1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-5, 8-9, 11, 32-37, 45, 48-50a
Happy Father’s Day! For many of you basketball fans, the celebration came early on Tuesday when the Golden State Warriors won the National Championship. I caught the last 2 minutes of the game driving home from the Session meeting. Thank you to the elders who chose church over sports….. When I picked up the game, the Warriors just broke the 100 point mark and Lebron James and the Cavaliers tried their best to catch them. Early in the series it seemed like the Warriors were the underdogs, but then Steph Curry and the Warriors battled their way to a stellar victory!!
Another surprising victory came during the National Junior Girls Basketball finals. Vivek Ranadive coached his 12 year old daughter’s team from Silicon Valley with a very unusual strategy. He was from Mumbai and had grown up with cricket and soccer. This MIT and Harvard graduate decided to base the team strategy on two deadlines- 5 seconds the team has to get the ball inbounds and the 10 seconds a team has to cross the midcourt line. When a team fails to meet either of those deadlines the ball turns over to the other team. If you watched the playoffs you saw the conventional wisdom of basketball which is each team retreats to defend their own basket yielding the court to their opponent. Essentially the girls on the junior team played full court press- meaning they defended the entire court not just their basket. The moment the ball was in play, the girls worked to possess or steal the ball. In so doing they made defense their offense and made it all the way to the playoffs. They played the game based on their strength – willingness to work harder and to play to their skill set not simply convention.
This story came for the book David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell, which we just finished reading in Adult Education. It is a really good read. It states, “The book is about what happens when ordinary people confront giants. By giants, I mean powerful opponents of all kinds- from armies and mighty warriors to disability, misfortune, and oppression” (pg. 5). It looks at a doctor with dyslexia, a student who drops out of a prestigious school because she can’t compete, and the civil rights movement in Birmingham Alabama. Gladwell starts with this basketball story to show the way David redesigned the battle to suite his strengths. When Goliath called for a warrior to fight him, he was expecting “single combat” where two sides seek to avoid heavy bloodshed and instead have a duel. By all accounts Goliath should have won. Fredrick Buechner writes, “GOLIATH STOOD 10 FEET TALL in his stocking feet, wore a size 20 collar, a 9 ½ inch hat, and a 52-inch belt. When he put his full armor on, he looked like a Sherman tank” (Beyond Words). This giant, seasoned warrior had the Israelite army shaking in their boots! They were terrified, much like the disciples in the boat during the storm. The situation looked bad and fear took over. The shepherd boy David, who was only there to bring food for his older brothers, used his strength, his ability with the sling, to fell his opponent.
Let’s remember that Saul tries to give David his armor assuming he will fight Goliath in the traditional way – the conventional way. Of course David can’t even stand, and goes back to what he knows- his sling. He chooses five stones from the river and sets off to face the giant. I think that happens to us all the time when we follow conventional wisdom which might not be the best way for us to proceed. Gladwell gives the example of this, with the birth of the Impressionism. In the 1860’s in Paris, the art scene was well established, with the Salon, the most important art exhibition in all of Europe, dictating valued artistic norms. Yet a group of young artists gathered at the Café Guerbois with a very different style with bold brush strokes and indistinct figures. Imagine walking into this café and seeing Manet, Degas, Monet, Cezanne and Renoir all discussing their art. With only little success at the Salon, the Impressionists as they are later known, opened their own gallery showing their own style and opening it up to other artists. 3,500 people came, 175 on the first day alone. They celebrated their gifts, they trusted in their art, and a new period of art emerged. They did not fight the Salon on the Salon’s terms, working to get into a juried art show; they, like David, changed the way they played the game.
So on one level, David and Goliath remind us to use our own strengths, our own skill set, to think outside of the box, and to live in faith. The disciples lacked faith when the storm threatened to overtake their boat and fear emerged. They forgot that their Lord was with them. They only focused on the problem and then things seemed really bad. Don’t we do that, we feel overwhelmed and try to solve the problem rather than relying on God for help. But once they connected to Jesus, the situation changed. What a lesson for us. When we feel swamped by circumstances, let’s draw closer to Jesus and our faith.
David did not win, simply because he used an unexpected strategy. David defeated Goliath because God was with him. He stated, “I come in the name of the Lord,” (vs. 45) and “the Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine” (vs 35). He used his strengths and his faith to battle a giant and win! All the fathers here today, you are giants in your own right. Not ones to slay, but men who are bigger than life in the eyes of their children and family. Thank you for all the ways you support us, believe in us, and love us so that your children can face their own giants with faith and grace.
Whatever giant you face, may you have great confidence that you are God’s beloved child. That God hears you when you are calling and catches you when you are falling. That you can ask the question whom shall I fear, much like David’s actions did when facing Goliath with the power of God. My prayer is that when you hear our offertory it will be your song to your Heavenly Father, to your Divine Dad, who claims you as his own and walks with you through every storm and helps you to face the giants in your life. Amen.
