Imagine That (sermon, June 21, 2009)

1 Samuel 17 (selections)
Mark 4:35-41

It’s a classic story. The underdog: weak, untrained, ill-equipped, destined for defeat. The opponent: massive, taunting, arrogant, the obvious victor. Some of the best stories are those in which the underdog, against all the odds, defeats the giant.

The movie Hoosiers is the true story of a tiny Indiana high school basketball team that made it to the state championship. In perhaps the most famous scene -- I’m sure most of you remember it well -- the players enter the arena where they will play the championship game and are instantly dismayed at the size of it. They are used to playing in front of maybe a couple hundred people -- this stadium seats thousands. And it all looks larger than life to them, including the court, which can’t possibly have the same dimensions as the ones back home. Their coach knows just what to do: he gets a tape measure and has the players measure the distance from the foul line to the basket and from the basket to the floor. Turns out the court that looks so huge has the exact same dimensions as all the standard courts they’ve practiced on and played on and won on countless times before.

Another great underdog story is the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team -- told on the big screen in a movie called Miracle. This was the team that beat the powerful Russians in one of the all-time greatest upsets. In fact, the announcer actually cried out a minute or so from the end of the game the now famous line: “Do you believe in miracles?!” Because that feat was nothing short of miraculous.

The earliest recorded story about a victorious underdog might just be the story of David and Goliath. It has all the makings of good cinema: there is a battle in which the two sides are entrenched. There is an enormous giant -- some estimate the Goliath was at least nine feet tall; imagine one and a half Arnold Swarzeneggers! And as if it wasn’t bad enough for the Israelites to have to see the terrifying giant standing in front of the Philistine army across the valley, they also had to hear him. Day after day he taunted them. Day after day he called out in a menacing voice that easily carried over the distance between them: “Come on, you wimps! Send somebody over here to fight me!” Then he added insult to injury: “Of course, it doesn’t matter who you send, I’ll make mincemeat of them! And then all of you will become our slaves!”

Well, the Israelites had been there, done that as far as slavery was concerned. That was the whole reason they ended up in the Promised Land in the first place -- to escape a life of slavery in Egypt. And it was starting to look like a life of slavery was inevitable, because they knew -- they knew -- there was no Israelite who would match up against Goliath. There wasn’t even anyone willing to try.

So the Israelites waited in the valley, doing nothing, trying not to antagonize their enemy. Maybe they thought if they held very, very still, if they barely breathed, maybe, just maybe, Goliath and his army would give up and slink away. The Israelites could only imagine two options before them: send someone to battle Goliath, which meant they would certainly end up enslaved to the Philistines; or do nothing and hope the Philistine army and their awful giant would get bored and leave them alone. Needless to say, the Israelites’ morale was very low. They were paralyzed by fear.

Enter David., Jesse’s youngest son, the youngest of eight; David’s usual job is tending the family’s sheep. But Jesse wants an update from his sons on the battlefield, so he sends David to take some provisions and check on them.

David must have been thrilled at this assignment. Take a day off from the monotony of watching sheep to go to the front lines of an army battle: awesome! Imagine his disappointment when he arrived to find not only King Saul (who was supposed to be nearly a giant himself, standing head and shoulders above everyone else) but also David’s brothers and all the rest of the Israelite army, cowering before the Philistines and their brute Goliath.

In the movie Hoosiers, when the Hickory High School basketball team is waiting nervously in the locker room before the regional finals, their coach gives them a motivational speech. “Forget about the crowds,” he says, “Forget about the size of the school, their fancy uniforms, and remember what got you here. Focus on the fundamentals, and most important, don’t get caught up in thinking about winning or losing this game.”

Well, it appears to be too late for the Israelites. For too many days now, they’ve listened to Goliath taunt them, insulting their army, bragging about the power of his gods; they’ve already gotten caught up in thoughts about winning and losing and they are sure that losing is their only option. But David arrives fresh from tending sheep, from spending days in the pasture contemplating the wonder of God’s creation, keeping an eye out for lions and bears and trusting God to steady his arm and focus his aim with the slingshot when they come. David isn’t thinking about winners and losers. He still remembers what got the Israelites where they are now. He’s focused on the fundamentals: they are the people of the living God, and these soldiers are the army of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of Moses; the God who rained down plagues on Pharaoh and parted the sea so that the Israelites walked on dry land while Pharaoh’s army drowned behind them.

It’s tempting to say that David was really just naive. He was the baby, with no experience but herding sheep, and nothing but peach fuzz on those ruddy, handsome cheeks. It’s tempting until we look closely enough to realize that David was the only one who could imagine an ending other than losing to Goliath because David was the only one who still remembered that with God on their side, the Israelites could never truly suffer defeat.

Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful book Leap Over a Wall, says that what David brought that day was a God-dominated imagination. All of the Israelites facing Goliath on the battlefield have a choice, Peterson says, and that choice is between a God-dominated imagination and a Goliath-dominated imagination. Most of the Israelite army had already made their choice; slowly but surely Goliath and the fear he invoked in them became the center of their universe. In their minds, Goliath was the most important thing in their lives; they could do nothing but watch and listen to every move made and every word he uttered. (1)

The same people who treated Goliath as the most important thing treated David as the least important, as entirely insignificant. David arrived to bring provisions to the men on the battlefield and offer a friendly word from home, but, as Peterson puts it, “their imaginations were so ruined by Goliath-watching that they were incapable of seeing and accepting a simple act of friendship.” (2)

This is what happens when we allow the fear of evil to control us and our imaginations. First it takes over our thoughts and determines our reactions, and then it makes us unable to see what is truly kind and beautiful and life-giving.

David arrives on the scene with fresh eyes and an imagination dominated by his faith in God. David knows without a doubt that God is so much stronger and more powerful than the giant that it is simply inevitable that Goliath is going down.

The soldiers are shocked, of course, when David volunteers to do battle with the giant. King Saul is so worried for the boy that he at first insists David wear his armor -- which would have been comically oversized and heavy for David. Again, David’s awareness of God helps him to see clearly that to succeed against the giant he needs what every underdog needs: to be himself, to use the gifts God has given him, to remember what got him there and to do what he knows how to do. In the end, just one rock and his well-used slingshot are all it takes for David to release the Israelites from their Goliath-dominated mindset.

This story is actually a second introduction to David. It is written as though this is the first time David appears. But it is a crucial story because of all that is to come. At this point, David has the faith of a child. We all know it is easier to have a God-dominated imagination when you haven’t had too many encounters with true evil, when you haven’t learned how scary and dangerous the world can be. When David arrives on that battlefield, he has the perfect combination of inexperience and child-like faith to challenge Goliath. But as David gets older he is going to face challenges that are at least as big as this giant. Saul is going to try to kill him time and time again when it becomes clear that David is next in line for the throne. David will have to live like a fugitive in order to stay alive. Later, when he is a powerful king, he will commit adultery and facilitate the murder of one of his soldiers. And near the end of his life, David will face a coup from his own son, who will eventually be killed. This story of David defeating Goliath needs to be here, at the beginning of David’s story, so that when those giants challenge him, David might have a chance of facing them, not with paralyzing fear and despair, but with the God-dominated imagination that allows him to act in trust and faith that God is with him in all things.

That’s not just true for David. If we can tear ourselves away from the temptation to let evil dominate our imaginations, we too can face whatever awful giant is taunting us, threatening our existence, our freedom.

What would it look like for us to have a God-dominated imagination? Well, it means being able to think creatively even when it looks like there are no good options. It means trusting that God is with us and giving us what we need even when what we’re given is just a handful of stones. It means trusting that whether the giant lives or dies, our past, present, and future is one ruled by none other than the Lord God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the one who can control even the winds and the waves, and the one who loves us fiercely and tenderly.

God chooses us just like God chose David. God is with us just like God was with David. God guides our hands as we pick out our stones. God gives us what we need so that we don’t have to try and wear someone else’s armor into battle. God longs to be the center of our imagination, to help us find a way when we are sure there is no way out. Just imagine what we can do, what giants we can face when we know for certain that God has already won for us the most important battle of our lives. When our imagination is fixed on that, we can truly face anything. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. Peterson, Eugene, Leap Over a Wall. HarperCollins, 1997, p. 40.
2. Ibid., p. 39