Sunday 23rd June 2024
Readings:
1Samuel 17. 1a, 4-11, 32-51
Mark 4.35-41
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord
Deliverance. It’s an intriguing issue.
This morning, I’d like to think about what we can learn by comparing the two passages we heard just now: the account of David’s slaying of Goliath and the episode from Mark when Jesus calms the stormy waters of the lake.
Before we start with David and Goliath, we need to remember, when reading the Old Testament, that this chronicle of God’s relationship with the Children of Israel is qualified by the New Testament: those writings revealing God’s relationship with humankind, sanctified by the incarnation of his son. Between King David and Jesus, things move on.
The tale of David slaying Goliath is one of those stories that has been sanitized over the years. It will always feature in children’s versions of the Bible. It will be favoured by Sunday School teachers. It is evoked whenever the little man triumphs over the monstrous forces of the state or vested interests; we like it when the underdog gains the ascendancy and to find a Biblical endorsement of our predilections is always nice.
What is often lost in the telling of this story is the brutal context of tribal warfare. The Israelities and the Philistines were fighting for territorial dominance, forging alliances with other neighbouring tribes as necessary. Just surviving as a hill farmer was tough. David – probably still in his teens – was used to defending his father’s flocks from bears and lions; out of necessity, he had learned to be a confident and courageous fighter. When faced with conflict, he could weigh up the odds and know the chances of success; assessing Goliath was no different from the way he took on wild beasts: Goliath was fair game. The verses allocated by the church of England’s lectionary for this reading finish at verse 49 with David, “striking down the Philistine and killing him; there was no sword in David’s hand.” I included the next three verses which have David dragging Goliath’s sword from its sheath and using it to cut off his head. David is perfectly capable of what today we might call ‘gratuitous violence’ as becomes abundantly clear in the next chapter when, to earn Saul’s daughter in marriage, he presents him with the foreskins from one hundred Philistines, whom he and his men have slain for the purpose.
It is hard for a modern reader to believe the father of Jesus was sanctioning the free killing and butchering of the enemies of the Israelites, yet this is what the chroniclers tell us through much of Samuel Books 1 and 2 and Kings. Surely, we ask, asserting that God is on your side, does not mean he necessarily is. Claiming that one’s fight is righteous and for God, just because your army is advancing under an unfurled cross, is a monstrous presumption. And, indeed, history provides us with hundreds of examples of crusaders and other nominally Christian armies (more often than not fighting each other) who have arrogantly assumed God’s protection is there for the asking and then been defeated. Merely invoking the name of Jesus before going into battle does not automatically call down God’s blessing or give divine protection.
However, there is nothing to suggest that David is anything other than sincere in stating that the Lord is protecting him when he takes on Goliath, just as he believes the Lord protects him in the wilderness when he slays the wild beasts. And we can accept that David did indeed deliver the Israelites from the Philistines on that particular day, by averting a pitched battle with much greater loss of life. But the death of Goliath did not erase the threat of further conflict. Violent, tribal conflict continued for a generation. And even if we see David’s minor victory as a milestone in the longer campaign, which saw the children of Israel established, albeit precariously, in their corner of the eastern mediterranean, has enduring deliverance from danger been achieved? The Jews’ history over the last 2,000 years, right up to the present day, suggests not.
I think we need to take something else away from this story. What David’s actions demonstrated that day, in the valley of Elah, is that courage and supreme confidence in the protection offered by the Lord can overcome huge odds. God’s might is not calculated in human terms. Although David taunts Goliath before doing battle with all the customary threats, he also asserts that the Lord does not save by sword and spear. This is the point. This is what we have to lift from the story, holding it high above the spilled guts and gore of the Israelites’ progress: God’s power is counter intuitive; it does not conform to conventional human ideas of what makes for strength. The description of David unencumbered by conventional armour shows us this. It anticipates the image of his famous descendant, saving humankind while stretched on a cross: deliverance achieved without power, and clinches the fact.
We may be tempted to conclude that whenever we overcome the odds and come out on top, God is behind us, pulling the strings. We may also be inclined to believe that, if we think we are engaged in God’s work, we shall be protected from harm.
There is no such simple equation.
The account of Jesus calming the waters of the lake is beautifully simple and remarkably profound. This is another deliverance story, set in a completely different context to the early years of Israel’s nationhood.
The fear of the disciples, when the weather turns ferocious, is real. These are experienced fishermen but they believe they are seriously at risk of drowning. No doubt they were doing whatever sailors do to lessen the danger, including baling out the water, but terror was taking hold. I can imagine them feeling irritation bound up with anger that Jesus, sleeping soundly in the stern, was not lending a hand when pulling together was their only hope. They wake Jesus but not with a prayer for deliverance so much as a complaint, upbraiding him for his careless attitude, for not working with them.
Jesus’ response is telling. First of all, he assuages their fear by quelling the storm then, when they are in the right frame of mind to listen to him, he tells them they need fear nothing if they have faith.
As simple as that.
It is not clear that the disciples have grasped what Jesus means. That’s not surprising. Things have been pretty scarey. Understandably, instead of thinking about faith they dwell on Jesus’ apparent omnipotence. They still associate deliverance with power. Although the disciples are not, as David was, in a battle zone, they are in a hostile natural environment at the mercy of all that the weather can throw at them. And instead of straining every sinew to bring the boat through the storm, this man just holds up his hand and issues a command. Awesome.
This confusion over how Jesus wields authority remained until the very end of his earthly ministry. The image of Jesus as deliverer, by shaking off the shackles of Roman rule, dominated the crowds’ perception just days before his arrest and crucifixion, when he rode into Jerusalem.
But deliverance, Jesus says, comes from faith. And it is not deliverance from physical danger but deliverance from fear. And this, I think, is the heart of the matter.
I think the crucial point about David is not so much his apparent weakness, equipped only with a sling-shot when facing a monster of a man decked out in the most intimidating armour; it is his utter absence of fear. He knows his own ability. He knows he can win this fight. He is utterly sure of himself but he has the humility to recognise that it is confidence in God’s protection which makes him invulnerable. Fear never touches him.
The disciples should have no fear, Jesus tells them, if they believe in him. They are in the boat, crossing to the other side of the lake because this was what he asked them to do. They are about his business. He is with them. Have faith.
But let’s take this one step further because we know that there have been and will be occasions where good Christian people suffer, die or are killed, even when they are clearly doing good work, God’s work beyond doubt. Clearly, obeying God’s call does not make one impervious to danger, either from human agency or natural disaster. (If that were the case, the queue to receive the impregnable armour of baptism would be endless. Faith and the spiritual, emotional and intellectual tussling that ‘having faith’ entails would be swapped for a rubber-stamp of protection.)
The deliverance that Jesus offers is the deliverance of salvation. It is a relationship-thing. To know one is loved by God; to strive to be one with Jesus; to accept that kinship which each of us has been offered, is to experience deliverance irrespective of circumstances. It is to be lifted above fear.
But we are mortal creatures and it is perfectly normal to wish for safety, to seek security and be freed from physical and emotional pain. We want to relish life. We do not want to be haunted by anxieties and be afraid for ourselves and those we love.
And so we find ourselves stretched between the mortal and the eternal, the human and the divine. Only Jesus incorporated that dual nature as a man fully human, fully divine. For us, that complete reconciliation of these two dimensions is unattainable but it is our calling to aspire to it and grappling with the concept of deliverance can help us. For we need to see that true deliverance is not an escape from physical danger so much as the ability to disregard it. We may pray routinely to be ‘delivered from evil’ but we also know that faith in Jesus has already worked this. Faith trumps fear. But if we are left experiencing regret or sadness or pain these human emotions can be borne; the turmoil and turbulence can be stilled because we have already received the ultimate deliverance. We are loved by an eternal God who knows our human nature.
By way of post-script, I wonder if nurturing this fear-quelling faith is going to be increasingly important in the years ahead as global instability threatens to swamp the boat. The winds are picking up and the waters are rising. And it’s hard to not to see the image of desperate refugees taking to small boats to cross the channel as profoundly symbolic. There are, without doubt, some immensely troubling and challenging times ahead. But if, in all our endeavours, we let Jesus take his place, standing in the bow and not asleep in the stern, we know the journey to the other side will be straight.
And we shall have done our bit, through faith not fear, if we strive to deliver from evil all men, women and children of every creed and colour. Amen.