Never the Underdog

1 Samuel 17:1, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49

Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; they were gathered at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim. And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armoured with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron; and his shield-bearer went before him. He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, ‘Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.’ And the Philistine said, ‘Today I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together.’ When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. David rose early in the morning, left someone in charge of the sheep, took the provisions, and went as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the encampment as the army was going forth to the battle line, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage, ran to the ranks, and went and greeted his brothers. As he talked with them, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. David said to Saul, ‘Let no one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.’ Saul said to David, ‘You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.’ But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.’ David said, ‘The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.’ So Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the Lord be with you!’

Saul clothed David with his armour; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armour, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.’ So David removed them. Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, ‘Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.’ But David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.’

When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.

I read a book a few months back, and at one point, the main character recalls a saying he learned from his father: “You don’t call a fish dumb because it can’t climb a tree.” That saying, I think, perfectly encapsulates this story.

We think we all know the David and Goliath story. It’s the ultimate underdog story, right? Smart little shepherd miraculously beats the warrior giant, saves the day. But David was never the underdog. There’s not a moment of hesitation on his part, there’s not any indication that David ever has second thoughts or regrets about offering to fight this giant. After all, not only does David have God on his side, but David also knows how to fight. Maybe he doesn’t know the art of warfare, maybe he hasn’t trained to be warrior since childhood, but he knows how to fight because he knows how to protect. He protects his lambs daily, that is his job. He doesn’t fight for the sake of killing, he doesn’t fight for the sake of empire. He fights in defense—he fights to protect the defenseless.

David is only the underdog if we think in a very narrow way. He’s only an underdog when we assume that small is weak and bigger is better. He’s only the underdog if he tries to fight Goliath using Goliath’s same tactics, strategies, and weapons. David isn’t the underdog in this game, because he’s not even playing the same game.

You know, it’s interesting that the lame duck Israelite king Saul and Goliath are enemies in this story, because they have quite a bit in common. Both are tall, significantly taller, bigger, and more physically imposing than their peers. Both are feared warriors and military leaders. Both are confident to the point of arrogance. And both are doomed, because in the long run, their stature, their battle prowess, their bluster and arrogance—none of this matters.

It really should be no surprise that despite being enemies Saul and Goliath are one and the same. After all, a couple weeks ago we talked about Israel demanding to be quote “like other nations” and convincing Samuel and God to give them a tall, physically powerful, military-minded king. The people of Israel were trying to be something they weren’t. And when we deviate from our true selves, when we convince ourselves that our true nature isn’t good enough, or isn’t right, that’s when we stumble. And that’s we lose ourselves completely.

For both Saul and Goliath, we see very clearly the ways they can’t think outside their narrow view of success, their narrow view of what makes a triumphant empire and peoples. We see very clearly that they can’t see that God works in unexpected ways, and that God works through unexpected people.

When Saul relents and allows David to be the one to fight Goliath, the first thing he does is give David his armor to wear. But David can’t function in this heavy armor. He can’t function in it because he’s not a war hero. He’s not a fighter. On the surface this might look pretty foreboding for David, especially imaging the scene, it almost delves into slapstick—tiny David stumbling around in armor that is way too big and heavy for him. It may seem that David made a huge mistake in offering to be the fighter here. But it’s Saul who’s mistaken. Saul believes that you have to fight fire with fire, that the only way to beat Goliath is with expensive and heavy armor, to counter the Philistines’ expensive and heavy armor.  I imagine Saul’s face, full of anxiety and dread watching David go into battle, seemingly wholly vulnerable and unprotected.

And for Goliath’s part, though it’s a very aggressive and arrogant reaction, Goliath’s reaction to seeing his opponent is not dissimilar from Saul’s. Goliath is so close-minded, he can’t think of any scenario in which David could possibly beat him. He mercilessly mocks David when he sees this small, handsome, young man approach the battlegrounds. Noticing his lack of armor or weapons, he mocks the shepherd’s staff that David comes armed with. In fact, he’s insulted that David comes with no weapons. Goliath was born to fight. Goliath was conditioned to think and fight a certain way. He was conditioned to kill. He can’t think of any other way of being. So when sees this man armed with nothing but a shepherd’s rod and a slingshot, he’s dumbfounded. But just like you wouldn’t call a fish dumb because it can’t climb a tree, it really doesn’t make any sense to call a shepherd dumb because he won’t come to a fight with a spear.

Something some of you may know about me, just because I’ve mentioned it in passing, some of you may not, is that I have a learning disorder, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 25 and unable to get a passing grade in New Testament Greek while I was in divinity school, despite not taking a full course load that semester, and despite paying for extra tutoring. Until 25, I went through life thinking I was dumb, thinking I was lazy, because I couldn’t do certain things in school my peers were doing with no problem. Since I didn’t know that my brain was wired differently, I went through life constantly comparing myself to my peers, wondering what was wrong with me, wondering why I couldn’t get on the honor roll, wondering why tutors, why working hard, just made no difference. Because on the surface, I seemed like your everyday relatively smart, well-behaved kid, but there were just some things I couldn’t figure out. And yes, I may have been an angsty, hormonal teenager, but I can safely and sadly say, I lost a bit of myself during this time in my life. I wanted to be like everyone else when I truly couldn’t be. I wanted to be good at the same things my peers were good at, and while I didn’t know it at the time, it just wasn’t physically, or cognitively possible.

Let me tell you, Church, going through 25 years thinking you’re dumb or lazy, or that something is wrong with you—that really does a number on your self-esteem. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of work to accept that my brain is just wired differently than everyone else’s. It’s taken me a long time and lot of work to realize that I have very specific gifts and a very specific way of being that fits perfectly into whatever God’s plan may be for me in this world. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of work to really love that my brain is different, that it’s unique, and to really lean into it, and to embrace it.

I know I’m not the only one here who has had an experience like this. If we don’t fit into exactly what this society deems as smart, powerful, moral, or good, then we don’t feel like we’re good enough. Or we feel like there’s something inherently wrong with us. We feel like we must be a failure if things don’t come easily to us, and we constantly compare ourselves to those who seem to have it so easy. In this way, we constantly second-guess ourselves, we never feel worthy, we never feel like we have the power or the support to do the good, important works that we are called to do as Christians. I talked last week about how when you have entire classes, races, groups of people who don’t feel like they fit in to what is deemed “good” or “worthy,” you end up having so many thoughtful, important voices left out. And then you’re left with the powerful and the privileged advocating for the powerful and the privileged—and sadly this is the world we’re living in right now.

But we can learn from David, we can find hope in the story of David. Because in this story, David never has any second thoughts, because he’s never comparing himself to Goliath, or to Saul. He embraces his nature as a small but fiercely protective and faithful person. He embraces the skills he’s acquired as a shepherd. He never tries to be anything he’s not. And David is so perfect for this, because just as he announces to Goliath, “that the Lord does not save by sword and spear,” neither does David protect by sword and spear. David protects, and will ultimately rule the Kingdom of Israel as the kind and wise shepherd he is.

This battle isn’t just a battle of empire vs. empire, kingdom vs. kingdom. It’s not just battle to see who gets to make the rules. It’s a battle to see if Israel will indeed become like other nations, like they thought they wanted, and fall prey to militarism and tyranny, to inequity, subjugation, and oppression. It’s a battle for the soul of a people. David doesn’t just save Israel as an empire or a kingdom. David saves an entire people’s identity. David shows that the only way they will survive is by staying true to themselves, doing things a little differently, the way they have always been called to live by God, the way that, until this moment, they had been stubbornly fighting against. The only way to survive is to live to glorify God by being good and fair to all people. David shows that Israel’s people are at their best when they don’t try to be something else—that they’re at their best when they stay true to God’s call for them to be a good, kind, and compassionate people, instead of being empire and war-obsessed.

A common theme throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments is that the work that we are called to do by God, by Jesus is hard and risky work. Because more often than not, the work we are called to do and the way we are called to live, it goes against what this world deems important or good. And as the gap between the powerful and the powerless increases, as it does, every day, the harder we have to work to be heard, and the more imposing and intimidating it will feel to be our strange small selves in a world that does not cater to us, in a world being run by arrogant and power-hungry Goliaths.

This sermon is at risk of going into cheesy afterschool special territory—“be true to yourself and you’ll be okay!” But as usual, I’m not going to sugarcoat anything—if we don’t fit into very specific categories, no matter how authentic we are to our true selves, no matter how true we stay to the path we are called to by God, it’s going to be a hard and uneven journey, because humankind has made this a hard and unequal world.

But if we can have even a modicum of the assuredness that David has, we have a shot to make this earth as it is in heaven. If we can realize that even if we don’t fit into what this world considers to be worthy—or rather, if we can realize that because we don’t fit into what this world considers to be worthy, that we are surely called by God to lead in a way no one has seen before. We are surely called by God to lead, not with a sword or a spear, but with whatever tools of nonviolence, of love, of compassion that God has gifted us, we have a shot. It’s hard. It’s hard to be okay with not fitting in. It’s hard to embrace the parts of ourselves that our contemporary culture has told us is wrong or bad over and over and over. So just don’t forget: you don’t call a fish dumb because it can’t climb a tree. Amen.