Extraordinary Time

Mark 4:35-41; I Samuel 17:32-49

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I Samuel 17:1-23 (selected); 32-49

Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle [against the Israelites].

⁴ And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. ⁵He 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. ⁶He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. ⁷The 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. ⁸He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. ⁹If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” ¹⁰And the Philistine said, “Today I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together.” ¹¹When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

¹⁹ Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. ²⁰David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, took the provisions, and went as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the encampment as the army was going forth to the battle line, shouting the war cry. ²¹Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. ²²David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage, ran to the ranks, and went and greeted his brothers. ²³As he talked with them, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him.

{32} David said to Saul, “Let no one's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” {33} Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” {34} But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, {35} I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. {36} Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”

{37} David said, “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.” So Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you!” {38} Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. {39} David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.” So David removed them. {40} Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

{41} The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. {42} When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. {43} The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. {44} The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” {45} But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. {46} This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, {47} 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.” {48} When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. {49} David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.

Mark 4:35-41

{35} On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” {36} And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. {37} A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. {38} But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” {39} He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. {40} He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” {41} And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The Sermon

What does it take to slay the giant? I will offer two words as a response based on God’s word: prioritize holiness.

Oscar Romero was the Catholic archbishop of El Salvador. Before he was killed by government thugs in 1980, his crime was that he sided with the poor in their struggle for justice, as they were being practically taken as slaves, or being denied basic necessities that had been theirs, or just butchered when they got in the way.

Romero taught them that they were made in the image of God, and as such were worthy of the basic human dignity which was being denied them.

There’s a powerful scene in the movie of his life, Romero, where the archbishop tries to enter the church in a small town where the poor are concentrated. It’s kind of one of his first acts of seeing just how far he can go in his new role as archbishop.

The Salvadoran army has taken over the local church and turned it into a barracks—not because they needed the room, but because by keeping the local people from being able to worship together, they keep them from being able to organize, or for that matter to take any of the strength and comfort that anyone gets from going to church.

So Romero arrives and tries to go in, saying that he has come to take care of the blessed sacrament while the town is occupied. The commanding officer, armed with a semiautomatic like all the other soldiers in the building, standing at the back of the sanctuary, turns around and fires away, riddling the altar with bullets and ripping through the crucifix.

Romero turns around and goes out while the officers laugh. He gets all the way out to his car, stops, turns around and goes back in. This time he walks past the officers who are kind of carelessly standing around. And Romero goes up to the altar, kneels down, and starts picking up the communion wafers that have just been scattered by the gunfire. While he’s doing that, the commanding officer once again fires at the altar, just over Romero’s head. And then soldiers come, and rough him up—he’s now holding the communion wafers in his hand—and then literally kick him out of the building.

Back out to the car he stumbles, and the townspeople are watching, without expression, as Romero and his driver get in the car and pull out of the town square. I guess they thought their continued presence might just incite more violence.

They don’t show it this way in the movie, but you wonder if at this point Romero thought about the story of Jesus in the boat with the disciples when the night turned stormy.

Jesus was the one who chartered the boat: when evening came, he had said, “Let’s go across to the other side.” So they left the crowd behind, and while they were making their way across that deep, wide, notoriously unpredictable lake, Jesus rested and fell asleep on a cushion in the stern.

And, seemingly out of nowhere as they do, a windstorm arose. And now the waves were beating into the boat, and in very little time, the boat was already being swamped.

When I was in high school, our version of Montreat was not to go to Montreat, but we had a Sr. High church camp involving about 150 people at a camp and conference center on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. One of the traditions was that every year on the Wednesday night we would go out on a chartered boat. One year it got kind of rainy, a little windy, no big deal. At one point, after dark, I noticed one of the crew—quickly, efficiently; he smiled at me when I met his eye—moving rapidly along one side of the boat pulling down and securing the vinyl windows.

The storm got worse. Memory fails me here, but I am sure we must have been calmly prepared for the “extremely unlikely” event that we would need to put on life vests or something. What we didn’t know it at the time was that a funnel cloud had appeared over the lake, almost as if it had targeted our little ship.

Meanwhile, on the top deck, more exposed to the elements, a small group, including our church’s pastor, could see as much as could be seen in that dark, stormy night.

They did the only thing that could be done at that point: they joined hands in a circle, and the pastor prayed. And I later learned one of the things he said that has stayed with me all these years and probably always will: he said, “If this is the time, Father, let it be quick.”

We later learned that, unable to feel this on the lower deck, our boat had spun three 180-degree turns in a span of about 90 seconds.

Blissfully unaware of all this, those of us on the lower deck thought, “What a lovely evening; isn’t that quite a little storm out there?” We had a well-placed confidence—you might say, ‘faith’—in the ability of the captain and his excellent, well trained and experienced crew. And we knew nothing of any of this until we’d made it safely to shore.

The disciples did not have that luxury.

Their leader was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.

They said, with the rain pelting and the night black as ink, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” And Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”

And the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

And then he turned to the disciples and said—amidst a sudden, total stillness in the background—“Why are you afraid?” The actual Greek is tougher than that: he said, “Why are you acting so cowardly? After everything you’ve seen, do you still not have any faith?”

I’d like to think that brief passage occurred to Oscar Romero after he’d been kicked out of the church building for the second time—the latter of which after having had bullets fired over his head and then being roughed up on the way to getting tossed out of the building.

Shortly after his car disappeared off the screen and out of the neighborhood, leaving the townspeople still standing around, still expressionless, now utterly helpless in the face of a corrupt and cynical military having taken over the church building that stood in every way at the center of their communal life, the archbishop’s car suddenly comes back into the picture.

Now if this were a big-time Hollywood movie, the car would come back, Romero would get out toting a 12-foot bazooka, and he would walk up the church steps to the commanding officer and say something like, “What part of ‘I’m here to prepare the blessed sacrament’ did you not understand?”

Kind of wickedly nice to imagine that, I guess. But all Romero has to offer is himself. Honestly, when it’s time to face the giant, that's all you’ve got: Yourself—or, more precisely, yourself and your God.

Romero got out of the car, had his assistant help him with putting on the priestly garments, kissed the stole, and walked once again to the church steps.

Now the townspeople are seeing the man who has been called to serve them and serve God, going forth to whatever fate is necessary, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walking toward the fiery furnace: they would much rather make some illegitimate king angry than turn their backs on God and God’s undying love for them.

And now, Romero leads them all, all the townspeople, the people of the church—wordlessly, back into the church—their church; God’s church.

All Romero has to offer is himself, but it’s not just him this time. It’s the church acting together to move in the direction—even in the dangerous direction of an unknowable outcome.

All they had to offer was themselves. And they chose to prioritize holiness.

At the doorway, flanked by two armed soldiers, the commanding officer draws his pistol and points it directly at Archbishop Romero.

And then you can almost see the revelation coming across his face: what am I going to do, shoot every one of these hundreds of people walking into their church? He lowers his pistol, defeated without violence, humbled by the dignity of the people of God prioritizing holiness over all other considerations.

And the people file silently past him, following their chosen leader, God’s chosen leader, back into the sanctuary, where, in the best and most welcoming sense, they belong.

All that God’s people needed was God’s people. But they had to be together.

Gathered here, in this room, right now, are a bunch of people who are far too busy for weekly church services.

We are a bunch of people with personal issues that are far too complicated; we have addictions or weaknesses or temptations or shortcomings that are far too serious for us to be able to show our faces to one another in this holy place.

We are a bunch of people who are far too afraid of what’s out there, or what’s in store for us, or how much we have to lose, far too afraid to be able to come in here and lay it all at the foot of the cross and say, “Take my life and let it be consecrated.”

If you take all that data, it would appear that it is virtually impossible for us to live as disciples.

But “virtually impossible” isn’t a term in God’s vocabulary. “Virtually impossible” is a designation for all of us who are too afraid, too distracted, too cowardly, to accept the most wonderful promise of all:

that there is a God who has made us, and redeemed us, and who calls us even now, even right now, to look at that giant out there on the battlefield who is taunting us, saying, “You’ll never make it,” saying, “I am all your problems; I am all of your fears; I am all of your failures;

I am all of your shortcomings; and you are far too small to be able to handle me;” and God calls us not to duck and whimper and ask “Why me?”, but to go out and meet that giant on the field and say,

“You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. And this very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; God has already won this battle.”

Today is the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Doesn't have the same ring as “Pentecost Sunday” or “Trinity Sunday.” It’s just ordinary time.

Only, there’s nothing ordinary about ordinary time. Ever since Jesus stilled the stormy waters and the question was asked by his own disciples, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”, there has been nothing ordinary about ordinary time.

The end of the movie Romero is the same as the end of his life. He was officiating the mass in church on a Sunday morning when a gunman hired by the government walked into the back of the church, aimed at Romero, fired a single shot, and disappeared, while the congregation wept and prayed, and the nuns desperately but methodically administered the last rites. His name now lives in honor among all the saints; his is one of ten statues of 20^th century martyrs standing majestically over the West door of Westminster Abbey in London; he is forever an example to all Christians in every corner of the world, all of whom have nothing to offer God but ourselves—and that, as we are made in the image of God, is enough.

You will not always slay the giant in your lifetime. But you can and will make the world around you a better place when you prioritize holiness.

Live for God, serve God, minister in the name of Jesus. And do not be afraid. He takes our ordinary time and makes it extraordinary time.