They Might be Giants: Finding the Courage to Overcome

It has been quite a summer of sport. It is not over just yet, we are still in July after all. I have enjoyed it immensely, the hopes and dreams and ups and downs, that for most has ultimately ended in disappointment. There have been quite a few underdog stories too. Most of us love an underdog story, probably because it taps into the dream that one day, by some miracle perhaps, we might become victorious.

Before I came to live in this area I knew very little about Urmston and Altrincham. I had heard of Urmston only because of one of the characters from “Dinner Ladies”, that wonderful comedy by Victoria Wood. I only knew of Altrincham from watching the football results and the mythos of their giant killing days in the FA Cup. It has been a great honour to serve the good folk of both places these last 16 years.

Now it was this year’s FA Cup that brought a local giant killing to mind, perhaps the greatest. This was when Non-League Macclesfield Town slayed Premier League Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace were actually the FA Cup defending champions having won it 2025, how the mighty fall. Other examples of minnows defeating or shining against the giants were Cape Verdi in the World Cup, drawing nil-nil with the eventual champions Spain. Cape Verdi did not lose a game in their group and were only beaten by the finalist Argentina in extra time, Argentina had scored an equaliser in injury time of normal time. Now despite a few hiccups the giants did eventually gain victory, the top four ranked teams in the world filled all four semi-final places.

There were two wonderful examples of minnows defeating giants in tennis too. Maja Chwalinska ranked 114 in the world and a wild card reached the French open final. Then the British qualifier Arthur Fery, another a wild card and coincidentally also ranked 114 in the world, reached the semi-final at Wimbledon before succumbing to the giant Alexander Zverev. I remember watching them walk side by side and thinking this truly looks like a David and Goliath rematch as Zverev stands 6 feet and six inches, Arthur Fery is just 5 feet 9 inches tall, almost a foot shorter. Instead of shaft the size of a weaver’s beam, his weapon of choice was his tennis racket.

In such encounters Goliath usually wins, but not always. Sometimes the underdog does win. The small does overcome the giant. Courage can be found if we carry it within our hearts. The 19th century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, said, “The arc of the Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” He believed that there was some deep and powerful force in the Universe that stands behind the weak and the small when they fight against the more powerful. The story of David and Goliath, the little shepherd boy, the runt of his family, the eighth born son, who defeated the most powerful warrior in the world, asks us, “Where would we find such courage?” Sport can be a wonderful metaphor for this, sometimes the mighty do fall and the righteous do indeed overcome.

I am sure we are all familiar with the story of David and Goliath. I know as a child I found it compelling. It made me think that the weak sensitive child that I was would one day stand up to bullying giants of life. I still live with this childlike hope. I know I am not alone.

The story of slaying of the giant Goliath is to be found in the Old Testament book of Samuel. Here is an extract from 2 Samuel Ch 21 v 19

“Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and …………… killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

Do you know who killed Goliath in 2 Samuel? Say it out loud to yourself.

Well, in the “ Samuel it was someone named “Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite”

Here is the full verse: “19 Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

The story of David slaying Goliath is actually found in the 1st Book of Samuel, which describes Goliath there in the following way 1 Samuel Ch 17 vv 4-7

“4 And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was four[a] cubits and a span. 5 He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. 7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and his shield-bearer went before him.”

“The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam”

Now to add to the confusion here is an extract from 1 20 Chronicles, probably written a couple of centuries after the book of Samuel. This section depicts the battles of David and his army at war, including with giants. There are many battles depicted as David was the warrior king.

“5 Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

All three accounts use this same description of the shaft of a spear being like “a weaver’s beam”

Confusing isn’t it. How do we make sense of these seeming contradictions.

Biblical scholar Dan McClellan describes the slaying of Goliath as one of the biggest contradictions in the Bible. The Bible in McClellen’s understanding is not a univocal text, meaning it does not speak with one voice, nor should it be viewed this way. Instead, it is a text to be engage with. I am in great sympathy with Dan.

So, who was it who slayed the Giant Goliath, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam?

McClellan’s highlights several academic observations that reveal that the account in 2 Samuel of Elhanan of Bethlehem slaying Goliath pre-dates the account of David in 1 Samuel. That as the legend of David grew editors of the Davidic tradition appropriated the heroic feat of Elhanan to build up the myth of David, as the heroic underdog and creating a different kind of giant mythology. He highlights that the account in Chronicles is an attempt to show Elhanan as the slayer of Goliath’s brother Lahmi. By the way there are many accounts of giants being slayed and warriors going into battle. David is viewed as this warrior king who came from nothing to lead armies with ingenuity and skill.

The central claim of McClellan is that these account’s were ways to attempt to build up the legend of David as this little man who through courage and ingenuity slayed the giants. It is a wonderful mythos and like so many heroic figures of human mythology contains truth and exaggeration. In my view knowing this does not down play the idea of courage and guile to allow the small and seemingly weaker overcoming the giant, at least sometimes. Like all heroes such figures are flawed and sometimes their supporters build them up in order enlarge the mythos.

Here Dan McClellan explores the David and Goliath contrdictions.

 
We find our own truth in such tales and this is what matters to me. I wonder who your favourite underdog is, ancient or modern. Mine is probably “Daniel-San” from “The Karate Kid”, a story clearly influenced in part by the story of David and Goliath. Or perhaps Luke in the original Star Wars film “Episode IV” “A New Hope”. Surely Luke destroying the Death Star by finding it’s one vulnerability is another example of the David and Goliath Mythos. Or perhaps Achillies from “The Odyssey”, out now at the movie theatres, is another example. Even the mightiest fall, for they have their weak spots.

I recently listened to a Podcast by Malcolm Gladwell. He was discussing his book “David and Goliath” it takes a very different view to the conventional understanding, highlighting that David’s skill actually put him at an advantage. He highlights that often in war the mightier do not prevail and the righteous more often than we would think can become victorious, not through might, but through guile and skill. He highlights that sometimes our seeming weakness can become our strength. I know myself I was often told that I was overly sensitive as a child and that I would not survive in this world if I didn’t change. There was truth in this. That said I know today that my sensitivity is one of my greatest assets in my life. It just needed to be used in the right way. It turned out to be my stone that slayed my inner Giant. The central theme that Gladwell highlights is that the very thing that puts you at a disadvantage forces you to creatively reinvent the rules of the game to amazing effect. You develop new kinds of skills to compensate for the areas where you are weakest and you approach the world with a fresh kind of offbeat vision. You play a different game and suddenly your powerlessness becomes the very root of your power. It can be disarming, it can be thrilling, it can be wildly successful.

The message at the heart of the life of Jesus teaches this. I don’t mean the mythos developed around him and often the religion built from him, but the radical message he brought. He came to reform his religion to bring it back to the people, but not through power in a conventional sense. Being an ordinary working man it prevented him from doing so in a conventional way, so he followed his own path. He used what he had, he made the most of his simple gifts. He refused conventional status and power and created new terms of success showing how the so called losers became winners and winners became losers. He said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the pure in heart…” Jesus taught that success was measured by how loving and compassionate you are. Instead of accumulating wealth and power here, “store up treasure in heaven where moth and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.” The problem was the worship of other things, such giants actually got in the way, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” He contested all the social values of his day and invited the people into a different dimension of spiritual living.

Sadly, this is a message that has so often been lost in the religion created in his name and much religion actually. Sadly, too often the worship of other God’s and monster have taken over. Too often, as in the original story, David becomes the Goliath.

Now the David’s and Goliath’s come in many forms; they do not necessarily come in human form; the giants, the monsters, the unsurmountable obstacles incarnate in various ways. It takes faith and hope and courage to overcome them, even if we have failed many times. It is the faith, hope and courage that enables us to stand up and try once again.

Mark Nepo takes an interesting slant on this ancient Mythos. In the “Book of Awakening” he writes about the Goliath’s in life being the towering unsurmountable obstacles that we all face. The impossible dream, the heartbreaking challenges of love and loss such as grief, chronic illness and the personal traumas we all face. Every day I find myself in conversations with folk living through challenges of all kinds, and of finding the faith, hope and courage to overcome their own personal Goliath’s.

Mark Nepo describes his own battles with his own Goliath’s. After surviving a rare form of lymphoma in the 1990s, he emerged with profound insights on suffering, transformation, faith, hope and resilience. These were the equivalent to the five stones that David carefully selected. Nepo was taught the true meaning of courage, of love. He learnt that these seemingly unsurmountable obstacles were not giants or monsters to be slain, but teaches, hard lessons that compel us to strip away the things that do not really matter in life, discover where the true meaning is found and uncover the true courage at the heart of our being. Not in vainglory but as people of faith and hope and love.

We all face our mythological giants in life. I wonder what has been your greatest challenges and how you have walked through them, overcome them. Some of us maybe facing some now. What has carried you through? What were your five selected stones that helped you defeat your Goliath? What stories, mythos helped carry you through? Not what hero fought your battle, but who or what inspired you keep on taking the next step, the one of courage to keep on walking on through.

May we all find the faith, the hope and courage to face what we encounter on our journey through life. May we find the love to encourage one another to keep on, no matter how many times we might fall.

I’m going to end this with this piece.

“My Heart Fights for Those Who Can't Fight” by Sara Sutherland Dean

Someone called me a “bleeding heart liberal.” It was not intended as a compliment. However, I will always consider it one of the biggest compliments of my life.

My heart bleeds for the underdog.
My heart fights for those who can’t fight.
My heart rejoices in seeing others overcome adversity.
My heart desires love and peace for everyone.
My heart is compassionate and empathetic.
My heart sees pain in others and wants to help.
My heart believes in equality.
My heart sees the good in people.
My heart chooses action over fear.

Amen

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Hubris and its Antidote: Five Smooth Stones

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.