I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think if I’m honest, I have some Goliath-sympathising tendencies. Oh yes, I like it when David, against all odds, comes out the victor; but there’s something solid and secure about Goliath (at the beginning of the story at least), which draws me to his side. He’s the strong man, the giant warrior, the one on whom his people depended. He knew what he was on about and he was the best. I too, like success – I like winning arguments – I like doing things well – I like clarity and security – I think I’m often right too - don’t we all? In some ways, Goliath was a great guy.
Perhaps my sympathies can be traced back to what now seems a lifetime ago – about thirty years ago, when I was a youth worker and music teacher, when I led a children’s choir on the North Shore in Auckland. I still remember the delight of those children as they sang the “Goliath Jazz”. Perhaps not as well known as its contemporary “Jonah-Man Jazz” but every bit as much fun, the story is told with much energy and delight. Some of Goliath’s phrases still ring in my ear:
“I’m broader than a barrel and I’m taller than a tree,
twice around the gasworks is once round me.
There’s no-one in your army who can take me on.
I’m Goliath I’m the greatest; I’m the champion!”
As he is approached by David, Goliath sings confidently
“I hear the squeaking of a little flea.
Can that young weakling be addressing me?
I’ll pulvervise him into a pulp.
And then I’ll swallow up the lot in a single gulp.”
Goliath – he’s the greatest, he’s the champion - he’s the kind of man you’d want to be on your side – because things always seemed to go his way. Goliaths rule – don’t they?
That is, until that kid – that little child – that David boy broke all the rules of warfare: discarding the king’s armour, turning to his advantage the disdain of his opponent – catapulting a stone with deadly accuracy – and changing dramatically the history of his people. “That’s how it ended” the Goliath Jazz concludes – “and you all must know as in the famous tale of David and Goliath, the old old tale of David and Goliath, it proves it’s not the biggest one who always steals the show.”
For here, the champion has let us down – big was not better, might was not more powerful, brute force did not win; the innocent, the weak, the little one has saved the day. Of course, if we delve deeper into the Biblical Story, we find it is much more complex than this superficial Goliath Jazz / Sunday School story. There are many more layers to the story. Any account which uses theology to justify death and destruction of enemies is always to be approached with much suspicion. Other layers might expose an unrecognisable story – told from the perspective of the much-maligned Philistines. The Goliath Jazz /Sunday School tale with its emphasis on an innocent God-chosen shepherd boy being the saviour of his people belies the fuller biblical narrative where David demonstrates his ability to fulfil equally a potential for great success and dreadful failure. We know that clearly delineated black and white/ good and evil interpretations are dangerous.
Holding these warnings in our awareness so that we do not fall into the trap of just idealising the young and the weak, I invite you to place your story – our story – alongside this Goliath and David one. For isn’t there a truth lying at the heart of this story – a truth that suggests our default position is to put our trust in the champions – in the institutions – in the power and traditions of our society; and yet, so often, those Goliaths let us down. We are drawn to the Goliaths of our world – with their weapons of war and their protective armour – we trust them to win our battles for us. One reason for coming to church each Sunday is to be reminded that this dominant story – this dominant voice from our culture – is unlikely to bring us through the winters of our lives into the more hopeful promised springtime. For one of the constant threads – one might even say a golden thread – which can be traced through the Hebrew prophets, through the Gospels, through the belief-systems of many of the world religions and into the everyday lives of faith communities throughout the ages – is that the path of perceived weakness is the stronger way.
Whether our guides be Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela or Jesus, we recognise the transforming power of non-violence, the incredible potential available through compassionate love and the amazing strength of forgiveness. Within our own tradition, we acknowledge the way in which hopeful life emerges out of despairing death; we celebrate the way in which Godness is en-fleshed in a baby; we follow the teachings of the one who said ‘unless you become like a little child ... unless you are born anew, you will not – you cannot – enter God’s kin-dom.’
Today as we baptised Grace, I imagine many different thoughts went through your mind. Many of us older ones find hope for the future of the church in the children of our congregation. We are encouraged by the thirty or so children, who sang, danced and listened to stories by candlelight here on Friday night. We delight in seeing our children graduate from babyhood to Sunday School and Youth Group. We watch the front rows of the choir, spilling over with cherubic children who start out, as Grace did, not really knowing what they were doing, but enjoying the participation – growing, as Grace and so many others have, into valuable, contributing members of the choir we treasure and which inspires us in our worship. In a time when the church is beset with many challenges, we feel hopeful as we see these children becoming part of our tradition, our faith, our church. While I share such hope and comfort; yet, I wonder whether our belief that the children are our future might, without our realising it, reflect a Goliath-like approach. Are we just hoping that our children will maintain and carry into the future that which we have seen as most dependable and helpful for the past? Or are we truly people of faith, open to becoming like the children – like the vulnerable and the weak ones, presently in our midst – learning from them, valuing their understandings of faith and ways of being. Could the children be pointing us to a different way – a way that might cause some discomfort for we who prefer to conserve and maintain the ways of the past?
Deep in our hearts, some of us will recognise that sometimes our approach to children, young people and newcomers is a Goliath approach – we hear the “squeaking of a little flea” and we ask disdainfully “could that young weakling be addressing me?’
We forget that young David-like weaklings can shape new communities.
The Goliath-like approach of the church is seen in the media; and sometimes, it can even can be heard on our lips... (I speak in generalisations about some actual recent incidents.)
It rears its ugly head in those who explain kindly to questioning young people that ‘when they get older, they will understand better’
It comes disguised as “true theology” when a seeker is told she can’t be Christian because she doesn’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus ... or because he isn’t baptised ...
It emerges when church regulations make a mockery of love that is genuine
It sneaks into our way of being, so that a newcomer decides he can’t come back because our church reminds him of too many past negative experiences in other churches
On this Baptism Sunday – on this day of Matariki rising – on this life-sustaining mid-winter day, how wonderful it would be, if each and every one of us, made a commitment to take one small step towards listening to the surprising, the David-like non-dominant voices in this community – not the minister, not the elders, not the choir, not the council, not those who have been members for a long time; but the children, the seekers, the immigrants, the strangers in our midst – who may just have what is necessary for the next step on our journey together out of the cold winter darkness towards the light of spring and new growth.
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