I recently enjoyed a
rather excellent television series titled “Goliath”. It stars Billy Bob
Thornton as this once great lawyer who has pretty much lost everything. He is
persuaded to fight a case against a gigantic corporation, that produces weapons
of war and that is represented by the top law firm that he started along with
his partner. It is a wonderful series and as you have probably guessed in the
end the little man prevailed, not without casualties and deep suffering, but in
the end they won out. The mighty did indeed fall. Goliath actually runs for
three series and the lawyer cobbles together a raggle taggle bunch who keep on
fighting the good fight, all people with struggles and complex relationships,
all broken by life in some way and through the three series they eventually
bring down the Goliaths, that they are up against, whether they be political or
business exploiting the people around them. They overcame, against the odds,
some day. They do so at a cost to them often personally, but somehow in the end
justice prevails.
We shall overcome,
we shall overcome,
we shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe,
we shall overcome someday.
I also recent watched another film, a true story this time called “Dark Waters” this tells the story of another lawyer who takes on the might of Dupont who through the production of Teflon had been poisoning the locals who worked for them and who lived in the locality, over many decades. It’s a fight that still goes on. Again, through this man’s hard work, this little David managed to win a multitude of lawsuits for the people who have been horribly affected by this mighty Goliath. All kinds of cancers and infant deformities were caused by a chemical element that was used in the production of Teflon. Again, it is not without personal cost. There is a lesson here me about sticking at things if they are just, but accepting that whatever we do in life, if we sacrifice something for a greater good, that there will be a personal cost. Sometimes the results don’t come when we want them, but in the end hope does prevail. There is always though a price to pay. Are we willing to pay the price?
It lifts my heart to see
the little person prevailing against the mighty, that this is not some ancient
myth, that decency does still prevail. I also like the fact that to be the hero
you do not have to be pure, you do not have to be perfect, in fact in some ways
being imperfect can often help. We are all far more human than otherwise and
the acceptance of our own imperfection ought to keep us humble.
I am sure that most folks
know the story of David and Goliath found in 1 Samuel Chapter 17 of the Jewish
scripture what Christians have called “The Old Testament” of the Bible.
David and Goliath tells the
story of those old enemies the Israelites and the Philistines being at war once
again Their armies were faced one another A giant of a
man, walked out from the ranks of the Philistine army and challenged Saul and
his army to send out their best champion so that they might engage in a two-man
winner take all contest.
This champion named Goliath was nearly ten feet
tall. His armour and weaponry were of equal gigantic measure, a terrifying
sight. He issued his challenge. “I will fight your best soldier.”
Saul and the whole of Israel tremble in fear, for
they did not have a champion willing to face Goliath that day. Goliath repeated
his challenge every day for forty days and still Israel had no champion. Young
David was sent by his father to bring food to his three older brothers who were
soldiers in Saul’s army. When David arrived, he saw Goliath come forward and
heard him issue his challenge. When David saw the Israelite soldiers flee from
Goliath in fear, he volunteered to fight Goliath. He proclaimed that “he would
not be alone but would have the Lord God of Hosts on his side.” David was
propelled forward by his faith, not his wisdom, strength or experience as a
soldier, but his humble faith.
David was a boy not a man, he was small and had no
experience as a soldier. In the end though King Saul agreed to send David as
his Champion. He offered David the use of his own fine armour and sword. But
David declined, saying that he was not used to wearing armour and using a
sword. He preferred the simple tools and methods that were familiar to him, he
would prevail over Goliath in the same way that a shepherd prevails over
threats from bears and wolves who seek to kill sheep. David walked out to meet
Goliath with his shepherd’s staff, his slingshot and five smooth stones he had
carefully selected from the riverbed.
You can imagine Goliath laughing and taunting
David, but David had faith in those five smooth stones and, his simple methods
and his God. Goliath rushed forward with a battle cry waving his sword, David
let fly the first stone from his sling. His aim and his launch were sure and
true. The stone hit Goliath in the centre of his forehead and he fell to the
ground. David and defeated Goliath.
Sometimes even the most powerful and most confident
can be defeated with integrity and faith and justice, humility and of course hope.
Maybe these are those five smooth stones that David carefully selected. Integrity,
justice, faith, humility and hope. The mighty and most powerful do sometimes
fall. Hubris is a very dangerous thing and can bring even the mightiest down,
when they least expect it. You see even the mightiest have a weak spot and
sometimes it is their Hubris, their utter self belief, that is their weakest of
weak spots. I am reminded here of the Death Star in the Star Wars movie. Isn’t
Luke Skywalker just David in another setting? I am sure that the great
mythologist, Joseph Campbell, delighted in this when he consulted on the film.
Public figures whether
celebrities or politicians should take heed of this. Something we have seen
continually, including the last couple of weeks. People who live with
integrity, faith, humility, justice and hope do have the capacity to eventually
defeat even the mightiest of Goliaths. These five smooth stones have the
capacity to defeat Hubris however it may manifest itself.
Hubris is the Ancient
Greek word for overstretching ourselves; it translates as arrogance or
overwhelming pride. The ancient Greeks saw Hubris as the very root of tragedy. Their
tragic dramas played out at their religious festivals centred on human beings,
often rulers, who forgot their human limitations. In these tragedies the
audiences were reminded of the dangers of acting like immortals or Gods. They
taught the value of knowing themselves, who they really are and to know what it
is to be truly human.
Perhaps those that rule
our world, our leaders, the financiers, the media moguls and even the
celebrities who many of us lookup to in awe in the same way that the ancient
Greeks looked at their God’s should take heed of these stories. The Empires do
eventually fall like the walls of Jericho or burn like Rome. Or they are
brought to a standstill by nature or in our case this horrific pandemic.
Hubris of course manifests
itself in many forms. The one place it appears where you’d think it ought not
to is in religion. Yet it is probably more obvious there than in any other area
of life. Those who believe they have a direct link to God and know not only
what God’s will for themselves is, but what it is for everyone else do appear
to be suffering from the worst form of hubris.
My response to such
thinking is usually “Come off it who do you think you are?” By trying to
convert a person to your way of believing seems like the worst kind of Hubris
to me.
Although of course if I am
honest I’ve suffered from it myself from time to time.
I could be accused of it
now.
Sceptics are no different.
To belittle someone’s genuine faith by calling it a superstition or merely a
crutch is deeply disrespectful. It certainly does not honour or respect their
humanity. No one can ever truly know what is to have walked in another’s shoes
and to have lived their lives.
To be smug about one’s
personal so-called rationalism seems like the worst kind of arrogance to me.
The question I would like to ask is why we need to spend our time proving what
someone else genuinely believes as wrong or false or immature, wherever we find
ourselves on the faith spectrum?
That said, once again, I
have to hold up my hand and admit that it’s not something I’m immune from.
As I heard someone say
many years ago “To be right you don’t have to make anybody else wrong”
I need to remember that
one more often.
“To be right you don’t
have to make anybody else wrong.”
Hubris is an insidious
beast. We often fail to see it in ourselves.
Because Hubris is so well
hidden in ourselves it can have a nasty habit of sneaking up on us. Why you may
well ask? Well because it is neatly packaged as the virtue of truthfulness and
righteousness.
Fortunately there exists a
healthy antidote to hubris, humility! I suspect this was the stone that David
defeated Goliath with, although it is the one he lost sight of at times in his
own life, particularly when he became the all powerful king. David was as human
as anyone and power can corrupt anyone. Why? You may well ask, because power
can lead to a person thinking that they are some kind of God.
Humility may well be
humanities greatest virtue. It is essentially about accepting our human
limitations. By doing so we become teachable, we learn from others, which leads
not only to us improving our own lives but the world that we inhabit but do not
own; which in turn leads us to nurture
and develop healthy relationships with other people. By recognising that we are
not, nor do we speak for God we will open ourselves up to voice of
transcendence as it speaks to us in life. In doing so we will be honouring life
itself as sacred, which will hopefully lead to us taking care of what is our
responsibility; our own lives mind, body and soul, our families, our homes, our
friendships, our communities, our planet.
Hubris can be the most
inhibiting and potentially dangerous delusion a human being can suffer from. In
the end it actually stops us living the best life we can. Humility on the other
end helps us to see the truth about ourselves “Warts and all and beauty spots
too”. From here we can honestly improve our own lives and those who we share
this spinning planet with. It achieves more than that though. It draws us
closer together not only to one another but to this amazing universe that we
play a small but vital role in.
The dangers stem from
losing sight of this and believing that this universe and rest of humanity
revolves around us and is there to do our bidding.
Life has taught me many
things. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons is that people who laud their power
over others, those who act in supremacist ways, are not as strong as they wish
to appear. It is generally the weak who desperately hunger for power in order
to compensate for their feelings of vulnerability and fragility. It is one way
in which they can delude themselves into believing that they can somehow hold
back the tide. It can be so terribly destructive. So often of course we
surrender ourselves and our own power to such figures. Some bully their way
there and others do it through manipulation.
The solution, I have come
to believe, is to find ways to access the power we all have within us, to
become our own authority and to play our role fully in the sea of life; the key
I have come to believe is to become the drop in the ocean, to fully contribute
to the sea of life; the key is to stop seeking power from without by attempting
to control others and see that there is a power and responsibility within each
and everyone of us. You see when we wake up to the power we already have within
us, that same power that is at the core of all life, a loving power, a
connecting power that does not seek supremacy, when we awaken to this power we
become our own authority. In so doing we do not need to seek power over others,
nor surrender to those who we perceive to be more powerful than we are. In so
doing we become authors of our own ideas and actions and we participate fully
in the ocean of life. This is essentially true leadership, because by doing so we
inspire others to do the same. To inspire is to awaken the spirit within
another, to that source of power within us all. This is true leadership, this
is what the great spiritual teachers throughout human history did. This is our
task as people who congregate in a free spiritual community.
We simply need to live by
those five smooth stones of Integrity,
justice, faith, humility and hope and to live with responsibility for ourselves
and this world that we share with others and it begins with humility, by
accepting that we are not God, but human, beautifully finite humans and go swim
in the ocean of life.
I am going to end this morning with a poem by Mark Nepo “Look Around”
“Look Around” by Mark Nepo
If you
try to comprehend air
before breathing it,
you will die.
If you try to understand love
before being held,
you will never feel compassion.
If you insist on bringing God to others
before opening your very small window of life,
you will never have honest friends.
If you try to teach before you learn
or leave before you stay,
you will lose your ability to try.
No matter what anyone promises—
to never feel compassion,
to never have honest friends,
to lose your ability to try—
these are desperate ways to die.
A dog loves the world through its nose.
A fish through its gills.
A bat through its deep sense of blindness.
An eagle through its glide.
And a human life
through its spirit.
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