Sermon 1 Samuel 17:32-49 Set People Free from Fear <\/p>\n
By The Rev. Charles Hoffacker<\/p>\n
For eight Sundays this summer,
June xx through August xx,
our first readings are stories
from the life of David,
the outstanding king of ancient Israel.<\/p>\n
Today’s first reading
is perhaps the best known
of the stories about David.
It recalls how the shepherd boy,
not yet a king,
dared to confront the enemy giant,
Goliath of Gath,
and killed him with a single stone
from his slingshot.<\/p>\n
This is an ancient tale of adventure,
but for us it can be
much more than that.
Let us consider
other dimensions of this story.
In the name of God:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Philistine army
and the army of Saul king of Israel
face one another,
ready for battle.<\/p>\n
From the Philistine ranks
there emerges a fierce giant,
Goliath of Gath,
who challenges the army of Israel
to put forth a champion
to engage him in single combat.<\/p>\n
Immediately before the passage we heard,
the biblical narrative goes on at length
describing Goliath,
this supersize warrior
with his supersize helmet and armor and spear,
who roars forth his challenge.
If he loses and is killed,
the Philistines will become slaves to Israel.
But if he succeeds and kills the other champion,
then Israel will become slaves to the Philistines.<\/p>\n
How do the Israelites respond?
Here is what Scripture tells us:
“Saul heard, and all Israel with him,
these words of the Philistine,
and they were dismayed
and very frightened.” 1<\/p>\n
David finally steps forward
to face Goliath
with no more than a sling and a few stones.
He strikes the giant
right in the forehead and fells him.
Then he uses the giant’s own sword to kill him
and for good measure cuts off his head.<\/p>\n
When the forces of King Saul
realize what has happened,
their fear evaporates.
As Scripture tells us,
they “shouted
and gave chase to the Philistines.” 2<\/p>\n
So the shepherd boy David
does more than kill the giant Goliath.
He also kills the Israelites’ fear.<\/p>\n
Allow me to point out
certain features of the build up
leading to the death of Goliath.<\/p>\n
David is a young fellow
who has vanquished wild animals,
but has never served as a soldier.<\/p>\n
He happens to turn up
on the front line of Saul’s army
because his father sent him there
with provisions for his three eldest brothers.
He is to get some word
about how they are faring.<\/p>\n
David tries on King Saul’s armor
before he goes to face Goliath,
but he can’t even walk
encumbered by all that weight,
and so he discards it.<\/p>\n
The shepherd boy resorts to technology
that is simple even in his time:
stones and a sling.<\/p>\n
He approaches the giant
not in order to make himself a hero,
but in the name of the Lord
whom Goliath has defied.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are many Goliaths
abroad in our land.<\/p>\n
A Goliath today may not be
a supersize warrior
with heavy armor
and a bad attitude.<\/p>\n
Today’s Goliaths are diverse.
They are institutions, corporations,
organizations, movements,
popular attitudes, persistent prejudices.
What all of them have in common
is that they endeavor to defy the living God.
They stand on the side of injustice
and roar their insults.
In our time,
they do not blaspheme against God
so much as they offend against divine justice,
they show no mercy,
they trample the poor,
doing deeds that may be legal,
but are manifestly immoral.<\/p>\n
Today’s Goliaths are diverse.
And as the Lord once called forth young David,
so today he endeavors to raise up a David
to confront every contemporary Goliath,
to strike down the giant
and set people free from fear.<\/p>\n
As in days of old,
a new David may come to the battle line
with important experience,
but not a conventional resume.<\/p>\n
A new David may set aside
conventional strategies
in favor of a simple slingshot
that will end Goliath’s life.<\/p>\n
A new David will not be
full of himself but humble,
placing his trust, betting his life,
on the living God.
For the God of life continues to work
through the unlikely,
through the underdog.<\/p>\n
There are many Goliaths
abroad in our land.
The Lord is eager to raise up
a new David
to vanquish each of them.<\/p>\n
Maybe a new David
is in this room today.
Somebody to strike down a modern Goliath
and set people free from fear.<\/p>\n
That new David could be you.
Don’t be so quick to disqualify yourself.
David the shepherd boy was an unlikely choice
in his time.
The older sons enjoyed preference then;
that was the rule.
David came along as Son Number Eight,
wearing all the hand-me-downs,
the last one on the list.<\/p>\n
You may go about your business sometime,
and come upon a modern-day Goliath.
Will you sling a stone at that giant’s forehead?
Will you do something
to set us free from fear?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There’s a hymn in praise of Jesus Christ
that begins
“Hail to the Lord’s Anointed.” 3
The next words
describe him as
“great David’s greater Son.”<\/p>\n
Jesus, born of Mary,
is a descendent of King David.
Jesus is the greater king,
one who lives and reigns forever.<\/p>\n
Where David defeats Goliath of Gath,
Jesus defeats an array of giants
that threaten his people.
They are known by such names
as Sin and Death and Hell,
Despair and Darkness and Evil.<\/p>\n
And as David delivers Israel
from fear
by slaying Goliath,
so Jesus by his triumph
delivers us from fear.<\/p>\n
Yet still
Goliaths remain abroad in the land.
Each one must be defeated.
Jesus hands us his simple sling.
This weapon proves invincible.
It is trust in God,
an imagination inflamed by the Spirit
made manifest in self-sacrificial love.<\/p>\n
There are giants to be slain
more threatening than Goliath of Gath.
As we read in the Letter to the Ephesians,
“our struggle is not against enemies
of blood and flesh,
but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil.” 4<\/p>\n
May each new David take up a sling
in obedience to the Prince of Peace.
Only with the Christ-like killing of new Goliaths
will come a new freedom from fear.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
1. 1 Samuel 17:11 in Robert Alter, The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel<\/em>(W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 103.<\/p>\n 2. 1 Samuel 17:52, Alter translation.<\/p>\n 3. James Montgomery, “Hail to the Lord’s anointed,” Hymn 616 in The Hymnal 1982.<\/em><\/p>\n 4. Ephesians 6:12.<\/p>\n Copyright 2012 Charles Hoffacker. Used by permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sermon 1 Samuel 17:32-49 Set People Free from Fear By The Rev. Charles Hoffacker For eight Sundays this summer, June xx through August xx, our first readings are stories from the life of David, the outstanding king of ancient Israel. Today’s first reading is perhaps the best known of the stories about David. It recalls … Continue reading “1 Samuel 17:32-49 Set People Free from Fear (Hoffacker) – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}