Five Smooth Stones

During Ordinary Time – the period of weeks following both Epiphany and Pentecost – we consider what it means to be God’s people, to be stewards of our faith each day.  It’s a season to reflect on our call to follow Jesus day by day.  During Ordinary Time, we ask ourselves:  What do our daily lives look like in the world?  To what ordinary yet sacred work are we being called?  Where is God moving in and through our lives?  What gifts am I being called to share as part of God’s work in the world?”  

And we begin to form some potential answers to such questions by looking to what may usual tseem a surprising or unext – the story of David and Goliath.  Now, admittedly, I probably missed Sunday School more often than I attended it as a child, but even I know this story.  Or at least, I thought I knew this story.  It turns out that there is much more going on in this narrative than the children’s Bible version lets on.  In fact, as we approach the famed conflict between David and Goliath in 1 Samuel, we find ourselves in the midst of an ancient crisis.

As our reading begins, we find the Philistine and Israelite armies encamped on opposite mountain-top ridges, with a valley in between them.  As we imagine their war cries splitting the air, an enormous, formidable champion steps out of the Philistine camp to challenge the Israelites.  The text’s portrait of this Philistine “is of an invulnerable warrior…We are intended to envision him as [invincible]… Not only is he armored, but also he is armed” (1110 NIBC).  Goliath “is perfectly terrifying in his sheer, malevolent power and perfectly hateful in his bold defiance of Israel” (295 ABC).  He is no respecter of persons. 

In many ways, it seems that we find ourselves in a similar crisis today, because we are surely face-to-face with enormous, formidable social and moral giants which have stepped out of their camps to challenge us – war; poverty, homelessness, and hunger; violent racism; misogynistic assaults on the rights of women and birthing people; education gaps and unlivable wages; attacks on basic protections for LGBTQ people; environmental irresponsibility. 

Like Goliath, these and other issues seem to defy, and even taunt, people of faith who would work toward the defeat of such enemies.  They are perfectly terrifying in their sheer, malevolent power and perfectly hateful in their bold defiance of the Gospel.  They are no respecter of persons.

In such a moment, how are we to respond?  What is there to do?  Where do we even begin?  Which of our spiritual gifts are needed most?  What could we give that might even begin to make a difference?  As we consider these questions about our contemporary conflict, we look to David’s response to his own ancient conflict for wisdom. 

Unlike previous stories, in this narrative, “David is now introduced to us not only as God’s man and Saul’s man, but also as his own man” (1109 NIBC).  As one author notes, “[He] emerges as the central actor whose bold action and unwavering faith capture our imagination.  [David] is unquestionably the man for Israel’s future, and the popularity of the story suggests that he becomes here a man for future generations as well” (NIBC 1108).  Unwavering faith.  And bold action.  Those are the gifts with which David faces his ancient crisis, and those are the gifts with which we might face our own. 

As the shepherd faces down the giant, David invokes the name of the Lord five times, professing that the fullness of his faith and his victory rest in a living God.  While Goliath is well-armored and armed to the hilt, David’s own weapon is the name of God.  This is not a struggle of the strong against the weak – rather, it is a struggle of the strong against “the weak [who are] fortified by the strength of [God]” (ABC 294).  David steps into this crisis knowing that “deliverance does not come through trust in human might” (1112 NIBC) – for “the Lord does not save by sword and spear” (v.47).  He steps into this crisis with “God-trusting opposition to oppression, God-trusting persistence in the face of the giants” (1114 NIBC).

As one preacher notes, “David is the model of another way, of those…who trust that God can make deliverance possible against the odds, that there is hope even when faced with apparently hopeless situations” (NIBC 1112).  And I think that’s at the core of what it means for us to face today’s giants—like David, we are called to step into the crisis with an unwavering faith that God is already at work, we are called to step into the world’s pain and suffering with the spiritual gifts God has given each of us.  With “God-trusting persistence,” the Spirit leads us to face the social and moral issues that are the giants holding hostage our community, our country, and our world.  But how do we do such work?  What does it look like for people of faith and Christian communities to stand toe-to-toe with today’s Goliaths?  Again, we look back to the text.

So Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you!” Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. ³⁹ David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.” So David removed them.

Perhaps with the best of intentions, Saul physically places his own perspective, assumptions, and strategies on David by clothing him in his armor.  The truth is that Saul and the Israelites “can think of nothing more to do [in this crisis] than to imitate poorly the very forces of oppressive power they oppose” (NIBC 1114).  Their logic is that if Goliath is heavily-armored and armed, then David should be, too. 

But nothing about such an approach for facing the Philistine giant works for him: he cannot move in the armor; he cannot do the work to which he has been called because he is clothed in and restricted by that which is not his own.  The armor doesn’t fit.  It isn’t his.  From David’s experiences as a deeply faithful shepherd, he understands that “power and courage can have other sources than military experience, and these sources… are both practical and spiritual” (NIBC 1111). 

Having already invoked the name of God, he removes the armor, takes his staff in hand, and chooses five smooth stones from the riverbed.  With unwavering faith, David steps into the crisis and takes bold action, using what he knows, using the gifts God has given him.  This act—responding to the needs of his community with the gifts he has—it is an act of faith.  As theologian Walter Bruggemann writes,

“David refuses to be like Saul,…or like the nations, or like the Philistine.  David proposes a radical alternative, only five smooth stones.  David must have appeared to Saul (and to all the others) to be unarmed and defenseless.  David’s alternative must have seemed to be no viable alternative at all…[but] David is the one who bears witness to the rule of [God].  In doing so, he calls Israel away from its imitation of the nations” (Brueggemann 131-132).”

Indeed, systems of power, oppression, and violence cannot be overcome by imitation and the creation of new systems of power, oppression, and violence.  As people of faith, we are not called to step into today’s crisis moments wearing armor, clothed in that which is not our own, and imitating the nations.  Instead, as we seek be people of a different way, living with unwavering faith and taking bold action.  We encounter David’s story and recognize that we bring gifts that are “alternatives to the intimidation of the powerful” (1114 NIBC).  We bring gifts of imagination and resourcefulness; we bring gifts of peace and hope rooted in the promise of resurrection brought about the spirit of living God.  These are five smooth stones which we might consider carrying:

1. We carry a stone of community as we gather, organize, and strategize together with neighbors who live and look and love and eat and pray differently than we do.
2. We carry a stone of accountability as we call and write and speak out against elected officials who are more committed to their own power and profit than the common good and the flourishing of all people;
3. We carry a stone of righteous indignation as we demonstrate and protest and march in the face of injustice.
4. We carry a stone of solidarity as we show up alongside and offer tangible, financial support for those who are marginalized.
5. We carry a stone of humility, trusting that we only get it right some of the time and that the Holy Spirit continues to help us and teach us and guide us along the way.

There are other smooth stones we might carry to face today’s giants.  I suspect my pocket full might look different than yours, and that’s okay…good and holy, even.  I wonder which ones you’re being called to pick-up?  I wonder which ones we, as a community, as being nudged to carry?

Whatever the answers may be, we hear and head the call to take off the armor that isn’t ours, and we reach into the riverbed of our Christian tradition and choose five smooth stones to carry with us.  Perhaps as people of faith, we need to shed the armor of self-preservation and pick up stones of abundance and generosity; to remove battle garments of judgment and retrieve the smooth rocks of grace and peace; to set aside shields of assumption, and pocket a few pebbles of curiosity and learning; to leave behind helmets of hatred, and carry with us stones of love and compassion.

Friends, may this story remind us that even though we’re up against some of the world’s most daunting challenges, God has given us gifts to share and called us to act boldly, with unwavering faith.   May we embody “God-trusting persistence in the face of giants.”  And May we carry with us five smooth stones—the authentic gifts which God has given each of us.  May it be so, dear ones.  This day and each day.  Amen.