A Complex Mess

Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
1 Samuel 17
Psalm 9:9-20
2 Corinthians 6:1-13

If you read selectively a la the UMC lectionary edit, David and Goliath is a binary bad-versus-good easy side to pick. Goliath, the God-defying giant and professional warrior, wears heavy-duty armor, requires a shield-carrying person for extra defense, taunts people and brandishes multiple weapons. He’s the villain. On the other side, David is young and untrained in combat. The armor doesn’t fit, but it doesn’t matter. He’s driven by indignant righteousness and the Spirit of God is with him. A good-looking model-of-faith volunteers for action, and he wins to boot!

The ensuing sermons sound like self-help books for personal improvement, holding David up as a poster child hero to be emulated. Google the story and you’ll find themes like:

--Be brave and stand up for God!
--You, too, can fight and slay your own giants.
--And--especially for the kid’s sermons--No one is too young, too insignificant for God to
use, if they will only claim the faith.

The sanitized version of the story invites us to identify with David. We feel good about him and by proxy we feel good about ourselves. We’re the little guys standing up to a big ole monster. So much winning. Of course, it’s nowhere near close to the whole story, and this is what we leave out.

In the midst of ongoing war games, a shepherd with transferable skills volunteers to kill a man, cuts off his head and carries it around for display. He offered his services after he heard and confirmed from multiple sources that the newish king promised a woman (thank you, patriarchy), money and social status in return for getting the job done. David rallies public support by implying that he’s compelled to act because Goliath defied God. In what feels like the most real exchange of this whole passage, David’s brother gets mad and calls bullsh**. (Hello, sibling rivalry across the ages. I’m inclined to believe Eliab, but it appears to be a he said-he said situation. Who knows!).

So, we’ve dragged our hero through wadi, and the waters are muddied. David inflicts death to prove a “living God.” What do we do with that paradox?

Psalm 9, which is attributed to David, offers something of a self-reflection and conversation partner to a more comprehensive reading of 1 Samuel – whether it was written specifically with Goliath in mind or a broader view of David’s mixed bag of royal endeavors. Psalmist David assesses the state of humanity, both individual and corporate. Nations, as a group of humans and like individual ones, are fallible. They have sunk in pits of their own making, snared by their own wickedness. Of course, Israel asked to be just such a nation, explicitly petitioning Samuel for a king to fight on their behalf (1 Samuel 8:21). At least according to the Israelites’ understanding, a penchant for violence is inherent in the nature of nations. Only a few chapters later, David, acting on behalf of the whole, sunk a stone in Goliath.

You can see Paul’s litany in 2 Corinthians 6 or look at any media outlet these days for examples of the death-dealing violence that nations exact. Have you read about more than 2,000 children separated from their parents in six-week’s time, or our criminal justice system with roots in Jim Crow and slavery, or how charters and gentrification are contributing to the re-segregation of schools, or the militarization of police, or NIMBYism that leaves people homeless to protect home values, or fill-in-the-blank with your own example.

Reading 1 Samuel and Psalm 9 together shifts our focus from viewing David or the actions of any individual or nation detailed in Scripture as a prescriptive exemplar or poster-child hero. In fact, Psalm 9 flips the script and reminds us of the commitments God holds. David petitions for both grace and judgment toward the end of manifesting God’s justice: ensuring care for the poor, oppressed and needy. And 1 Samuel illustrates how God works in the world toward that pursuit: by receiving and co-operating with imperfect people located in violence-ridden systems that wield death as a political threat. Second Corinthians goes a step further and illustrates what we can expect in response to challenging status quo.

We should still identify with David, but it’s short-sighted and dangerous to claim his story as a pat-on-the-back opportunity to feel good. Instead, consider this week an invitation to examine the complex messiness of his and our own reality, individually and corporately, as followers of a living God:

--Do we use the skills and the tools we have in ways that create space for life or that deal
death?
--What are our motivations? How are they formed by the culture we’re steeped in?
--How do we participate in or refuse the priorities of a violent nation-state?
--Do the decisions we make and actions we take serve ourselves or advance the cause of
justice for the poor, needy, and oppressed?

Art Credit: David and Goliath, Arsen Kurbanov