Open Wide Your Hearts

Scripture Lessons: 2nd Corinthians 6: 1-13 and 1 Samuel 17: 32-49 Sermon title: Open Wide Your Hearts Preached on June 24, 2018 Our girls joined a swim team this summer, so last week we attended their second swim meet. This was the second swim meet I’d ever been to, so I was going into this without knowing exactly what I was getting into. Initially I thought that these things would be like every other kid’s sport – I thought we’d watch them swim for 45 minutes, then go eat ice cream – but swim meets are different from the other sports they’ve played. At last week’s swim meet, the first race we had a child in was race number three. That was good. We got to the pool, immediately saw some action, but the last race we had a child in was race number 78, so with a swim meet, we’re talking about a four-hour commitment. A lot of waiting. A lot of just passing the time. A lot of parent watching, and you know there are different kinds of parents at a kid’s sporting event. There’s the worried parent, who’s kid is trying to get over to the starting block, but she just keeps applying more and more sun screen. There’s the “still at work” parent, who missed his kid’s race because he got a call from the office. Then there’s the overly chatty parent – who missed her kid’s race because she was talking – but worst of all is the dreaded phenomenon of the parent who is way too in to his kid’s race, yelling, cheering, videotaping. Like a zoologist, I was observing all this, but this being our second meet I was also trusted with a job. I was supposed to record who came in first, second, third, and fourth for all these races, so with all the other parents who had jobs I went to a training in the clubhouse and in the training for this job, the swim-meet official added fuel to the overly-competitive parents’ fire by saying, “This is my favorite age to officiate, because one of those kids we see swim today could be a future Olympian. I’ve seen it happen.” As she said that you could see some parents put their chest out a little bit. I like kid’s sports, and I like a lot of the lessons that kids who are in sports or other competitions learn. After all, life is a struggle, so I think it’s important that kids learn to work hard and try their best. But thinking back to those parents hoping their child is a future Olympian, I worry about those parents who put too much hope in their kid’s athletic ability, because sooner or later we all line up on the block next to a Michael Phelps – some guy with four-foot arms and flippers for feet, and when he leaves us behind in his wake, what will we do? You know, I bet Goliath’s daddy would have loved kid’s sports. You saw him. You’ve heard about him. The measurements listed in Scripture are ancient. 1st Samuel tells us that Goliath of Gath’s height was “six cubits and a span.” That the weight of his coat of mail was 5,000 shekels of bronze. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. We don’t have the conversions down exactly – but, know this: he was far bigger than everyone else at the time. Depending on whose conversion chart you use, and which scroll you base your conversion on, Goliath was either 6, 9, or 12 feet tall, carrying around a spear whose tip weighed at least 15 pounds. That’s amazing. Imagine that. Imagine what that giant would do to a soldier with a spear tip that weighed 15 pounds. But really, he didn’t really have to do anything with it. It was scary enough just seeing the man carry that thing around. Every day for 40 days Goliath stood before King Saul’s army and taunted them saying: “Today I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together,” but no one was ready to step up. No one wanted to face him. They just looked at him and his spear. Then looked at the spears they were carrying around and sheepishly walked back to their tents, questioning their manhood. His spear tip weighed 15 pounds. That must have been sending everyone to the blacksmith for a bigger spear tip – because that’s how we think. We have to win, and if winning means investing in some better equipment so be it. You might have read what Darrell Huckaby wrote in the paper last Thursday. “The changing cost of baseball” was the title. He reported that the new median price for a kid’s baseball bat is $250. That’s really something, isn’t it? But that’s human. Maybe you remember the good old days when you could just use your big brothers hand-me-down bat. I remember that my Dad had saved his wooden bats that he used when he was a kid. He even had this crooked one that was special for hitting curve balls – but I wanted the kind of bat that everyone else had, so he took me to a sporting goods store. They had a whole selection of bats, and I picked out one of the flashiest ones they had – bright colors, cool logo. I could hardly swing it, but that’s beside the point. If the other team has their own batting helmets and bat bags, then we want them too. Give us swim caps and racing goggles. If their football team practices all summer, then we had better do the same. Uniforms, gloves, bats, shoes. Weight lifting, private coaching, traveling from one state to another. Drink Gatorade, eat a Power bar, spit sunflower seeds. In sports it’s all bigger, better, faster, stronger, so we were all standing around the pool – and one mom kept yelling to her daughter: “dig, dig, dig!” And I want our kids to dig too. I want them to dig deep and do their best. But when they dig and dig and hit rock bottom – I want them to know who can get them out. The12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous begins: First – We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable. Second – We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Those are two powerful lessons. Two steps that human competition in sports, school, music, or business would never teach us to take. To come in touch, not with our strength, but our powerlessness. To depend, not on ourselves, but on a power greater than ourselves – if we can’t do that, then what will we do when we face the great challenges of life? There are giants out in our world that we can’t out swim, no matter how hard we dig. Daemons, that we can’t out run no matter how hard we train. Challenges that we can’t push over, no matter how much we work out. There are giants out in our world that we can’t beat on our own, and that’s where the lessons we learn in sports and every other human competition come up short and that’s exactly where the lessons we learn in this place have the power to save. I knew a man once who faced a giant. A lawsuit. It didn’t matter how nice he was or how much he apologized, they wouldn’t drop it. It was the first time in his life that he couldn’t prevail, no matter how hard he worked, because they wanted blood. Night after night and day after day, it was as though the giant was standing before him saying, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field,” so feeling as though he were all alone, this man looked within himself, saw that strength he had in his mortal body was insufficient, and knew he was defeated, because hope for him stopped at the summation of his own power. But David - for David knew that he was not alone, and so he looked not within himself, not at his feeble frame, but to the mighty power of God who had saved him before and would save him again. He said to King Saul: “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,” and then he said to the giant: “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand; 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.” David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; proving to all us mortals, that there will always be someone bigger. There will always be someone faster. The paper tigers will roar, and the giants will rise up for in this life there will always be challenges too big and enemies too strong – cancer, depression, addiction, hatred, ignorance, middle school, just to name a few – all these times where it is easy to feel so all alone and oh so small before forces that could crush us. But as the giants taunt us, we are not alone – don’t forget that. Remember, that at the limit of our human strength is the mighty power of God. From 2nd Corinthians we read, that “through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger” these Christians endured, not by digging or fighting through. These hardships could not be powered through or out run, but they endured “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; [they were] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything,” because like David they trusted in something. Like every man and woman who defeated their own personal Goliath – they turned, not inward, but upward. They stopped fighting, to pray. They remembered, that, to use the words of columnist Leonard Pitts, [God’s truth] will blast through [human power] like a comet through a sandcastle,” and giants can taunt, intimidate, pressure, and boast in their own power – but they are nothing before the mighty power of God who makes the sea waters rise at his command and listens to the cries of his children in trouble, regardless of whether they are documented or undocumented. The poet John Milton said it like this: When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide… Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: [But] They also serve who only stand and wait. Open wide your hearts – and remember that “when you pass through the deep waters, you are not alone. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned.” For hope begins when we recognize the power greater than ourselves. Amen.