In the name of God-
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last week, you’ll recall, we took a look at King David.
He is a flawed and tragic character, and yet, it is through his throne that the
Messiah comes. We heard the story last Sunday of how David repeatedly used God
for his own purposes, most notably in relocating the Ark of the Covenant to
force those in opposition to him to support his new regime. If that was strike
one, then today we get strike two. I’ll be on vacation next Sunday and won’t be
here, but strike three comes next Sunday.
It is important though that we understand the story of
King David, because it says a lot about our faith that the Messiah’s throne is
seen in continuity with David’s. He is a very conflicted person, just like many
of us. There are actually two version of the story in the Bible. In the books
of First and Second Kings and First and Second Samuel, which we’ve been
reading, we get something closer to the whole truth. But also in the Old
Testament are the books of First and Second Chronicles, which are often
described as revisionist history. The author of Chronicles is concerned with
keeping the reputation of David, and therefore the Davidic throne, untainted.
Can the heroes of our faith be flawed?
It’s a debate that we’re having in our country, and just
a block away from our front steps. When history is full of sins, do we
whitewash over it, or do we preserve that history, even at the risk of
offending others? What is more important- the person of King David or the Davidic Kingship? Or in modern terms- how do we honor those who fought
for what they thought was right while at the same time humbly confessing that
what they fought for was indeed, very wrong?
This is the great philosophical debate- Which is
preferred: doing the right thing for the wrong reason or doing the wrong thing
for the right reason? Or, put into the vernacular of Christian ethics, it’s
orthodoxy versus orthopraxy; that is, thinking the right thing or doing the
right thing. To answer that question, we have to spend time in discernment to
see whether or not we are appealing to our own sense of right and wrong, or
God’s sense of justice, love, and mercy. David’s
error was that he doesn’t seem to have spent any time in discernment. He’s relocated
the Ark to Jerusalem and was settled in his own house and decides that, for his
new holy city to be complete, a Temple would be a nice finishing touch. And
this was a diversion from Jewish history. Archeologists haven’t really found
any monumental architecture in ancient Israel before the kingship was
established. And there is a reason for that- remember, Israel is a movement of
escaped slaves who worship a God who lives in a tent. If you’re going to have
monuments, and walled cities, thrones, and temples, then it means that you have
to have a human lord who is not the Lord
God in order to maintain them.
And throughout Scripture, God makes it clear that God
isn’t interested in a Temple. The first thing that God says after giving the
Ten Commandments in the wilderness is “And your offerings of well-being, your
sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I
will come to you and bless you. But if you make for me an altar of stone, do
not build it of hewn stones; for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it.”
The Prophet Isaiah records “Thus says the Lord:
Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you
would build for me, and what is my resting place?” and in today’s reading, God
asks “When did I ever say to you, ‘Why have you not built me a house of
cedar?’”
But it seems that David didn’t spend much time in prayer
or discernment about this. David seems to be primarily concerned with building
his kingdom, forgetting that God is the true King. For those of us who are the
proactive types, who are quick to act and ask questions later, let this passage
be a reminder that sometimes if we act with too much haste we might end up doing
the right thing for the wrong reason, or even worse, doing the wrong thing for
the wrong reason. It’s also worth pointing out that David never builds the
Temple, that happens under the next king, Solomon.
And in this lack of discernment, it appears that God
becomes an afterthought to David. It’s the question of first fruits. If God is
the true king of Israel, it would seem that God’s Temple would be built before
the king’s palace. It’s a sin that hasn’t gone away- we put our own agendas
before God’s. Are we, at first,
givers or takers? David seems to be primarily concerned with establishing his
throne and the holy city, and he probably even convinced himself that he was
doing the right thing- that this would give glory to God.
But God
really doesn’t seem to want a house. God is quite content living in a tent. God
seems to be more content being worshiped than enshrined. David, though, has
backed himself into a corner. Given that he’s living in a nice house, he can’t
really justify God’s presence being confined in a tent. This is one of the most
important aspects of stewardship- that we give to God before things get out of
hand. You’ll often hear about the idea of taking the first ten percent of your
net income and giving it to the church or charity. I don’t happen to think that
there’s anything magical about the ten percent figure, but it’s a good number
because it takes some sacrifice and planning, and keeps the rest of our budget
in check. If David had built a Temple for God first, I wonder how that might
have changed things?
The
problem that so many Americans are facing is that their lifestyles are out of
control, and they have the debt to prove it. When we start with ourselves, we
can never get enough and so we want more and more because we’re always looking
to satisfy our desires. But when we start with God, we realize that we still
have enough to survive, and even thrive. If we start with our anxieties and
desires, we will find scarcity; if we start with God, we will find an
abundance. This is hard to do though when we’ve already got a mortgage, and a
car payment, and student loan debt, and the list goes on and on. Money is an
incredibly powerful tool in our world, and it will absolutely enslave you if
you let it. The way to make sure that you have control over your money instead
of it having control over you is to give it away. Perhaps you’re only giving
two percent right now, and that’s okay; make it three next month, and grow from
there. If God is a second thought, then we’ll end up serving another god. And
when it comes to your life, your salvation, your healing, what name will you
call on?
I think
one of the most powerful aspects of this story is that God says “fine, build me
a house if that’s what you want.” God love us so much that God isn’t going to
abandon us, even if we are bull-headed and put our desires above God’s. We
can’t scare God off or make God so mad that we will be rejected, and that’s
Good News if I’ve ever heard any. But there’s a great twist to the story.
Unfortunately, our English translation obscures the great irony and word play
that is going on in this passage. In Hebrew, the word bayit is used throughout this passage. And bayit means “house,” but to the fullest extent of that word. A bayit could be house that you live in,
so a dwelling place. But a bayit can
also mean a house, as in a house of worship, so a temple. And a bayit can also mean house as in a royal
house, that is a dynasty. So David is sitting in his bayit, meaning “house,” and decides to build God a bayit, meaning “temple,” but then God
says, “no, I’m going to make you a bayit,”
meaning “dynasty.”
It is a
reminder that the question is not about what we do for God, but rather what God
is doing through us. One theologian said that it’s not that we have a mission
to fulfill as much as it is that God’s mission has us to fulfill it. I know we
all want to serve God and we want to do things to more fully bring God’s
Kingdom to fruition on earth as it is in heaven, but, in light of this reading,
the bigger emphasis is God’s action, not ours.
CS Lewis
offers the following parable that might help us to think more deeply about
this. Imagine yourself as a living house, and God comes in to do a renovation.
At first, perhaps, you can understand what God is doing. God is getting the
drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. God is working to
transform you, and you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not
surprised. But then God starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts a
bit and does not seem to make sense. “What on earth is God up to?”, you ask.
The explanation is that God is building quite a different house from the one
you thought of- throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there,
running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made
into a decent little cottage, but God is building a palace. And God intends to
come and live in it.
God is
making you into a bayit, a part of
God’s dynasty. What is God building through you? Have you noticed that God is
working in you? What rooms are being added? What experiences have you had that
might be preparing you for ministry? What strengths do you have that might turn
into a foundation for God?
Our
passage from Second Samuel ends today with “I will establish the throne of his
kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”
Through all the renovations, God will be with us. Even if we don’t do all the
discernment that we should, even if we don’t give our first fruits to God, even
if our plans are the opposite of what God intends- God will not abandon us. Of
course, it would be preferential to be aligned with God from the start, but
even if we’re not, God won’t give up on us. Some people describe God’s actions
as sound waves, and when we align our actions to resonate with God, we will
make even more beautiful music. But if our lives are dissonant with God, that
doesn’t mean that God’s song of love can’t be heard, it just makes it harder to
hear over the cacophony of life. How might you offer your first fruits to God? What
are you discerning that God is building in your life? Our hope and strength is
found in that we do not do this work alone- as the Psalmist proclaims, “surely
God’s goodness and mercy shall follow be all the days of my life, and I shall
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Thanks be to God.
