Over this past week or so both of us have been reflecting on the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and what it could mean in our present season. I (+Justin) have been revisiting social anthropologist Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath (he does a great TEDtalk summary here).

Last week we gathered with all parish leaders on Zoom to discuss what Level 2 has meant in each of our ministry contexts, and I thought it would be worth sharing some of these ideas with you all too as we each reflect on what it means to be God’s people at this time.

Perhaps in our Sunday School experience of this story, we’ve heard a narrative of the young, weak David miraculously defeating the super-human warrior. But a close read of the text could reveal something a bit different.

David might be young, and he’s not a soldier, but by his own admission he knows what skills he has and is confident in his ability. This is someone who can hit hungry, angry moving targets – lions and bears – with accuracy. Malcolm Gladwell draws on other biblical scholars who have suggested that elements of the description of Goliath in the text indicate he may have had a medical condition causing gigantism, with side effects of a more limited mobility and vision. In that respect then, Goliath’s skill as a fierce, heavily-armoured infantry warrior trained in 1:1 sword combat would have been outplayed by David’s nimble flexibility and deadly accuracy. Goliath may well have been a sitting duck.

So perhaps it could be argued that this was not a case of the weak, juvenile boy defeating a giant against the odds, but rather that David, unlike the Israelite army, understood that defeating Goliath necessitated not fighting fire with fire, but thinking outside the box. Of course, there were no Israelite infantrymen who could defeat Goliath, but of course a slinger could. I wonder whether, once Goliath was defeated, the other slingers in the Israelite army thought: “oh yeah. I could have done that.”

There’s another element at play here of course. That is, that David had surrendered this problem to God: ‘the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.’ We hear in the chapter prior that David had been anointed by Samuel and that ‘the Spirit of the Lord had come powerfully upon him’. I wonder what listening to the Spirit David did in order to discern the right course of action, and to trust in God’s plan and purposes. This same spirit we see in Jesus’ teaching us to pray, and in his own relationship with God the Father: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”.

So, as each of us face challenges, as each of us navigate the changed Covid levels and how we gather be the family of God in this season, there is an invitation to think outside the box. In your own journey with Jesus at the moment, we invite you to consider if there are any ‘out of the box’ opportunities for any challenges you are facing. Here’s some things you could do to help explore this:

• Write down all the ideas you can think of – even the ones that seem the most nonsensical. What emerges?

• What do you have in your toolkit? What are the resources and skills that you have?

• Who can you get advice or perspective from to help you?

• And most importantly – have you surrendered this problem in prayer to our God who, in Jesus, solved the ultimate problem and drew us into new and right relationship, and whose plans for us we are told ‘work out for the good of those who love God’?

We keep hearing the testimony of how people are gathering in creative, home-based ways, people who don’t normally come to churches are joining in. We can’t help but notice this in this season. Perhaps this is one of these David ‘outside the box’ moments where Goliath isn’t overcoming us, and God is still drawing people into fresh relationship.

In Christ

+Justin and +Ellie