by Rev. Janet Onnie
February 6, 2025
In the Word for All Ages this morning you heard the story of a Taco falling apart and, with the help of friends, one in particular, pulling itself back together. Then in the reading you heard the very abbreviated story of David & Goliath, found in the 17th chapter of the first Book of Samuel in the Hebrew bible. This is a familiar story to anyone who attended Sunday School, corporate motivational workshops, or psychological roundtables on bullying. This morning I’m going to start by explaining how King Saul is like the Taco, and David, the Nacho. Yes, I know it’s a stretch. Here goes:
Think of the Taco as King Saul. Kings have a lot of stuff to hold, so it’s no wonder that they crack from time to time. The King Taco fell apart with some regularity and was soothed and encouraged by the nacho, David. How? David played the harp and wrote and sang some songs. It was through the power of David’s music that he came to be known to King Saul as someone to be trusted. So when David Nacho approached the King Taco for permission to slay a giant, he had a lot of credibility. Permission was given, the stuff that had fallen out when Taco cracked returned to their place,, and Nacho declared victory.
I could – and probably should – sit down right now. But I can’t ignore the fact that today – about 3 weeks into the new U.S. administration – might be a good day to talk about what we can learn about falling apart, encouragement, and bravery.
The first book of Samuel was written around 975 BC, during the Early Iron Age. It’s the ancient prequel to the latest conflagration between what is now Gaza and Israel. When the book of Samuel was written the Philistines and Israelites both wanted to put the Levant under their political hegemony. That was quite a large geographic area which included the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus. The Philistines got the upper hand first, but by the tenth century the Israelites became the primary force in the region. It doesn’t take much imagination to substitute the Philistines and Israelites for the Republicans and Democrats – both struggling for dominance in the United States. And like the Philistines and Israelites, the battle lines are drawn with a deep valley in between the factions.
The Philistine champion in the person of Goliath was big. Four verses in the story were spent describing just how big. He also had a big mouth. Four more verses were dedicated to his boasting and insults. He was a bully. As he taunted the opposition his Philistine followers supported his threats. They lined up behind his big loud taunts and threats and seemed to gain strength from their association with him. His shield bearer was right there with him, holding a protective device so Goliath couldn’t be harmed. He shouted at the Israelites for a long time – the story says he kept it up for 40 days, but it could’ve been as long as four years. Or three weeks. Goliath repeatedly challenged the Israelites to a deal. Their refusal didn’t stop him from continuing to try to make a deal. A big deal. An amazing deal. Certainly the biggest, most incredible, most amazing deal anyone had ever seen. Goliath and the Philistines seemed invincible.
No wonder the Israelites were ‘dismayed and terrified’. The deal challenged them to send one of their own to kill the large, heavily-fortified Goliath. If they failed, they would serve the Philistines. All that noise. All those armaments. All those verbal tweets. All those executive orders. It certainly looked like an uneven fight.
Here’s Lesson #1. One of the reasons the Hebrew scriptures have survived for so long is that they tell timeless truths. In this case, they tell of a fight over resources with a bully leading the way. Back then, as is now, the more resources one controls, the more power one has. And we know that those in power are loathe to give up that power. That, as MLK, Jr. pointed out, “…freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.” The Israelites knew that to avoid being held in servitude to the Philistines they would need to step up wrest the power away from their enemy. But how?
As with many of the stories in the Hebrew scriptures this one continues with lineage. A sort of Ancestry.Com. David’s lineage is important, but not necessary to this story so I’m going to skip over it except to point out that David is the youngest of the 8 brothers. He was not expected to join his brothers in the fight. His job was to tend his father’s flock of sheep and deliver food to his brothers in the Israeli army. But on a food delivery day David was in the position to see the armies draw their battle lines, and hear the threats of Goliath. He also heard the Israelites talking about the rewards the King Saul offered to the person who would kill Goliath: great wealth, marriage to the king’s daughter, and freedom from taxation for the hero’s family. However, the tangible rewards were not uppermost in David’s mind. He was most interested in ridding Israel of that which was defying the armies of Israel. He wanted to take back the power from that ‘uncircumsized Philistine’. Israel had been humiliated by The Other…a people who did not share their beliefs and rituals. David, as an Israelite, wanted revenge.
Again I’m going to pause the story to note that much of human history has been the story of winners and losers. What we’ve seen and experienced – here’s Lesson #2 – is that the humiliation of losing cuts deep. Back in 2020 Tom Friedman wrote an article explaining that our political divide in the U.S. was seeded by a social and cultural shift that favored the college-educated coastal sophisticated urban elites to the detriment of those who didn’t fit into that mold. Money couldn’t buy acceptance to that group. The seed of exclusion was fed and nurtured by those who sought power by recognizing the feeling of being seen as ‘less than’, having been humiliated themselves. And once they gained power, they wanted revenge. This is being played out in real time. As Friedman and, more recently David Brooks, have pointed out, the current political landscape has been a long time in the making. The Philistines now have the upper hand. But the good news is that giants are not always as strong and powerful as they seem. Cue David, the shepherd boy, who had a sling in his pocket.
As the story goes, King Saul heard of David’s offer to slay Goliath. At first the king was incredulous. David was a child and Goliath was a trained fighter. David made his case, citing his battles with wild animals, crediting his apparent victories over them to protection from his deity. He said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul finally caved in and gave his permission for David to try.
Here’s the third lesson. Just because the vast majority of people believe something doesn’t make it true. For David to even make it to the battlefield with Goliath, he had to counter the collective wisdom of the entire army of Israel. These were older, more experienced, battle-hardened men. If you would have taken a poll, 100% would have said that walking onto that battlefield with Goliath was a suicide mission. That’s why you can’t always trust polls, and that’s why you can’t always trust popular opinion. There will always be this pressure to go along with the majority because if the majority of people believe something it must be right. At least that’s what they want you to believe.
Saul gave David more than permission. He tried to outfit him as befitted a soldier … with armor, a helmet and a sword. I want to you try to envision this. Here’s half-naked David, perhaps the stature of a wiry 12-year-old. And he has layer upon layer of cloth and metal placed on his body. I wonder what Saul thought when he saw his champion lurching around under the weight of his ‘protection’. The sight probably didn’t engender a feeling of confidence.
I’ve been in that over-burdened situation and maybe you have too. Quite often what we think will protect us does just the opposite. It weighs us down. We think our IRAs or our skin color or our gender or our social class or our communities of like-minded people or our intellect will protect us. And we get weighted down. We get weighted down with accumulating these protections and we get weighted down with the assumptions that we are protected. We get so weighted down that we can barely move.
But what if we looked at our giants from a different perspective. What everyone else saw as an asset, Goliath’s massive height and his weighty armor, David saw as a liability. David knew all that weight wasn’t going to help him. He cast off all the king’s protection and approached Goliath with what he knew – stones and a slingshot. And David prevailed.
The takeaway from the story of David and Goliath I’d like us to consider is this: We can’t fight the Philistines with their methods of bullying and intimidation and humiliation. We need to use what we know. We need to use what we know.
What do we know? Well, the first thing we know is that our cause is just. Our values state the use of the democratic process within our society at large. The democratic process is currently being undermined by those who seek to influence their hold on power through lies, boasts, and threats. The rule of law is being ignored and/or twisted. It is incumbent on us – and , indeed, on all people who support democratic processes – to promote the democratic processes. This means at the very least we inform ourselves of the policy positions and character of those running for public office. We support those who share our values with our time, our talent, and our treasure. And then we vote.
Still another thing we know is that there are an awful lot of giants these days. There’s the huge giant of the climate catastrophe. There’s the giant of systemic racism. There’s the giant of economic inequality. There’s the giant of incivility. There’s the giant of the corrupt use of power. Some of these giants are new and some of the older ones have just been awakened from their caves. They are all lumbering toward us howling for a confrontation.
What we know is this: we know is that the methods of the Philistines don’t work well for us. When we attempt to use the methods of the Philistines we become shrill and arrogant and, well, ineffective. Because we’re not very good at those methods. When we try to use those methods we come across as inauthentic. Instead our methods are grounded our values; justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, generosity. Our values centered by love.
What we know – and we know in our Unitarian Universalist bones – is that when Love underpins any method of human interaction we are all better off. Love is the deciding stone in our slingshot. When we fling love in our conversations and our letters we are more likely to be heard. When we include love in our financial contributions our resources will help spread our values. When we take to the streets propelled by love we are met by others sharing our values. The giants of our time can only and ultimately be slain by love. It’s time to pick up our slingshots, load in the stones of love, and slay some giants. May our aim be true, now and forever. Amen.