Last month, I celebrated the anniversary of my ordination. I was ordained by our Bishop, Bishop Peggy Johnson and by Bishop Gabriel Yemba, bishop of the East Congo Episcopal Area. Bishop Yemba is a giant in the faith, who has lost both his wife and daughter to malaria, has been captured and imprisoned by rebel forces condemning him to death for his faith and his ethnicity, and survived his own planned execution. He tells the harrowing story of prayer after prayer that so complicated the plans of the rebels that he lived to witness to God day after day, now as a Bishop in the United Methodist Church. He stands with a quiet wisdom of those who have experienced more than they can articulate and stronger because the presence of God brings life in the midst of death. When we encounter the giants not of faith, but of evil and injustice invade our world, to whom do we look?
This was the question of the Israelites as Goliath loomed large taunting them. It was not an equal sized hero who took up the challenge. It was small David who kept his nose to the grindstone and did the work to which he had been called. He had been recently anointed as king, but do not forget, there is yet King Saul. David had played the harp for King Saul, so that the evil spirits would depart from him. David had returned to the work of caring for the sheep of his father, when he is called to his next assignment. He is called to take his brothers their meal. As he escorts the meal to his big, strapping brothers, you know the kind who are afraid of nothing? David hears fear. He hears the fear of the soldiers, the men he has looked up to, the men he will ultimately command. He hears their fear, and he does not know why Goliath is unchallenged. Why would the one who speaks ill of God, the God of Israel be allowed to spout such nonsense against God? Why do the others stand by and allow it to occur?
Fear is what we also find in our gospel lesson today. During the storm, the disciples lived out of fear and trembling –what would happen to them? The wind and waves surrounding the boat and life hanging in the balance. They cry out feeling abandoned. Jesus silences the storm with “Peace!”
After the storm, the disciples found themselves stand in an awe-filled fear. They were becoming convinced that Jesus was indeed God’s own son. An awe-filled fear that God’s own son, Jesus the Christ was asking them to change, from the familiar to the unknown. Change from fishers to disciples, from independent figure-ers to followers of the way. The change they are facing is real. Change is hard, and this change is inevitable. The one who is asking them to change has mastery over the wind and see and is, indeed, the Holy One of God. That change, of course, will also and ultimately be transformative, but that is still down the road.
How often are we like the disciples? How are often are we like the Israelites? We are people who find ourselves crippled by fear. Convinced that we cannot change, we cannot step out, we cannot lean on the promises of God because of fear that wraps itself around us. Fear of concrete horrors that we hope never to encounter. Fear of that which we blow out of proportion. Fear of losing control in all of the ways we have come to value. Fear of fully becoming disciples in a world that has no value for radical faith of disciples of Jesus Christ.
When we allow fear to guide our lives instead of faith, we too find ourselves in the place of screaming out for a Jesus who seems to have left us perishing. When we decide that some people are more deserving than others. When we decide that our way of thinking is the only way of thinking that can have room. When we live our way instead of God’s way, we have gone astray.
When our brothers and sisters in Charleston are murdered at a time of Bible Study and prayer, it is not just nine who are harmed, it all of God’s people who are harmed. For we have forgotten the sacred image of God, the Imageo Dei that is in each of us that is harmed. When we wait for someone else to stand up, someone else to say that joke is not funny, someone else to remind others that all people are sacred, we have lost something of who God has called us to be. We allow a giant called racism to loom large and taunt our very God, while we stand by and hope someone else fights the fight.
David did not wait for his brothers to slay Goliath. David did not wait the other soliders to slay the giant among them. David stood on the faith in God he had experienced when God was with him when the bear attacked the sheep. David strongly found faith from God was with him when the lion attacked the sheep. David did not wait for someone else to slay the giant. He stood on the faith of God and did it himself. Now he did not do it in the conventional way. He did not wear the armor of the king. He used the imagination and creativity that God had given him. He used the experiences of his life. He used all of the gifts that God had given him and he knelt at the river to find the five smooth stones. He knelt at the river spoke to the God who had always been with him. And he rose to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin!
It is on the strength of David and those who have gone before us, that we stand upon their shoulders, lean upon their faith, and slay our giants. It is leaning on the faith of others, I can imagine that saw nine people in Bible study to welcome an unfamiliar face on Wednesday evening at Mother Emmanuel AME. I can imagine they had welcomes unfamiliar faces before and would do it again.
This shooter, as others before, came from a good Lutheran church, raised by good church folks. Good church folks who may never have spoken out. As we lean on the faith of those who come before, we speak out as they did. We speak out against violence and racism. Friends, this is not political correctness, these are kingdom values. We speak out against evil and injustice. We speak out against oppression and privilege. In the baptism and membership litany, we ask our candidates will they turn away from the powers of sin and death? And they answer: We renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin!
We ask them: Will you let the Spirit use you as prophets to the powers that be? And they answer: We accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves! We ask them: Will you proclaim the good news and live as disciples of Jesus Christ, his body on earth? And they answer: We confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races!
There are so many ways in which we could be fulfilling those covenant promises everyday. There are so many ways that you and I could be resisting evil, injustice, and oppression. There are so many ways in which we could be renouncing the spiritual forces of wickedness, rejecting the evil powers of this world, and repenting of our sin! And most often, we are sitting by, hoping someone else will get to it first.
Perhaps, you have personal giants. Perhaps you are acquainted with fear and anxiety. Perhaps you know the physical pain of chronic sciatic or arthritis. Perhaps you know the suffering of mental, emotional, and spiritual abandonment. Indeed, God calls us to slay our personal giants with the faith and the creativity that God has given us. May God quip and empower you. But we must not stop there. David did not slay Goliath merely because he was afflicted – it was all of God’s people who were afflicted. Jesus did not calm the winds and waves merely because of the fears of the disciples – it was their moment to know Jesus more. This giant called racism has lived among us for too long, dividing instead of connecting us as God’s people. We must confront this giant head on. Now, it feels as lopsided as David fighting Goliath. But we might kneel to pray and gather our stones. Gather stones to confront racist jokes. Gather stones to confront the unfair ways some are treated in stores. Gather stones to stand together when this giant proclaims proudly the lies of division and hatred. This is not the way of GOD!
I can imagine this terrifies us – it certainly does me. It calls out confrontation, where I prefer harmony. It calls out bad behavior, where I might rather accommodation. But no longer can this giant of racism claim to speak for our God! We must stop allowing the taunting and killing to be tacitly okay. We must summon the courage from those who have shown us the way in faith – David, our fathers, our father in the faith, Charleston nine, and many others – to slay the giants who call us away from God. We must stand together as though who speak for the God of us all who calls use the gifts God has given us as we confess Jesus Christ as our Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as our Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races! This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Old Testament Lesson: 1 Samuel 17: 1a, 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 armed 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 the sheep with a keeper, 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 armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, 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 toward 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.
Gospel Lesson: Mark 4:35-41
Jesus Stills a Storm
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”