Wednesday of the Second Week of Ordinary time

Lectionary #313

David said to Saul:“The LORD, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine.” 

Saul answered David, “Go! the LORD will be with you.”


I have read much about war and warriors since entering the VA hospital as a chaplain. Recently I read No Easy Day, the autobiography of a Navy Seal by Mark Owen, with its first-hand account of the killing of Osama bin Laden. I have just finished The Heart of Everything That Is, a biography of the Sioux warrior, Red Cloud, by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin.

I can’t say I know much about warriors yet, but Goliath’s boast sounds about right: “Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.”

David’s response is longer but he is not actually taking on the giant. God is. David goes before the Lord as the shield bearer goes before the Philistine. He unleashes a stone from his sling but God directs the missile into the massive forehead.  Then David ends the fight with Goliath’s own sword.

Just as the Book of Exodus described Pharaoh’s loss before the LORD, so does 1 Samuel describe God’s victory over the Philistines. I find in this text the Christian’s ambivalence about war.

Jesus and his disciples were familiar with soldiers because of the Roman occupation but they were never tempted to take up arms. Like most Americans they counted on others to keep the enemy at bay while they attended to other business. They probably assumed the Pax Romana would last forever as we suppose the Pax Americana will last forever. Why should it end? There was no enemy remotely strong enough to challenge the Roman Empire, as no serious foreign power threatens American hegemony.

In his book, Killing from the Inside Out, Robert Emmet Meagher questions the traditional teaching of just war. He sees it as an accommodation the Church made as it transitioned from a minority religion to a dominant cultural influence. We felt an obligation to justify what kings, emperors and governments do. 

But war is what we have always done. Why justify what we’re going to do anyway? Can we not admit what our children and old people know, that this is wrong? It may be the worse thing we do but it's not the only one. We smoke tobacco, drink to excess, overeat, commit adultery, avoid paying taxes and do all kinds of sinful things; and we have no more control on those indulgences than we have over our impulse to make war. Why use religion to justify it? 

The first Christians would not fight. Saint Martin of Tours resigned his commission upon his conversion. Other Roman soldiers, inspired by the courage of the Christian martyrs, chose to die with the martyrs. One fellow walked out on a frozen lake and and joined the martyrs who had been condemned to die of hypothermia. 

Did David kill Goliath in the name of the Lord, or did he watch as the Lord fought for his people? Was he an extraordinarily good slinger with a stroke of good luck or did the Lord guide that stone to its mark?

As we transition back to a minority with little influence on the dominant culture, should Christians support the American government in its endless wars? Should we take a neutral, pacifist stand like the early Franciscans, and mediate between governments and their enemies? How do we support our troops who are often sons and daughters and members of our congregations? These are tough questions to bring into our daily discipline of discernment.