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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Facing Our
Goliaths” Sunday, August 2, 2009 |
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I Samuel 17: 1-11
Rev. |
In the Mediterranean world the Late Bronze Age, roughly 1550–1200 BCE, was “a
brilliant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan era,” says Carol Redmount, professor
of Near Eastern Studies at the
It was a time of “great wealth
and unprecedented international contacts and exchange” throughout the eastern
“The Late Bronze Age,” she says,
“was also an age of empire…superpower politics, and an international way of
life.”[i] It was an era of palace
economies. In palace economies wealth is controlled by a king or a pharaoh, a
sacred ruler. Wealth flows into the palace and then is redistributed to the
people, often through large public work projects like building palaces,
temples and pyramids. Palace economies support art and beauty. The greatest palace economy of
the Late Bronze Age was It was toward the end of the
Late Bronze Age that the Egyptian Empire began to weaken. An early sign of
its diminishing power, perhaps, was when a group of slaves in As the Egyptian Empire continued
to decline, a new coalition of peoples emerged called “the Sea Peoples.”
Historians are not sure who they were or precisely where they were from. They
seem to have been somehow connected to The Sea Peoples travelled in
ships. They were militaristic. They were at the forefront of the development
of the weaponry of their time. And they were ruthless. When they conquered a territory
they destroyed the cities they found there…crushed them and burned them to
the ground. Then they brought their own people to the territory, shipload
after shipload after shipload. Then they built new cities on top of the ruins
of the cities they had destroyed – totally new cities many times larger than
the cities they had demolished. They were good urban planners,
designing their new cities to be both commercially viable and livable. They
were good at agricultural development, planting whatever commercial crops the
lands they conquered were best suited for. They fished. They raised cattle,
sheep, and goats, but they specialized in hog farming. They loved pork. It
was their favorite dish. And they were great exporters and importers, using
their ships for trading. Theirs was not a palace economy
like the superpowers of the Late Bronze Age but more a market economy. Their
goal was not to leave temples and monuments and pyramids behind. They did not
invest in great art and beauty. Their goal was to make money and to live
well, to eat and drink well, and to conquer new lands. The Sea Peoples were not able to
defeat One group within the coalition
of Sea Peoples was called Philistines. The Philistines conquered 1000 square
kilometers, 386 square miles, of territory on the western shore of the
Mediterranean formerly controlled by
The Philistine city of Settling in this territory made
the Philistines the nearest neighbors of the former slaves from The Philistines developed the
sandy soil of their new territory into great agricultural and industrial
endeavors, growing grapes and olives and manufacturing wine and olive oil. They
fished. They built hog farms. They loved pork. Archeologists are still
digging up the pig bones. Some scholars believe the reason the Israelites had
a taboo against eating pork is because they did not want to be like the
Philistines. The Israelites distained and
feared the Philistines, although they sometimes fraternized and loved their
women – Samson and Delilah. Philistine expansion forced one of Because of the way the Bible
portrays the Philistines, the word Philistine is still used today to refer to
someone who is devoted to material prosperity at the expense of intellectual
and artistic awareness. It was because the Israelites
wanted a stronger army to defend themselves against the Philistines that they
decided to have a centralized government and a king. Up until then According to the book of First
Samuel, God did not want I Samuel 9: 2 says about Saul:
“There was not a man among the people of They selected him because he was
tall and handsome. He led The second king All this is the context of the
story of David and Goliath, which we are talking about during the month of
August. The story of David and Goliath
was not originally about David. It was told about another Israelite named
Elhanan.[iii]
It was originally the story of Elhanan and Goliath. But the Israelites so
loved the story and they so loved David that as the legend of David grew the
story was adapted and rewritten and expanded and became part of the legend of
David. If you read First Samuel up to
chapter 17 where the story of David and Goliath is told and then you continue
reading First Samuel after chapter 17, you will see that the story of David
and Goliath does not fit into the flow of the rest of the story in any
way. But the Israelites loved the
story and they loved David, so we have the story of David and Goliath. The stories a people love tell
us a lot about them. The jokes a people laugh at tell us a lot about who they
are, and this story has lots of humor that would have made the Israelites
laugh The Israelites loved the story
of David and Goliath. The story begins with the
Philistine army invading Goliath, it says, was six cubits
and a span. That would be 9 feet 6 inches, almost 10 feet tall. An earlier
version of the story found in the But even 6 feet 7 inches would
have been tall in a culture where, according to archeological digs, most men
were less than 5 feet 6 inches tall. Goliath has all the latest
military equipment. A helmet of bronze, a coat of mail (a coat of armor) that
weighs 5,000 shekels or 126 pounds, greaves of bronze on his legs. He is
armed with a javelin of bronze, the javelin had a point, a head, made of iron
that weighed 600 shekels or 15 pounds. The head of the javelins used in the
Olympics weight less than 2 pounds. According to First Samuel the
Philistines had a monopoly on the production of iron. First Samuel 13: 19f
says: “Now there was no smith to be found throughout all the land of Israel;
for the Philistines said, ‘The Hebrews must not make swords or spears for
themselves,” so all the Israelites went down top the Philistines to sharpen
their plowshares, mattocks, axes and sickles….So on the day of the battle
neither sword nor spear was to be found in the possession of any of the
people with Saul and [his son] Jonathon, but Saul and his son Jonathon had
them.” So here is Goliath the
Philistine at least a foot taller than the tallest men in the region at the
time, maybe four feet taller. Who is the tallest Israelite? Remember? Saul. Goliath has a bronze spear with
an iron head. Who was the only Israelite with weapons made of iron? Saul and
his son Jonathon. Saul should have been the one to
face Goliath, but he knew he could not win. When he saw and heard Goliath he
became dismayed and greatly afraid, and accordingly, when their king became
dismayed and greatly afraid, all of Goliath was the Philistine’s
shock and awe, and it worked. Saul knew he could not win. The story of David and Goliath
is about what you do when you know you are facing an enemy, an obstacle, an
issue, a problem, that you can not defeat. You are the tallest person in Goliath is an economy that has tanked
and landed on top of you. Goliath is a phone call from your doctor saying
that there are some tests she wants you to take today. Goliath is an addiction you used to be able to manage when
you were younger. Goliath is a love that you can not win. Goliath is a
relationship you can not fix. Goliath is a project you can not finish.
Goliath is a skill you can not learn. Goliath is an emotion you can not
suppress anymore. You used to be able to get by on
your tallness or your looks, your armor or your weaponry, your power or your position.
But those things won’t work this time. The story of David and Goliath
is about when the Late Bronze Age ends and the Early Iron Age begins in your
life and mine. Everything changes. Nothing works the same way it used to
work. We just figured out how to survive the Egyptians in the Late Bronze Age
but now the Early Iron Age has come and brought the Philistines with it. We
can’t win. When we are facing an enemy, an
obstacle, an issue, a problem, and we know we can not win, the story of David
and Goliath believes that there are other resources to which we can turn.
There is a David in us. But we can not hold on to our
tallness and good looks; we cannot hold onto our armor and weapons; we can
not hold onto our power and position and win. We’ve got to give up every
thing that has made us successful in the past. Ronald Heifetz teaches
leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at The first of the three virtues
is innocence. He defines innocence as “the capacity to entertain silly ideas,
think unusual and perhaps ingenious thoughts, be playful in your life and
work, even to be strange to your organization or community.” The second virtue is
curiosity…the realization you don’t know all the answers, maintaining a sense
of the mystery of it all, learning all the time. The third virtue is compassion
or caring…. To keep feeling the joys and pains of life rather than becoming
numb or calloused.[iv] Innocence, curiosity,
caring…that is the David in you and me and when the Late Bronze Age ends and
there is an enemy we know we can not defeat, those are the only things that
will save us. Innocence, curiosity, caring. Martin Linksy, who co-authored Leadership on the Line with Ronald
Heifitz has written about his father’s last week of life. Everybody knew it
was his father’s last week of life. His father arranged for private
conversations with each of his four grandchildren, exploring with them their
values and sharing his values based on his almost 80 years of living. He gave
his granddaughter a rousing pep talk before she retook her driver’s test. He
met alone with his former daughter-in-law to tell her he was grateful for the
way she raised his grandchildren and to tell her he loved her. Finally, an hour before his
death, he asked his son to get him a beer. “What kind?” his son asked. “Bud,” his father said. “Light or regular?” his son
asked. “Light’s fine,” his father said. Tears running down his face,
Martin Linksy ran to a store across the street from the hospital, brought
back a six pack of Bud Light, ran back to the hospital room, poured his
father and himself a beer. They clinked glasses, and soon his father died. What Martin Linsky says he
learned is that even in the face of the final enemy it is possible to win…so
long as we remain innocent, curious and caring. Even in the face of the final
enemy it is possible to win if we remain innocent, curious and caring. This is the David within us.
Even more, this is great David’s greater Son, Reb Jesus.[v]
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