minds focused on God willing to own that we do well and we also do fail?
Our guide at the gallery said that Michelangelo struggled to release the figure, the statue, which was within each block of stone, because this was the sculptor’s task.
How do we allow and assist God in forming and shaping us, sculpting and refining us to become the real and authentic person inside our outer human shell and then to offer ourselves for God’s service for the benefit of the world?
How do we live out all of our doubts, our excellence, our flaws and mistakes, out in community as a reflection of our God-dominated imagination? The mighty, powerful, forgiving, gracious God of David is at work in all of us.
I want to invite all of us to be a little more like the towering figure of David, who loved God and kept his God-dominated imagination through all of his missteps, need for repentance, and leading his world to share his God-dominated lens. Amen
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