Greatest Power lies in the
Powerlessness
Scripture
Reading: 1 Samuel 17: 1-51.
Introduction:
The book of Samuel was divided into two portions because
of the length of the book as a whole. The name Samuel is not altogether
appropriate for the material of 1 and 2nd Samuel because the prophet
dies is Chapter 25, leaving the rest of 1st Samuel and 2nd
Samuel to go on without him. Samuel’s prominent role in the early chapters may
have led to the association of his name with the book. Samuel was also
considered to be an author especially of those preceding his death. Subsequent
chapters were attributed to Nathan and Gad. This Scripture portion is one the
favourite scripture portions that are taught to the children both by the
teachers of Sunday school and the parents. To be more precise this scripture
portion plays an important life in the faith role of a person. The story of David’s battle with the
Philistine giant forms a coherent unit all by itself.
The account opens with Saul’s army lined up against the Phillistines
at Socoh. Socoh is identified with Khirbet Shuweika, 14mileswest of Bethlehem.
McCarter a theologian, as argued that Goliath is an authentic Philistine name.
Goliath was 6ft 9inches tall that is enough to frighten off any Israelite who
would come to take off the challenge. In
the Israel’s army only the king (ie) Saul was wearing the battle equipment’s
like armour, helmet etc. and this is clear from the portion. The passage also
explains that the Philistinian representative fighter’s armour and weapons are
more advanced than that of the Israelite’s. This clearly shows that the Philistinian
were more advanced to wars whereas the Israelite’s are new to war fields.
Goliath came forward to challenge the Israelites and David came forward
accepting that challenge. David came forward with the help of Yahweh’s courage
and he has also cited this to the Goliath stating that I am coming to you in
the name of Yahweh. Goliath is mentioned as “The Philistine” 27 times in the
passage and he is called as Goliath only twice.
1)
Worldly way of constructing the Kingdom:
In the local language the Kingdom of God is generally
referred to the church where we go and worship the true living God. The church
that I refer here is the one that is constructed with stones and sand and can
also be called as the Materialistic kingdom/ church. Many denominations work
hard , plan much to build up these materialistic buildings to keep up their
tradition of Main Line churches. I would not say that building up of these is
sin or wrong, but whom do the leaders of the church go to for help for
constructing this buildings. They do not go to an ordinary poor or middle class
family people, rather they go to the rich and those who attain power and
authority in the society. And these powerful are the ones who also dedicate the
house of God for the glory of God. These
powerful and the rich determine the size and the structure of constructing the
church, and in a later period the church of God, turns into a place of Commercial
activities and a place of nurturing communal and caste sentiments. The
construction of churches or assemblies is not a new idea rather, we can find
such gatherings both in the Old and the New Testament. In the Old Testament we
find that the people in the temples / synagogues were treated equally without
discrimination of the Rich and the Poor, the high and the low caste etc. As the
churches started nourishing the demons of caste, money and authority started
entering into the churches and this we can see at a later period in the NewTestament,
where there was discrimination between the Jew and the Gentile. In the early
churches also we find that the Ekklesia was a sharing community and the people
shared equally what they had with them. The present day churches are not mostly
built for the Glory of God rather for the Glory of the supreme authorities and
this we can at randomly see and witness from the court cases that the church
leaders face. The Bishops and other authorities who are meant to guide and
administer the people are absconded from the eyes of co-believers and the
media. Even in the Theological community we students, whom do we prefer to have
friendship with. We like to have friendship only with the Supreme authorities
like the Principal, Deans and few more whereas a good number are missed from
our favourite lists. The Service staff who serve to guard our health and provide
food for us are not in the list of our favourites. Coming to the student
community friendship, we also restrict ourselves with the friendship of a
Bishop’s son, those who are rich, those who belong to our region and our caste,
whereas a few who are silent and poor are missed out. The help that we do to
our fellow humans are also prejudiced and restricted because we would like to
offer a simple help only to those whom we think that they will help us
in-return. Voluntary help without any expectations are very limited in the
society that we live in.
Coming to our contemporary day churches they are not
build with the motive of equality of worship rather they are built to
exhibit power,money and wealth that we
have than other denominations and other religions. Many of the mission
organizations that were started by young people on their knees in secret places
have now become a den of robbers and a place of politics. The problem doesn’t
lie only with these kind of people rather but each and every individual is responsible for it, because a worshipper of
God, first looks at the infrastructure of the materialistic church, then the
popularity, status and the prosperity gospel that the servant of God preaches.
2)
God works in Powerlessness:
In the story of David and Goliath, the Phillistine was a
mighty warrior who was armed with many kinds of protective clothes that weighed
many hundreds of kilograms to protect him from the enemies and the list of
those protective shields that he was using are listed from verse 5 to 8. A
warrior’s scale armour had to meet three criteria: protection, lightness and
freedom of movement. The shepherd who comes to give food to his brothers, sees
the injustice that is prevailing at Socoh and thus he wants to be the voice of
the voiceless because Yahweh’s spirit was within him. He then goes to Saul and
said that he will fight for the Israelites and the response from Saul was a
shame to David, because Saul says that ”You are just a Boy”which means you are a powerless
person in front of a mighty person and David explains that he is a
shepherd and he as several lots of lions and bears with the help of his hands, when those wild animals tried
to attack his sheep. David also explains that only with the help of the Power
of Yahweh, he was able to defeat the wild animals and continues to say that the spirit of Yahweh is
still within me and that spirit would help him to defeat the Philistine. Having
trust in Yahweh, Saul tries to gear up David with the safety equipment’s that
Saul was wearing. Only the King of Israel was used to wear those safety stuff
and the militants had no access to those safety gears and this could be one of
the reasons for those people to hesitate to attack the Philistine. Then after Saul gave the safely
gears to David, the shepherd was uncomfortable wearing those as he had no
experience in wearing them. Thus without the armours David was powerless
against the Giant. This is an example from the Scripture to show that God
chooses the powerless for his mighty works. There are many more examples. For
Instance the story of Moses. He was an ordinary man, who was slow to speech and
had a stammering mouth. Yahweh chose such a person to liberate a huge crowd of
people from the bondage of sin. Gideon, Deborah are few other persons who were
powerless whom the God choose for his ministry. Coming to the prophets, God
choses young boys, shepherds, people with sinful tongues for God’s prophetic
ministry.Even in the story of Naaman the chief commander in the army of King
Aram, brings lots of Wealth and treasures and recommendation letters to the
prophet Elisha for curing his leprosy. Here God uses powerless water, which we
waste in our daily life to cure his sickness that he was suffering with for
many years. Many thousands of money and many doctors couldn’t cure his sickness
but God’s word through which the waters were created cured his leprosy.
In
the New Testament too, Christ choses the powerless like uneducated, fishermen
etc for establishing god’s kingdom on earth. Paul who was powerless after his
authorities were stripped off played a major role in the establishment of
churches in different parts of the world. Coming to the life of Jesus Christ only
through the powerless of Christ, the earth has received salvation. The
powerlessness of Jesus is the incident of Jesus on the cross. His hands were
nailed, his legs were nailed, his head was thorned and Jesus body was
completely under the control of powerful weapons. But God used that
powerlessness to redeem the whole world. Likewise in the story of David and
Goliath the powerless David was chosen by Yahweh to redeem the people of Saul.
The person whom they thought powerless was later the king of such a huge nation
and through his generation was a Saviour born for us. God chooses the powerless
to be a voice for the voiceless. God chooses the powerless to defeat the
powerful. God uses to powerless to redeem the earth. So power, authority,
wealth are not important in the sight of God. What God needs from us is a heart
to obey his word and carry on with God’s though and protect the creations that
God has gifted us to live a comfortable life with him. We need to go carry out
God’s plan in the name of the lord so that God will shower upon God’s strength
on us.
Conclusion:
The story
of David and Goliath is a classic and
perfect example of what can be accomplished by God through the person of faith
and powerlessness. David made clear that Yahweh was the real source of Victory.
God never shames any people who have a true dependence on God.
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