The Winds of Change: David Challenges Goliath

Sermon texts for April 27, 2008:
I Samuel 17; Matthew 18: 1-4; Ephesians 6: 10-20

The winds of change continue to blow over the Promised Land. The Chosen People are afraid and looking for an anchor. When they demanded that Samuel anoint a king to rule over them, they envisioned a leader who would intimidate neighboring nations, but King Saul was not strong enough to keep danger at bay.

In our lesson from I Samuel, the armies of Israel and the Philistines are squaring off with one another. We get the image of two armies coming up to the line drawn in the sand. They threaten one another, but neither army is ready to step over the line and begin the battle.

In this battle, Israel is at a technological disadvantage. Their Bronze Age weapons are not as strong as those of the Philistines’ who have progressed to the Iron Age. Television pundits of 1000 B.C.E. would probably pick the Philistines to win. For Israel, a loss is inconceivable, because it means once again becoming slaves for Egypt. The Philistines are mercenaries fighting for Pharaoh. Egypt’s goal is to seize Israel’s farms to feed Pharaoh’s army as it expands its influence throughout the region.

Merely defeating Israel’s army was not enough for the Philistines; they also wanted to humiliate King Saul and his army. Day after day the Philistines sent their weapon of mass destruction to stand on the top of a hill overlooking Israel’s camp. From this position, Goliath taunted his opponents. He called them names, challenged their manhood; he even laughed at the impotence of Israel’s God.

Basically, Goliath was right. No one in King Saul’s army wanted to challenge Goliath. That is until one day a shepherd boy named David came to Israel’s camp. He was not there as a combatant, but to bring food for his brothers. When David heard Goliath’s challenge he became enraged. He could not believe that no one in Saul’s army rose to meet Goliath’s challenge. Surely the God of Israel would fight on Israel’s side to defeat the challenger. Maybe Goliath was right. Maybe the Army was full of cowards.

But David could not standby and hear Israel’s army being mocked. So against his brothers’ wishes he offers to trade in his musical instruments for the implements of war. The scene is comical as David is prepared for battle by being dressed in Saul’s armor. David – the shepherd boy, the gentle musician – looks very small, even tiny in a grown man’s armor. Others in SauI’s entourage must have had a good laugh when they realized in that Saul’s armor, David could not move. He was a boy trying to do a man’s job, but it was a job that no man in Israel was willing to do.

Finally David realizes that his safety would not come from Saul’s armor, but rather from the armor of God. If David is going to be successful against the Philistine giant, he needs to rely on the power of God – nothing more and nothing less. And so David takes off Saul’s armor and goes to meet Goliath armed only with faith, and a sling shot, and a few smooth river rocks.

When Goliath sees that a child has accepted his challenge, he is outraged and insulted. Perhaps no man in Israel would be an adequate challenger, but this is ridiculous. In addition to his size, Goliath was a seasoned veteran. He has been through the wars, and deserves to be challenged by someone who is also a seasoned veteran. But if the child wants to die it is alright with Goliath. Goliath roared at David and the two traded insults with one another. As the Giant came to the line to kill David, David took one of his river rocks, placed it in his sling shot and killed the giant. The invisible armor of God proved more important than the best protection the army of Israel could offer.

Who or what are the giants in your life? What are the issues in your life that seem to hang over your head and mock you? If we think individually and as a congregation, what is it in our lives that causes us to hear an inner voice questioning our faith, saying something like, “Is our God big enough to handle this?” Our giants are those things that seem so large that we are not sure even God can handle them.

Our personal Goliaths can be almost anything. Some of us live with the constant nagging thought that we are not good enough. Some of us have bodies that are betraying us, and we wonder why God allows these things to happen. Some of us face heartbreaking issues with spouses, children or grandchildren. And God doesn’t seem to be doing anything to help. Sometimes it seems that the only thing we can do is try to outlast the problem, but in the meantime we feel angry or hurt. And we long for the full armor of God.

Yet we have the story of the ruddy-cheeked shepherd boy who destroyed the giant, and the assertion by Jesus that those who want to enter the Kingdom must become like little children. The advantage that children have over us is that they instinctively look to someone else, Mom or Dad, to solve their problems. We, on the other hand, believe that for the most part we can take care of ourselves. Perhaps if we regain that childlike faith we too can become giant-killers.

“Jesus called a child and put him in the midst of them and said, ‘truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”

And the Apostle Paul tells us to put on the “whole armor of God … put on the breastplate of righteousness … the shoes of the gospel of peace … the shield of faith … the helmet of salvation … and the sword of the Spirit.”

God doesn’t always save us from problems, but always provides a way for us to live through them so that we emerge safely on the other side. My wish for you as you anticipate calling a new pastor is that you will become as vulnerable as children to one another and to her, and that you will greet the world openly as people who know that you are protected by the full armor of God.

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock

The Winds of Change: Samuel Anoints David

Sermon text for April 20, 2008:
I Samuel 15:34-16:13

The winds of change are blowing, always blowing, and the people of Israel are out of breath just trying to keep up. At their insistence, Samuel anointed Saul as king to rule over them. And far from being more secure as they had hoped, the wars with the Philistines seem to have increased. The wars! The changes! The wind is always blowing and there is no time to just sit and rest. Perhaps by this time, some of the people are questioning their decision to reject the leadership of God and choose a king to rule over them.

In the beginning, God envisioned Israel as an egalitarian society where each one was equal and where citizens could live without fear. But with the anointing of King Saul, all of that has changed. For the first time, Israel developed social classes. Those close to King Saul were more privileged than others and fear gripped the land. Even Samuel is afraid of Saul. If he goes against King Saul in a public way he might be killed. So in choosing a king over God, the people have unwittingly silenced God. And, as it was in Samuel’s youth, once again “the word of the Lord was rare …. and there was no frequent vision.” Now if God is speaking, Samuel is afraid to tell the people what God says. The winds of change! The winds of war! The winds of fear! Israel is far removed from the comfortable egalitarian, agrarian nation of only a few decades before.

When King Saul began his reign he understood himself to be a servant of God and he often sought Samuel’s counsel. But as he experienced power, all that began to change. Saul no longer saw himself as God’s servant. Samuel, who at one time was the chief counselor to the King, was silenced and now he lived in fear.

Samuel is in the uncomfortable position of being caught between God and Saul. Saul is fearsome – even ruthless, but God still expects to be obeyed. And when God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new King he was terrified. To do what God commanded was an act of treason and punishable by death. Samuel tried to reason with God, “if I do what you want and Saul hears he will kill me.”

The story has all of the intrigue of a first rate spy novel, but it also has humor. God and Samuel conspire with one another to outwit Saul. According to the plan Samuel was to take a young heifer and pretend to be going to Bethlehem to offer a sacrifice. Once in Bethlehem, Samuel was to invite a man named Jesse to join him. Unbeknownst to Saul or Jesse one of Jesse’s sons will be the second king of Israel.

At Samuel’s request, the sons of Jesse are paraded before Samuel one after another and Samuel thinks each of them looks like the new king. But God rejects one son after another, until Samuel is perplexed. God said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees. The Lord looks upon the heart.” Samuel discovers there is still one son whom he hasn’t met. And now for the first time we hear about David.

When Samuel meets David he sees a cute little boy. He sounds like the kind of kid you would want your grandchildren to befriend. He had ruddy cheeks and beautiful eyes. From the author’s description, David sounds charming. But charming might not cut it in a battle against the Philistines. God saw something in David that no one else could see and said to Samuel, “Anoint him, this is the one I have chosen.” So Samuel anointed David in front of his brothers and the Bible says that from that day forward the Spirit of the Lord was a mighty force in David’s life.

I can’t help but wonder how David experienced his anointing that day. He was King, but he went back to work tending his father’s sheep. The gift seems to be taken for granted, or maybe David needed time to let God’s gifts develop. Some of God’s gifts must be nurtured before being invested in the People of God. So David went back to tending sheep.

Jesus spent time in the wilderness.

Paul spent fourteen years in Arabia before he began writing and preaching.

The witness of scripture is that the winds of change rarely blow in the direction we think they should. And sometimes the direction seems to make no sense at all. Sometimes it takes an act of will to believe that God knows which way the wind is blowing and that God means everything for our good. God always chooses the least likely person to do important work.

As I mulled over this common biblical theme of God choosing the most unlikely people to carry out God’s plan, it seemed to me that the message might be especially for us. Ten years ago this congregation named about 400 people on its roles. You were strong and vital, in almost everyway. The winds of change were blowing, but most of the changes were positive. But then the winds of change began to blow in a way that no one could have guessed. The winds blew in trouble and now you are struggling. Your numbers are somewhere near 140 and many of you feel defeated. Many of you have no confidence in the future.

In some ways, my own life has been on a path similar to yours. Ten years ago I was the pastor of a large church with a large staff. In my professional life, the winds of change were favorable. But then the unexpected happened. I hurt my back and eventually had to resign from my position.

As a congregation you were large and successful. Professionally I was pretty much at the top of my game. Now I wonder if there is another place for me to minister when I leave here, yet I acknowledge that I have been preparing to leave for a year and will rejoice when your new pastor arrives.

The story of David may be written for us. No one who looked at David at the time of his anointing saw a king, but God could see what others could not. The little boy became a man. The shepherd became a warrior. I believe that God sees something at First Presbyterian Church of Lakewood that none of us can see. We know that the winds of change are blowing. Even as God changed a shepherd into a king, I believe that God has a wonderful future in store for you.

The winds of change are blowing for me, as well, and I cannot see the future. So, even as I am praying for you, I ask you to pray for me that I will go wherever God wants me to go and become whomever God wants me to be for the next stage of my life.

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock

The Winds of Change: Israel Wants a King

Sermon text for April 13, 2008:
I Samuel 8:4-20

The winds of change are blowing over the face of Israel, and no one knows what it will look like when God is done. The first gust of wind blew the old priest Eli and his family out of the priesthood. In Eli’s place was the boy Samuel whom God called to be prophet, priest, and judge over all of Israel. With Samuel’s anointing, Israel is being transformed before our very eyes.

When God brought Israel into the Promised Land it was unique among the nations of the world. Other nations had kings to rule over them and they lived in strictly stratified communities, but Israel was different. In Israel, according to God’s design, everyone was equal and no one ruled over any one else. Within the tribes there were elders who offered wisdom and counsel, but no one had the authority of a king.

Instead of a king, God ruled Israel through judges who were appointed on a temporary basis, to speak God’s word in a particular situation. Try to imagine a nation designed so that everyone has equal stature; a nation where each one has access to the resources necessary to make a living. Imagine a nation without a king, president, congress, or parliament, where no one rules over anyone else. This is the revolutionary principle on which Israel was founded.

Now there are some problems with a leaderless society. More traditional nations may consider such a nation weak and as easy pickings in war. Neighboring nations might fear revolution in their own nations, if people saw that self rule was possible. The kings of Canaan’s city states felt they had to destroy Israel before their own people decided to live as Israel lived. So Israelites were forced to live in the hill country were they could more easily defend themselves from attack by armies which used chariots.

By the time of Samuel the Philistines were Israel’s chief enemy. They were a vassal state of Egypt with orders to defeat Israel and seize the farms. If the Philistines were successful, Israel would return to Egyptian domination, and that was an idea too terrible to contemplate. Yet a Philistine victory seemed certain because they had iron weapons while Israel’s weapons were made of bronze. It seemed obvious that better technology would guarantee Israel’s defeat.

So the winds of change became the winds of war and Israel came to a crossroads of its existence. One road led to a deepening trust in God. While the other road led to trust in a human king and a government just like everyone else’s. It all boiled down to a question of trust. Can Israel trust in God, or must it begin to look just like everyone else? The answer is that Israel rejected radical belief in God, and chose to be just like every other nation; with a king to rule over them.

One day the elders came to Samuel and said, “Now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the other nations.” Samuel was deeply hurt and completely bewildered. Their request felt like a rejection of God’s sovereignty and Samuel’s ministry. He wasn’t sure what to do, so he turned to God in prayer. While he was in prayer Samuel realized that the people were not rejecting him, but even worse they were rejecting God’s authority. God said,”They are rejecting me from being king over them.”

When Samuel saw that the people were intent on trading God’s leadership for a human king he warned them what was going to happen. The king would tax them exorbitantly, conscript both their male and female children, and instead of living in a free egalitarian society the king would appoint ruler over different groups. And then with a reminder of their history he told the people that one day they would wake up and realize that they had sold themselves back into slavery.

But the people could not be dissuaded. They were so afraid of the Philistines that they were willing to give up just about everything for security. “We don’t care,” they said. “We will have a king over us that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may govern us and fight our battles for us.”

It is amazing when we think of it. Israel traded in God for Saul. Israel traded in the fighting power of God for a human army. Israel traded in freedom for bondage. And nothing was ever the same again. The winds of change blew away the apparently naïve idea of trusting God for security, and blew in the more sophisticated idea that human power is better when confronting evil.

Maybe some of us are at a crossroads today. If we choose one path it means a deepening of faith and more dependence on God, while the other, more sophisticated path, means relying on people power. Which way are the winds of change blowing you today?

Trust is one of the most important issues which confronts us today. We need to decide for ourselves if God is trustworthy, and how much of our lives we should entrust to God. The winds of change are blowing and we need to decide if we trust God to blow us into peace and security.

It is interesting the way biblical stories are played out again and again in our lives and in the life of our church and the nation. The issues of trust and security we face are the same ones faced by the Israelites when they weren’t sure how to handle the Philistine threat. Are you threatened by a combative child or spouse? Are you hanging on to your job by the skin of your teeth? Are you frightened by advancing age and the prospect of death? Are you fighting some secret battle within yourself that no one else knows about? Are you willing to trust God with your secret or are you fighting the battle all by yourself?

In some ways the Philistine threat was secondary to the real issue in Israel’s life. The battle to decide if they would trust God implicitly was in reality a fight for the very soul of Israel. And that may be true for us as well. Israel’s decision to trust someone other than God set in motion a tragic future. We do not know what would have happened if Israel had chosen God over Saul. But we do know that by choosing a king over God, the people ultimately destroyed themselves.

So as the winds of change continue to blow in our lives, in the life of this congregation, and in the world, we need to find someone or something to give us the security we need. But this we know, the witness of scripture cries out to us, “Trust God! Trust God! Trust God!”

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock

The Winds of Change Are Blowing

Sermon text for April 6, 2008:
I Samuel 3:1-20

It is about 1000 B.C. and the winds of change blew ominously over the face of Israel. Change was in the air and the people were afraid. For centuries, Israel was governed by temporary leaders called “Judges”. They announced God’s will and sometimes assumed military leadership to help the Chosen People face the challenge of warring Kings from neighboring nations. The People felt secure with the Judges occasional leadership because they believed that God spoke through the Judges. But over time, word of God grew more and more scarce, and as the word grew scarce, the people’s anxiety grew proportionally. Scripture says it this way, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days and there was no frequent vision.”

Most of us know what that feels like. We have experienced periods of time when we could not hear God. And in those times of spiritual barrenness we have longed for the refreshment of God’s presence. We have the sense that there is something more, a deep and close relationship with God, but we just can’t seem to get there.

The mood of Israel is personified in a woman named Hannah whose personal life is as barren as Israel’s corporate life. Hannah is married to Elkanah, and her life is miserable because she has no children. In Hannah’s day, women gained status through having children, and a woman without a child, was literally not a woman at all. Hannah’s co-wife, who is the mother of many children, taunted her for being barren. For many years Hannah prayed that God would give her a son. But if God’s word was “rare” in Israel, Hannah could not even hear the echo of a whisper coming from God. Yet God finally answered Hannah’s prayer by making her the mother of a little boy, whom she named Samuel. The birth of Samuel marked the beginning of significant change in Hannah’s life, and in the life of the Chosen People. Like a sandstorm, the winds of change were blowing, and no one knew what the landscape would look like when God was finished.

On the day Samuel was born Hannah dedicated his life to serve God. And when he has weaned, she took him to live with the old priest Eli who was the last of Israel’s Judges. Eli cared for the Ark of the Covenant at Shiloh, which is where we meet him today.

Samuel represents Israel’s future, and Eli represents the past, so we know that in the crucible of past meeting future, God is doing a new thing. The winds of change are blowing. Once, Eli exercised strong spiritual leadership, but when we meet him he is old and weak. He is burned out and no longer has the strength to meet the needs of his people. His sons who might be expected to take his place are so corrupt that they are not eligible to minister to God’s people. Eli’s ministry is as barren as Hannah’s womb prior to the conception of Samuel. “The word of the Lord” is as rare in Eli’s life as it is in the life of the nation.

The end of Hannah’s barrenness is a sign of hope for the barren priesthood, and the spirit-starved nation. God breathed life into both when he called the boy Samuel into a special relationship with Eli. God’s breath became the winds of change and Israel would never again be the same.

One night Samuel heard someone calling his name and he ran dutifully to Eli, but it wasn’t Eli who called. It was Eli who recognized that the voice must belong to God. Eli, whose life and ministry were almost on life support, was still able to offer the spiritual message that sent Samuel on a life-long spiritual quest.

As God speaks with Samuel, it becomes clear that he is a messenger of change and he is in grave danger. Samuel’s first message of change affected the life and legacy of the old priest Eli. The winds of change were ominous and threatening to Eli’s family. They believed that they owned the priesthood as birthright. But God told Samuel that when Eli dies the priesthood will be dead as far as his family is concerned. It is an unimaginable loss, the kind of thing that people might kill to maintain. That must have been on Samuel’s mind when Eli all but forced him to share God’s word. Under extreme duress, Samuel told Eli that God had taken the priesthood from Eli’s family and given it to him.

Eli’s response is truly amazing. He did not scream or throw things. He did not threaten Samuel. His response is the kind only possible with people of deep faith. When he heard God’s condemnation, Eli said, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”

The winds of change are blowing in our lives today, and sometimes the changes are frightening or even devastating. You know that the winds of change are blowing in this congregation. The specter of change hangs like an ominous cloud over everything. When I first preached a sermon series like this one of my parishioners gave me a sign that says, “change is inevitable, growth is optional”. My hope for you as I prepare to leave and as you welcome someone new is that each of us can meet the future as Eli did. When faced with monumental change Eli said, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”

The winds of change are blowing. And we can meet the changes with confidence because even if we don’t know what the future holds, we do know the One who holds the future. The future is “the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock