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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Claiming the
Prize” Sunday, August 30,
2009 |
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I Samuel 17: 50-58
Rev. |
The
movie I have watched the most – too many time to count – is Tom Hank’s That Thing You Do. Anybody else ever
see that movie? It is about a rock and roll band from This is
the way it was for the people of It is a
story about situations in life when we are confronted by a challenge and the
challenge is so large we know we cannot defeat it. The message of the story
is that David’s confidence in God and in himself allowed him to remain
innocent, curious and in touch with his own soul in the face of an impossible
challenge. Saul became cynical, dull and disconnected. But David stayed open,
curious, and connected and because of this he was able to meet the challenge
and win. There
is a Saul and a David within each of us. There is a Saul and a David within
our communities, our marriages and partnerships, and workplaces and
congregations, and even our nations. After
9-11 there was a split within us as a nation and a people. 9-11 took away our
sense of safety. After 9-11 we saw in our nation two conflicting responses.
First, we saw the emergence of a cynical philosophy of life that said war is
inevitable, it is the nature of humanity that we will always be at war so we
need to do it first and definitively – shock and awe. I understand those
feelings. It was the Saul response within us. But
there was also the emergence of a new curiosity about Islam and a desire for
conversation and dialogue with people that we had mostly stayed disconnected
from…a belief that a new kind of global community was possible. One of the
interesting issues in the last election was whether we should be talking to
our enemies. Whenever
a crisis comes into our lives…health issues or work issues or relationship issues
or family issues or money issues or addictions get out of control…we will
experience within ourselves both a Saul response and a David response. Either
we will want to shut down or engage, or some combination of the two. The
question this morning is why engage? Why not shut down? What Saul and his
army did sort of makes sense. If you can’t win, don’t engage. We teach this
in our pre-Cana. Avoidance of conflict sometimes makes sense; it makes sense
when you can’t win. What
David did was sort of dangerous. Why not just go back to our sheep and let
whatever is going to happen happen? Why endure
the chemotherapy, and the hard work it takes to keep going after cancer? Why
take a risk of looking for a new job or even a new vocation? Bob Benn begins
his new work this week after five years of running our office and he is very
much in my prayers because it is a very exciting thing he is doing. There is
all this beauty and creativity and art within Bob that he has been making second
place in his life and now he is moving his love of the arts to first place
and we are excited for him. Why take the risk of doing something you love
instead of doing something that is secure? Why
take the risk of trying again on a relationship that seems to have turned
negative? Why take the risk of a new relationship when another one has ended?
In the
face of Goliath, why choose to stay innocence, curiosity and connectedness? According
to the story of David and Goliath, there were two things that motivated
David, and that motivates the David inside of you and me. One was
that David’s beliefs. Beliefs matter. David believed that trying to avoid
Goliath, as Saul and his armies were doing, letting themselves be
intimidated, was neither healthy nor was it faithful to the God of
history. David believed that in order
to be healthy, whole and on the right side of history, he had to do battle
with his Goliath rather than to hide or run away. We have
to do what we believe is right and healthy and good, we have to give
ourselves to health and wholeness and right or we turn cynical, dull and
disconnected. When I
talked about this last Sunday, someone said that I have to be careful when I
say things like this because there are others who may have very different
commitments and values who believe they
are on the right side of health, wholeness and history. Sure. None
of us should suppose that we have the absolute corner on truth and right. It
is always possible that history will prove our deepest commitments wrong. I
am not suggesting that we should be closed minded…the very opposite. I am
suggesting we should always remain curious. Yet we
also need to discover our deep commitments, believe in them and act on them.
Dr. King talked about “the paralysis of analysis.” In my
walks around the city, I have been walking lately by the Lincoln Memorial.
I’ve been spending some of my walking/thinking time thinking about the Civil
War and Abraham Lincoln as a president and leader. What an unlikely choice
for president he was. He is the kind of president we elect only when we know
we are really in big trouble. The
Lincoln Memorial includes the texts of two of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. One
is what? The It is
an amazing speech. Only 700 words…two double-spaced pages. He
says: “The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been
answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” God has God’s own
purposes. God is not just our way of getting what we want. He says
in the speech that both North and South are complicit in the existence of the
sin of slavery. The North can not feel superior to the South. The war should
be an occasion for both sides to repent. Then he
ends the speech: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and
with all nations.” Both
sides pray to the same God for opposite things, neither can fully claim God,
we need to be humble and remain open, but still “God gives us to see the
right,” Even
though we can not be arrogant – we cannot suppose that we are totally pure
and that others are corrupt, we have to realize that others who disagree with
us pray to the same God, read the same Bible – still we need to give
ourselves to the right as we discern it. David
had to confront Discerning
our deepest commitments and then basing on our lives on them is essential to
health and whole in our lives. You know what I ask myself these days? Will my
grandson will be proud someday that his grandfather stood for what he stood
for? Will my grandnephews be glad that I am part of their heritage? Am I on
the right side of history? *** But two
things motivated David. He was motivated by what he believed was right, but
if you read the story you will see that he was also motivated by something
else. The other thing that motivated David was his own ambition. This is
an interesting part of the story and I am sure it was added to the story
because it reflects an essential truth about David. David
was ambitious. He had an insatiable hunger for life, a lust for life. It is
part of what made him great and also the root of his greatest flaws. In the
story David is sent by his father to the battlefield to take food to his
older brothers who are in Saul’s army. David
is hears someone say that Saul has offered a reward to anyone who would
defeat Goliath. The reward was the hand of his daughter in marriage and a waiver
on all taxes for him and his family for the rest of their lives. (I Sam. 17:
25) Whoever
married Saul’s daughter would possibly be in line for succession as king of When
David hears somebody say this, he immediately checks it out with other
soldiers. (I Sam. 17: 31-2) He clearly wants to make sure he has it right
before he battles Goliath. Part of
what motivates David is the prize. He believes that battling Goliath is the
right and healthy and whole thing to do but he is also interested in the reward. At the
end of the story, David takes Goliath’s head and carries it to Saul and shows
it to Saul. It is his way of saying to Saul, I have done what you asked
someone to do and now I claim my reward. David
wants to do good, but he also wants to do well. This is
a scary part of the story, because ambition can be dangerous. Raw ambition can
kill us. Who doesn’t know somebody who has been so driven by a desire for
power or wealth that it has distorted their being, turned them into something
unpleasant, less than a whole person. After all, this is Ambition
can destroy us. But
part of the message of the story of David and Goliath is that a lack of
ambition can also damage us. Not to know what we want out of life can also
distort our being and rob us of what Jesus called life and life more
abundant. (John 10:10). A lack
of ambition can also kill. I love
spending time around babies and toddlers and young children, because the life
in them that has not been thwarted or curbed or limited. They know what they
want out of life. They don’t know yet that what isn’t possible. We teach them
that sooner or later, but they don’t come into the world knowing that. They
want to eat; they want to be loved; they want to explore; they want to put
things in their mouths; they want to impact the world around them. I love
spending time around infants and toddlers and young children because I wish I
had back that ability to live life that fully, to claim life that abundantly. Raw
ambition can distort our lives but so can a lack of ambition. It is a good
thing to know what we want out of life. The only problem with knowing what we
want out of life is if our ambitions are petty or not healthy or not on the
right side of history. One of
our preachers this summer was pretty critical of the book The Secret. Any of you know the book?
I take her point. But I
want to say something positive about The
Secret. What The Secret helps
people do is to get back in touch with what they really want out of life. And
it is true that if we know what we want out of life, we are more likely to
realize it. It is
not a bad thing to be honest with ourselves about our ambitions. In fact, it
is the only way our ambitions can mature, and become less petty and more
selfless and worthy if we stay in touch with them. Part of
what keeps us innocent, curious and connected is knowing our own ambitions
and longings and deepest desires. What
life tends to do to us between childhood and adulthood is to tell us we
shouldn’t want, or we feel disappointed so often that we stop feeling our own
desires and longings, or sometimes somebody tells us we are not worthy of our
ambitions – we are not worthy of happiness or fulfillment or completion. So
we stop even feeling our ambitions and hopes and desires. Part of
the reason we do the hard things in life, part of the reason we persevere, is
because we want the prize. The story of David and Goliath says this is okay.
It is okay to want and desire and long for and hope. When we turn these
things off within ourselves we turn off our energy and passion. I’d
like us to end this sermon this morning with bowed heads, closed eyes, so that
we might look inside ourselves. For
many of us there is lots of pain in there. Lots of discouragement and
cynicism. Lots of disappointments and calluses where we have become numb.
Lots of messages from adults who told us not to want, not to long, not to
aspire. So we have shut down parts of ourselves…perhaps our creativity,
perhaps our longing for intimacy and love, perhaps our passion for justice. I
want to say this morning that it is good to want; it is good to desire; it is
good to have longings. Find the place within yourself beneath a callous,
beneath a disappointment, beneath a defeat, beneath the voices of a parent of
teacher telling you can’t or shouldn’t, and let an ambition be reborn in your
spirit. Let it emerge this week. Think about it before you go to sleep and
for a few minutes when you wake up this week. Just feel it again and let it
feed your spirit. O God,
our creator, help us to trust you with our ambitions, and longings and
desire. Help us to trust you enough to feel them. Help us to trust you to
shape them and mature them. Help us to become like children…to long for life
and love again. Amen. www.foundryumc.org |
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