A Flip-flop Too Big

A sermon by Rev Andrew Colman on 1 Samuel 17:1-11, 19-23, 32-49 and Mark 4:35-41

Behind me, tonight, we have two icons.

The first is the Burning Bush that we made at 4 p.m. as one of our crafts. We took off our shoes, ascended the steps to the chancel, where the canvas was, and added leaves and flames with both brushes and our hands. It was a special service.
The other is a piece by Anas, a member of our community who has had a real impact on us.
One is made on dollar store canvas, in about 20 minutes, and the other of copper, probably over the course of weeks, if not months.
They are both beautiful. They both come from deep within the life of this community and they both bring Glory to God.
    
Since we have always been a 7 p.m. service, it can be hard for parents to get here because church at 7 p.m. and bedtime don't go together very well.
I've heard a couple of stories about doing something for young people, but it was a new and wonderful "problem" to have, and in the end, what was tried didn't quite fit.

But having a family-friendly service at 4 pm is indeed  p.m.a really good fit for this community.

For those of you who have not been to one of these services yet, I encourage you to come sometime when it starts up again in September.
For those of you who have not yet attended, it is rambunctious; which is the last word you would use to describe the liturgy at 7 pm.

And yet, I would hope that anyone here would come at 4 pm and still feel like it was very much a saint ben's service.

Many of the songs are the same, written by Alana Levandoski, Gord Johnson, Trish and Mike Koop; it is the same Holy Holy week after week. The Eucharistic prayer is the same. The sermon, which usually retells a bible story from the Desmond Tutu picture Bible, and is quiet. I go around and show everyone, including the adults, the illustrations in the book. And everyone is quiet for that moment while everyone else takes that moment to look at the story.

In our last service before the summer break, we told the story we heard tonight of David and Goliath. The idea that night is basically the same as for this evening.
David heard Goliath's taunting and knew he could take him because he had chased down lions and bears who had stolen lambs from his flock.



David said it to King Saul like this, "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.”

He continued, " 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." 

This seemed to convince Saul, so he gave him his blessing and clothed him in his own armour. David was given the king's armour to fight the Giant Goliath! Except earlier in the book of 1 Samuel (1:9), we heard King Saul was at least a full head taller than any other Israelite!

It fit him so poorly that he couldn’t even move while wearing it.

So I asked the kids, if a lion had just grabbed one of your sheep that you were looking after, would you wear your parents' shoes to chase down the lion and get it back?
One of the parents put his flip-flop on his daughter's foot, and we all laughed. It could not have been more perfect.

David knew his purpose. And it was his purpose, his calling that moved him.

Previous to that moment, it was to protect his flock. It would have been a reflex ,that if something were to get in the way of his purpose,
he would make the change and adapt to be better able to protect the ones of whom he was given care.

He would not choose a particular valley /because the sun hit it at just the right time for him to take a nap/ if he knew there was a lion's den in the area. Nor would he buy the pair of sandals that looked particularly nice if they would not serve him in a chase.

While walking through the fields, he'd know where the crevices were in which predators would hide, so he'd orient himself to keep an eye on them. Or if his shoes or sandals were worn out to the point where he could not chase down that bear or lion, he'd replace them.
This story is extraordinarily practical. It is a story of a person, an extremely complicated person, who, at this moment in his life, moved by reflex to the Glory of God.
—-
It wasn't just that he dropped the armour that was too big for him. He simply didn't even consider fighting a fight he could not win.

The text spent verse after verse describing how formidable a warrior Goliath was. He had been fighting for longer than David had been alive, over 9ft tall; it described the size and weight of his helmet, chain mail, and greaves, a kind of metal shin pad... and all of his massive weaponry.  All of them together hundreds of pounds!
        I mean, even if Saul's armour would have fit David, they still would have been nothing compared to what Goliath had
 To fight Golaith sword in hand would have been David’s downfall.

To fight the kind of fight that everyone expected would have ended in defeat.
        To play the game by the rules of the world ends in death.

    It was a humble little river stone and a shepherd's sling, like a piece of rope with a little net at its centre, together probably weighing less than a pound, that took down this war machine.
        It was not about the latest, biggest, and trendiest solution
        However, about the way forward, that was true for David himself and his work of protecting God's flock.

----

That brings me back to our icons for tonight.
The Burning Bush was painted at 4pm in 20 minutes by some of you here and the Labrynth was made by Anas presumably over weeks if not months.
 One is made of copper, and the other is made of dollar store canvas and paint.
    They are both beautiful.
    And again, they both come from deep within the life of this community.
They sit up there as a symbol of the what, why, and how David overcame Goliath.
The what is that when we honour who God created us to be, we give God Glory.
            Not by being something or someone else.

Had the kids tried to make a piece of art over weeks or months with a sheet of copper, my bet is that it would not have come out as beautiful as that burning bush.

And had Anas tried to create the vision he had in his mind for this labrynth out of acrylic and canvas in 20 minutes, my bet is that it would not have been as beautiful as this one.

Both of these pieces of art, like so many others on this table and elsewhere in this place, come from people who were not worried about the king's armour,
but were concerned only with what would bring Glory to God.

It is not unlike our gathering at 4 p.m. It takes the shape that comes from within the life of the community. It looks different than so many other children and youth ministries, of course, but that is what makes it beautiful. It is the right size of shoe for the task.


So, maybe the story of David and Goliath is not just about the little guy taking down the big guy.
Maybe it's a story in which God shows that each and every one of us is enough as we are with the capacities we have.

We don't need the king's armour; we don't need to fight the way the world expects.
          We can be who we are and not be ashamed.
Not try to pretend to be more or less than who we are.  Does that make us vulnerable? Absolutely. But it also what is real.
          That, in the end, is what brings God Glory.
            
As we move forward as a congregation, as we move forward in our own lives, as we move forward supporting one another, may we feel the freedom that God has given us to be who we are, in all of our beauty and all of our brokenness.
May we not see David is the model of how to do better at life or as the example of how the little guy can bring it all down if you just try hard enough.

But as story about working with the things that work for us, being concerned with only what brings Glory to God.

A story of acknowedging and living into who we are as God sees us. Enough and Beloved.