Kensett 4, Searcy 3

The little town in which I grew up, Kensett, had about nine hundred people when I was born.  Today, Kensett and the much larger town of Searcy share a common border.  However, their respective city limits used to lie two or three miles apart.  Kensett was never big enough to have some things Searcy had.  However, it did have Little League baseball – exactly one team.  We didn’t have a league with several teams like larger towns did.  We played in an “inter-town”  league that contained teams from other small towns around the area such as Judsonia, McRae, Bradford, and Pleasant Plains.

 At the end of that year, the Kensett Little League team was invited to the Searcy Little League Tournament.  Searcy would pick an “all- star” team from the teams in their city league and enter that team in their tournament.  Teams from the central part of the state would take part in the tournament.  Of course, all the Kensett boys were hoping to get the chance to play Searcy.

 We won our first couple of games in the tournament and got exactly what we wanted.  Kensett’s next game was against the Searcy All-Stars.  You need to have grown up in a small town to understand how big a deal this game was for all of us boys (and many of the parents) from Kensett.

 A large crowd – many from Kensett, more from Searcy – watched the two teams battle to a 3 - 3 tie through five and one-half innings.  Little League games were six innings and even though we were playing in Searcy, we were the home team on the scoreboard and batted in the bottom of the sixth inning.  I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember the last play of the game.  Chester was on third base, Rodney was batting, Leo was on deck, and I was “in the hole.”  The Searcy pitcher threw a wild pitch, Chester stole home, and Kensett had beaten the Searcy All-Stars 4 - 3!

 Everyone loves an underdog.  For some reason, it makes us feel good to see the weak defeat the strong; to see the small confound the large.  When an underdog takes on a heavy favorite, we use a biblical term to describe it.  We talk about a David versus Goliath match up.  Of all the stories in the Bible, none is probably known and loved by more children and adults than this story.

 Goliath, the man who stood over nine feet tall, would come out daily and challenge the Israelites who were arrayed for battle near the Valley of Elah.  King Saul and all his soldiers were greatly afraid, and no one was willing to accept Goliath’s challenge.  No one, that is, until David showed up.  When Goliath sees the young boy approaching, he is amazed that such a one should be sent to take up his challenge.  After being cursed and ridiculed by the giant, David makes a bold and unyielding statement of faith.

 You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.  This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.

 You know the rest of the story.  David buries a rock in Goliath’s forehead, takes the giant’s sword, and cuts off his head.  The Philistines panic when they see their champion is dead and they are routed by an emboldened Israelite army.  Thus, the story of the world’s best-known underdog is born.

 A fascinating idea is found in David’s response to Goliath.  David makes it very clear to Goliath that, although the battle belongs to God, it is not through the means that make sense to humans.  God doesn’t need human strength or any human weapon to work his will.  Certainly nothing is more powerful than the eternal God, but he sometimes shows himself in people and places where we least expect it.  When Elijah was at Mount Sinai, he didn’t find God in the great wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire.  However, he did hear his voice in the gentle breeze.  In this case, the all-powerful God, not in the frightful, but in the gentle.

 God seems to have an affinity for the underdog.  Look at the incarnation itself!  When God became a man, he came in the weakest of circumstances.  Yet out of those weak circumstances came the salvation made available to all people.  I don’t know about you, but I am glad God likes underdogs because that means God can use anything or anyone to achieve his good will – even the weak and sinful person like me. 

Jim Shelton