Prop 7 B + Open heart / Don't Give Up! + 6.21.15

Beautiful work by Lynn Maudlin
for Diana Glyer's Clay in the Potter's Hands

M. Campbell-Langdell+

All Santos, Oxnard

(1 Sam. 17: [1a, 4-11, 19-23] 32-49; Ps. 9:9-20; 2 Cor. 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41)

I want you do take a minute to think about the bravest things you have ever done. (Pause) Maybe it was something big. Perhaps as big as saving someone’s life or serving your country. Or supporting someone who did so. I saw something so brave yesterday, when I watched the video of many of the family members of those killed in Charleston forgiving their relative’s alleged murderer. That made me tear up, that they could respond so faithfully. It was so big. But when I think about the bravest things I have done, or perhaps the times when I had to be the bravest, they are always things that would not look that brave to someone else, but took a lot of personal strength all the same.

Moments like this one—finally taking and passing my driver’s license test. Let me explain. When I was a teen and a young adult, I had to take my driver’s license test something like five times before I passed it. It was humiliating, because all or most of my classmates aced it on the first or second time. I would just get so nervous and do something stupid. Once I had an automatic fail because I forgot the parking brake. Another time I was flummoxed by a four-way stop wherein no one seemed to be letting me take a turn. And it was even worse, because I was an “A” student. I had never failed at something like I failed at this. I pretty much gave up for a while on getting my license. Decided I was consigned to the cruel fate of always asking my friends for rides, or worse family members. There weren’t too many buses in my neighborhood in Pasadena. What worse fate for a suburban Southern Californian?

Then I went to college and thought that that nightmare might be over because for four years in New York I hardly ever needed a car, and I had some great friends willing to give rides when needed. No problem-o! But then reality set in when I graduated and applied for something called the Episcopal Urban Intern Program and got in. I learned that in addition to living at a church in Inglewood I would be working for a low-income family center in Venice Beach. As a case manager. And I would be running an after school program with a Jesuit Volunteer. And we would need to drive the kids home after the program. In a minivan. 8 or so squirmy kids. And still no license! Yikes! So I worriedly asked my boss-to-be over the phone what I should do? I mean, I would plan to take the test, but what if I didn’t pass. “Well,” she said, “there’s no choice. You have to pass.” Yikes! The lady was crazy, trusting me with 8 young lives in a minivan before I had even passed the driving test!
But I practiced and practiced, and trusted in God. I was so scared. But something had happened by the time I took the test again. In those four years I had matured. I was not so anxious. In fact, I did so well on the test that the examiner told me that I could teach driving if I wanted to! So you don’t need to be nervous riding with me! I wore out my training wheels driving around 6-8 squirmy kids in a minivan all trying to get out of their seatbelts while navigating gang-territory parts of Venice Beach. That moment when I took my last driving exam, I had to put my full confidence in God because the only other option was to give up. And I passed with flying colors, with God’s help!

So you might wonder why I am talking about all of this. It is because today’s scriptures have a lot to say about bravery, about what courage is all about. When the disciples fear the storm, Jesus says something interesting to them. He does not just ask them if they are afraid, he asks why they are cowardly.[1] Well, I get it. I would be cowardly, too. But we learn here that as Christians we will face storms, but that with Jesus at our side, we will be protected.

And the story of David and Goliath tells us a lot about bravery. Although David is young and small, he is able to defeat the gigantic Goliath in the name of our Lord God. From the very first days of Sunday school, we have heard about David and Goliath, and learned that even if we are small or few in number or apparently weak, if God is with us, we will be victorious. But if we read the story in greater detail, we notice a few more graphic details than we might recall from our Sunday school days. But I think that those are not the most important part. The most important part, to me, is what we can learn from David here.

First, one thing is very clear here. Goliath begins the larger section here by threatening the Israelites and asking, if they serve their king, why don’t they send a man to fight him? And then he begins to curse them by their gods, or in this case, our God. And David doesn’t like that one bit. Not so much because he is Saul’s servant, because we know that he has been anointed as Saul’s successor. So he is perhaps the only Israelite who is not a servant of Saul. But he is God’s servant, and he does not like the way Goliath is talking. And he does not like the way that the Israelites seem to be reacting, in fact they almost seem to be giving up in fear of Goliath. So this win for Goliath wouldn’t only be a win for the Philistines, whom I understand almost single-handedly took out late bronze age cultures,[2] but it would also be a win against the living God, Yahweh. Thus David makes it clear that he must confront Goliath, but that it has to be about serving God, not men.

So David makes it clear that the battle is only for God. And I think that is important to our lives, also. Whatever we do, if we do it primarily for God, it will be very hard for us to fail.

Secondly, David teaches us that we have to know ourselves and the gifts that God has given each of us. Even though everyone looks at David and sees a shrimp, someone who doesn’t have a chance against the hulk Goliath, he knows himself and what he has accomplished with God’s help up to this point in his life. In guarding his sheep, he has battled lions and bears. Not because he is just the bomb or so cool, but because God wanted him to protect his sheep. So he knows that God will protect the sheep of Israel when he hears the lion Goliath roaring that he will have victory over Israel. David knows himself and thus is able to defeat Goliath.

Third, we each have to use the tools that work for each of us, not tools that work for others. Armor worked for Saul and for Goliath, but David is small. It doesn’t work for him. He can’t move in it. So he takes off Saul’s armor, showing us that his leadership will be different. And he picks simple tools—five stones from the wadi—such simple tools that Goliath actually laughs. David does not seem prepared. But he is. For himself. Each of us must learn not to compare ourselves with others but to use the tools that God has taught each of us to use well.

Now, you might well tell me—this is not an everyday example. It is not every day that a Goliath threatens our people and our God, and we are not all David. We aren’t called to be David, and the Goliaths we face aren’t people. The truth is that we must apply this story to every day acts of courage, not to big instances that rarely come around. And there is too much death around us anyway. Just as Mary Daly states about courage, “you learn courage by couraging”[3] – practicing the muscle of courage—in order to really become people of courage. It is that simple. Sometimes being vulnerable is being brave. Asking for what you need. Not answering just what your interlocutor wants to hear but the truth of your heart. It’s about living with an open heart. I saw an amazing example of this on Friday at Bethel AME church, the local church connected to the church in Charleston that was attacked. Bethel’s choir’s first hymn amazed me. Because they sang “I will open my heart to each person I see, Jesus Christ is the way.” And I teared up. To respond in such a faithful manner, after an attack. Wow.

So St Paul’s words to the Corinthians are so important today. He says that although we may face difficulties, we have to have open hearts. This is hard. Really hard. Even harder this week, as many of us are reeling from the shooting at the AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. When we are heartbroken and angry that these people were cut down, people who were leaders not only in the African-American community but in some cases known and loved throughout the country. Why do people think it is okay to deal with their frustrations through violence? Just like David, we must change our armor, but take it one step further in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to live with open hearts. We have to reach out to the hurting in our world and we must not give up. Because giving up is what an act like this is. It is an act of desperation. But we, the brave of heart, know that God has given us something different. May we act on that. May we build community in our neighborhoods. May we defeat the evil of racism just as David slew Goliath. Because our Goliath is racism, not racist people. Because love conquers all. May we keep open hearts, to be agile like David and loving like Jesus.

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[1] Rolf Jacobsen, Karoline Lewis and Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave #423” for June 21, 2015,  https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=647.

[2] Roger Nam, “Commentary on 1 Samuel 17:[1a, 4-11, 19-23], 32-49” from www.workingpreacher.org for June 21, 2015. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2474.

[3] As quoted in Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p.7.