A reading of the holy gospel according to Mark. Jesus returned to the synagogue where there was a man whose hand was shriveled up. The Pharisees kept an eye on Jesus to see whether he would heal the man on the Sabbath day, hoping to be able to bring an accusation against Jesus. Jesus spoke to the man with a shriveled hand. Stand up here in front.
And then he said to them, the people gathered around, is it permitted to do a good deed on the Sabbath or an evil one? To preserve life or to destroy it. At this, they remained silent. Jesus looked around at them angrily, for he was deeply grieved that they had closed their minds against him. Then Jesus said to the man, scratch out your hand.
The man did so, and his hand was perfectly restored. When the pharisees went outside, they began to plot at once with their rodians on how they might destroy Jesus. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to the holy spirit. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Attractive as the excerpt from Saint Mark is this morning, I actually like to bring out two ideas that struck me in the reading of this famous dramatic story of David and Goliath. There are very few stories in history that can match this one in popularity or in drama. The first point I would like to emphasize is faith. Now by this I mean trust, confidence.
David had very little explained to him. All that Saul said was the Lord will be with you. So he picked up a couple of stones with his sling, and you know how big a weapon a sling shot is or the sling that they used. It was least it was less sophisticated than our old slingshots. And there, this youth goes out armed with a few round pebbles and a sling to meet the Goliath who comes out completely armored in the best and the heaviest that could be supplied him, and he was a mighty warrior.
All that David had be with him. But that was all he needed. I'm not trying to explain this. I'm only the fact is that David went went out out to to face face insuperable insuperable odds, odds. Odds that are beyond one's imagining, simply because he had confidence that the Lord was with him, and he had some conception of who the Lord was.
He didn't confuse the Lord with Saul. His faith in the Lord wasn't based on his faith in Saul. That's that perfectly clear. His trust, his confidence in the Lord was between him and the Lord. And so armed with that and with practically nothing else, humanly speaking, he went out to meet Goliath.
And you know the outcome of it was. He not only destroyed him with his own weapon, but with Goliath's own sword, he cut off the giant's head. And then we said, alleluia. Quite a contrast. So that's the first idea that seems to me terrifically important.
And what I mean to say is this. In in the past week, for one reason or another, I have come into to contact with a number of Catholics. Now they call themselves Catholics. They say they are Catholics. And all I can say is, and they would agree, they are more or less Catholic.
And this is what we find so much of. How many of us are actually committed with the trust and the confidence and the faith of a David meeting Goliath, and we are meeting Goliaths. Let's keep that perfectly straight. Let us keep this perfectly straight. When David walked out there to face Goliath, the odds were all on Goliath as far as the world could see.
And if David had a computer with him en route and he could have used it to day's end, and he would have still come up in a very, very scant minority in weaponry, in power, in strength, in expectations of a victory over Goliath. From a worldly point of view, David had nothing going for him. Nothing except his faith, and that is unworldly. It is fantastic how people this is what I can understand, how they make certain intellectual commitments and then with complete knowledge, with complete willing of the whole situation, live a life of compromise with their own principles. I am not saying, I am not emphasizing here people who try and fail or sin.
I can understand that. I remember Judas. I remember Peter. I remember myself. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about this compromise, this half way measure, this having one foot with Christ and the other foot with the world. One foot in a sense in faith and the other foot with the Goliath and his worldly armor. If only we could be single-minded. That doesn't mean we're going to be perfectly come able to live up to it. That isn't the issue.
To have an ideal and to work for it and to fail is one thing. To have an ideal which you cut in half and try to serve two masters, that's something totally different. That's irrational. That's absurd. Any man will admit that.
Let's have a sense of logic. If we are committed to Christ, let's believe him. Let's have the confidence and the faith of a David. Now my second point, and this I'd like to emphasize. It struck me as it was as the text was being read.
It never struck me before. It is true that God was on David's side. It is true that he went out there with all the trust and the confidence in the world in his Lord that he would give him victory over Goliath. But who threw the stone that hit the the giant right in the middle of his barn? Have any of you ever tried to use a slingshot?
I mean, the old kind that you pull back with a v. He didn't have that. He had one of these things you swing around your your head and then let one one string go and then out goes the stone. And David was able to handle that in such a way that the stone hit the giant in the middle of the forehead. Most of us couldn't do it with a first class rifle.
In other words, in other words, David made his contribution. It wasn't all the Lord's work. David's David's slings, and it was David's skill using the sling that directed that stone so accurately that it hit the giant right between the eyes, a very beautiful spot. So it's all very well to go out armored with faith and trust in God, but let's go out armored with what we can contribute to a situation. Not the best, absolutely speaking, not the perfect, absolutely speaking, but what can I contribute?
What can I contribute? You see, the Lord expects me to make my contribution. He's not gonna do the whole thing. You'll hear people say, get out of the driver's seat and let God take over. That's almost entirely true, but it's not true.
We cannot get out of the driver's seat. We cannot advocate our own responsibilities, our own obligation. We have to work with Jesus Christ. He expects something from us. Not a not a lot.
He just expects all that we can give. In the name of the father, and of the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.