In the rather lengthy reading from First Samuel we are presented with great amounts of detail about Goliath. But several verses are left out and the information they contain is helpful for our deeper understanding. Verse 16, for example, would have informed us that Goliath didn't just show up once, but twice a day for 40 days.

Each time he came, Goliath cursed the Israelites and their God and bellowed for the Israelites to present their champion. Goliath was determined to bring the simmering conflict to a final conclusion. Goliath stood tall, certain of how it would all end. The only question in Goliath's mind was "when do I win?" One gets the feeling that the Israelites were pondering the same outcome and stalling for time.

Forty days is a long time to be confronted, cursed and challenged. But the Israelites don't seem in any hurry to respond. What were they thinking about? We know from the reading that the Israelites seemed to notice every rivet in Goliath's armor and had come to know the weight, length, height and breadth of every weapon he carried. By the time the story was written down some manuscripts reported that Goliath was ten feet tall. Others manuscripts were more modest in their claims but the point is that fear has a way of amplifying selected aspects of our experience. The things on which we dwell have a way of looming ever larger in our sight, and in our telling of the story to others. Clearly Goliath was a force to be reckoned with but there were other factors in play that were more important to the outcome but seemed not to be as noticeable to the participants.

Let's notice some of the things the Israelites were not paying attention to. In ancient Israel the anointed prophet would offer a sacrifice before the king took the army into battle. But king Saul couldn't wait for the prophet Samuel, or for the appointed time. This was scandalous behavior. It would be as if our President strode up to the altar at the National Cathedral in a fit of impatience and consecrated the Eucharist himself so that he could leave the building a little sooner. Saul's anxiety and impatience caused him to cross one boundary after another moving farther and farther away from God's will and deeper into a wilderness of alienation, fear and delusion. These willful transgressions couldn't have been lost on Saul's army. Surely the army's morale was affected by the unorthodox beginning to their campaign. Indeed Saul's transgressions were so serious that the prophet Samuel had secretly anointed David to be the king of Israel in Saul's place. Because it was done in secret, no one knew. But it was still true.

Reality and appearances had become unhinged. Saul looked like a king and wore bronze armor but was weak and no longer had God-given authority. David was the youngest, smallest son in an almost anonymous family, had only a shepherd's sling but was God's chosen man. Which is most important- the appearance or the reality, the uniform or the actual authority?

We know the end of the story of David and Goliath. We know the answer to the question - the little guy with the sling (and God behind him) wins. Things change in surprising ways. Kings fall from power, shepherds become kings - the insurmountable is overcome and the impossible comes to pass.

We can see this in the story of David and Goliath but can we acknowledge that how things appear to us in our own day may not be how they really are? Are we willing to believe that God's promises to us are stronger than the fear that besets us, the situations that challenge us and the things we do not understand? Can we wait for the will of God rather than rushing toward the timing and conclusions suggested by our own will? Fear, impatience, and a focus on non-essential details distracted Saul and the Israelite army. We too are prone to being distracted by things that ultimately do not matter and then overlooking things of great importance.

Consider the effect of the times at which Goliath shows up. Morning and evening are the time appointed for the Shema, the most important prayer in Judaism. Its twice-daily recitation is a mitzvah, a religious commandment. For forty days just at the time that the Israelites should have been listening to the sound of their own voices proclaiming "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One," they had instead allowed themselves to be distracted by the loud threats and curses of an enemy that seeks their lives.

The most basic religious observance commended of all faithful Jews was abandoned for a daily ritual of opening themselves instead to abuse and fear. God was still God. All the promises that God had ever made were still in force. But as wave after wave of fear crashed into Saul's army their spirits were sinking and their faith was slipping away. The fear created by one bellowing man in a helmet had overshadowed their faith in the Creator of the dome of heaven above their heads, in their God - the maker of all things. Even a giant is not bigger than God. Why were the Israelites so confused? What was going on?

Here's a way to empathize. Consider the effect that the constant barrage of news has on us. Does it really help to hear how many jobs were lost in Detroit, or how many points the market has fallen since 9am? What about the latest missile test in Korea, or the set backs in Afghanistan? What useful thing can we do with such news? If we are listening to the news throughout the day it can become like counting the rivets on Goliath's armor. Soon the problems of the world are ten feet tall and we are great risk, challenged at every turn. At least that's how it appears. But is that how it really is? Is the guy on the screen with the headset bellowing threats really in charge? Wouldn't it be more helpful to set aside two 15-minute periods of prayer- once in the morning and once in the evening - times set aside to help us remember that the Lord is our God, and that God is trustworthy?

We do not pay attention to everything. Indeed we cannot do so. If we focus on the rivets in the enemy's armor, or the number of dollars we have in the bank, we risk missing the divine in our midst. If we concentrate on God, and what God would have us to do the rest will fall into its appropriate place. Paying attention to the right things can be life saving.

Tom Griffiths and Cathleen Moore of Penn State co-authored an article titled "A Matter of Perception" in which they noted that:

When people are engaged in an engrossing task, such as monitoring swimmers in a pool, they often fail to notice otherwise obvious events because they happen outside the immediate focus of attention. In this way, perceptual blindness can help explain why lifeguards fail to detect victims on the bottom of swimming facilities.

Real-life case studies of this blindness include drivers running over bicyclists, train engineers plowing into cars, submarine pilots surfacing under ships and airline pilots landing on other planes. In each case, the object or obstruction should have been easily noticed but was not.

That's because even though the observers were "looking" right at the missed events, their attention was focused on other visual stimuli, or they were otherwise cognitively engaged (e.g., talking on a cell phone). Strikingly, those involved in these crashes usually have no idea there was an object there, and cannot explain their failure to have seen it.¹

There are two experiments in perception that are useful to mention here. In the on-line version of this sermon there are links at the bottom of the page to videos you can see. But I'll summarize the experiments verbally.

The first deals with Inattentional Blindness. In that experiment subjects were asked to watch a video of a basketball practice and to count how many times the players in the white jerseys pass the ball to one another. The white shirted players moved quickly in and out and among the mass of black shirted players while rapidly passing the ball. What the scientists didn't tell the subjects was that a gorilla was going to walk into the middle of the practice, stop and beat it's chest and then walk out the other side. 50% of the subjects never noticed the gorilla. When they were informed that a gorilla had been there and shown the video again, their attention shifted but most of them insisted that a different video had been substituted for the one they had initially been asked to view. It is easy to miss things that we aren't looking for, whether it is on a basketball court, in our work places or even in our church.

The second experiment deals with Change Blindness. Subjects were told to go into a lobby and sign a consent form and that they would then be directed to the room in which the experiment would be held. As the subjects walk across the lobby they saw a sign that said "Experiment Here" under which was a counter with a young man in a yellow shirt who gave them a form and a pen on a clip board. After the subjects filled out the form the young man knelt down to file it (but actually crawled out of sight to the left while a different young man in a blue shirt crawled in and took his place.) The young man in the blue shirt stood up and continued the conversation as though nothing were any different, directing the subjects to the room on the left where the scientist sat. The scientists asked the subjects if they had noticed anything strange about the consent form process. 75% of the subjects hadn't notice a thing. What ever they had been paying attention to it wasn't the face of the person in front of them, or the color of their shirt, or even the sound of their voice. What were 75% of the people paying attention to?

Could this happen in a church- could major things have changed over times without our noticing them? Are we surrounded by gorillas we just haven't noticed? What are we paying attention to and how is that effecting what we are able to see?

The hymns we sing, the bread we break and the prayers we say when we gather each Sunday are all intended to frame how we perceive reality. The service we promise to do in the baptismal covenant, the promises we make at weddings and the hope we express at funerals are part of focusing our attention on the right things.

We can practice counting our blessing and come to see the presence of God in even the smallest details of our lives. Or we can focus on counting our cash, guarding our position, searching without ceasing for the next opportunity to advance ourselves. One way of seeing lifts us up so that we might notice what God would have us see. The other way of perceiving leaves us stuck at the bottom of the pool.

One vision turns us toward God and our neighbor. The other causes us to look through -and run over - other people, missing not only simple shepherds but also the King of Kings.

We do not need more armor. We do not need more details about the strength of the enemy. There is no point in falling into fear. Let's us go up. Let us look up. The Lord our God is one and we are his. AMEN.

For an interesting further view into perceptual blindness, consider the two experiments found at these web sites:
http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAnKvo-fPs0

¹ http://www.aquaticsafetygroup.com/perceptions.html