Felling Goliaths

I was recently called upon to do the faith-basis talk for an assembly of Together Louisiana to meet with Gov. John Bell Edwards. Here's what I said.

Reading from First Samuel, Chapter 17:

⁴⁸When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet the Philistine. ⁴⁹David 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. ⁵⁰So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

That’s the punch line of a story we know well. We know that the Philistine in question was a giant of a man named Goliath. Hebrew scripture goes to great lengths to show us what a giant he was, giving not only his height, but also the weight of his armor and the heft of his spear. We know also that the Isrealites were afraid of Goliath, and that a stand-off between the armies had been going on for some days.

Then comes David, a boy on a humble errand, delivering bread and cheese to his brothers in the ranks. But he hears Goliath curse the Israelites and their God, and he presents himself to Saul to go against the giant. He tries on Saul’s armor, but casts it aside, choosing instead his staff and sling and five smooth stones for his weapons. And one of those stones finds its mark in a chink in the armor of the giant.

Brothers and sisters, many Goliaths roam the State of Louisiana today, Goliaths like a regressive tax structure that takes from poor folks and gives to the well off. Like hundreds of thousands of people who have been denied access to health care in the name of politics, and others who are losing access to health care by the starvation and death of the health care facilities they depend on.

Goliaths like a growing class of working poor due to the stagnant, poverty-level wages they are paid for the very necessary and back-breaking work they do.

Against these Goliaths, we sometimes feel like the underdog. We don’t have the millions of, say, a payday lending industry to hire a bunch of lobbyists to fight our battles for us!

But the bias of all of Holy Scripture is with the underdog! To go against the giants, we must choose our stones carefully. We must know where the chinks in the armor of the Goliaths are! We must be quick on our feet, and our timing must be right.

Here’s another image for you. Leonard Cohen is a Jewish Canadian song-writer and singer, and if you have heard his most popular songs, you know that he knows his Hebrew Scripture.

One of those songs is called “Anthem,” and the chorus goes like this:

Ring the bell that still can ring. 

Forget your perfect offering. 

There’s a crack in everything. 

That’s how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen also knew his U.S. American poets well. In fact, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who first said, There’s a crack in everything… that God has made.

Brothers and sisters, we are in the business of finding cracks in the facades of power, and chinks in the armor of the politics and policies that hurt families.

We are in the business of prying open those cracks and shining the light of day on the mechanisms of unilateral power, so the people can see and understand how to affect the process. We cast our smooth stone and bring down the wall that separates people from the decision-making process.

A few years ago, our former governor devised a plan—a tax swap plan. The idea was to eliminate income tax, a tax that asks those who have much to contribute a portion of that to the common good. And the income tax was to be replaced with new sales tax—a tax that asks middle- and low-income people to do more out of the less and little they have.

And the clergy of this state came together across the lines of race and denomination and economic status to confront the plan. It was to us a moral issue, but our moral outrage was not enough!

So we looked for a crack, a chink in the armor of the plan, and we found it in the harm the plan would do—not just to our people—but to small businesses as well. And we used that to enable the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry to stand with us against the plan.

It was the perfect small, smooth stone that felled a Goliath of a plan.

Today is a new day in Louisiana. That’s both good news and bad news. The good news is that we have a new Governor who will meet with us! The bad news is we now have precisely what we stopped in its tracks a few years ago: We have a new penny of sales tax.

I will leave explaining the details of how that happened to those who come after me on the program. For the moment, I want to share with you a moment in our first meeting with Gov. John Bel Edwards.

The Governor was explaining his regret over the new sales tax. Indeed, he told us that he, as a devout Roman Catholic, would have to go to confession before he could properly celebrate Easter.

And at that moment, Rev. Wesley, who was chairing the meeting, gently reminded the Gov. that we had remained silent as the new sales tax was passed. The Gov. thanked us for our silence, and I believe that in that moment, a tentative plan for another half penny of new sales tax.. DIED a timely death.

We are here today, brothers and sisters, to develop our strategy to challenge today’s Goliaths. We must find the chink in the armor of our current tax structure, which is at the moment, moving towards being more regressive. We must select our small, smooth stones carefully, consider timing and look for opportunity.

As God is our witness, we will fell the giants that stand between us and justice!