Charles Kutz-Marks preaching

Building a House for God

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Pentecost, b, July 23, 2006

This Sunday and next we will peek into the life and the thinking of the greatest King in the history of Israel, King David.  There was absolutely no other leader in the history of Israel, and other than Moses himself, who rose to the stature of King David. 

But like Moses, David is never elevated beyond a humanity that we can easily relate to, either.  Both this Sunday and next Sunday we get insight into the thinking and the actions of David that put him in a very human light as he makes some serious errors in judgment. 

But before we try to understand any of the details of what's taking place in today's passage, we need to have little bit of historical background.  As is the case in most reading of Scripture- and especially in the Hebrew Scriptures - we discover that we cannot simply look at the text on the face of it and understand its meaning.  We have to put all this in historical context in order to make sense of it.

You will remember the early, formative days of the Hebrew people;

Arising as a distinct people through their oppressive slavery in Egypt; then  their miraculous escape from Egypt;

but even more so through their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai.  As a tribal and nomadic people, the internal government that they were comfortable with, was attuned to their situation in life.  Moses was in charge.  He appointed leaders for various roles.  It was a simple, lean organization.

Once the Hebrews began taking over the land of the Canaanites and settling down in Palestine, they spread over a wider geographical area and their circumstances changed so much that it was almost inevitable that their organizational life would have to change as well.  The Book of Judges describes how YHWH raised up a series of judges to guide the Israelites, to resolve disputes, to punish or reward both community members and outsiders, and to determine community directions.

For many this was the ideal arrangement.  Judges, inspired by God and devoted to God, were a spiritually empowered leadership.  They were often more interested in pleasing God than with their judgments looking good.  So there is one strain of thinking that runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that yearns to go back to the “good old days” of the Judges, seeing it as a more faithful way of life than what would follow.

Do remember in Judges 8 when Gideon has just amazed the Israelites with his military achievements?

8:22  Then the Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also; for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian."  Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you."

Everywhere we look in the records of these early settlers is the fervent hope that somehow God will directly guide them.  Time and again, the Biblical authors are promoting a view that says there is a charismatic leadership that can’t be organized.  It is the movement of the Spirit.

But a change did come, and today’s reading today in 2nd Samuel Chapter 7 takes up right where Israel is discovering how this kingship business works; what God thinks of it; what changes are in the wind.

We are in the midst of an enormous transition.  A nomadic people is becoming settled population.  A small group is becoming a large-even national-entity.  And of this local upstart of a shepherd boy, this ruddy face curly haired David has become the most powerful figure.

But we must take another look around in order to understand what is transpiring.  Surely the Israelites were very conscious of their neighbors.  They could look to the west and south and see what the mighty Egyptian empire looked like.  It was natural for them to want to emulate what they saw.  The grandeur of the massive Egyptian monuments, the tombs of the Egyptian Pharaoh, the pyramids, the colossal civic structures, that these Israelites’ ancestors had actually had a hand in constructing when they had been enslaved to provide their labor.  Grand Egypt had its great king

To the east the great power of the day was Assyria.  Assyria held sway during much of the time the Bible was written.  The enormous power of that Empire - that was centered in modern day Iraq – was both concentrated in and symbolized by their great and terrible warrior King.

The Israelites were forming a nation and they wanted to look like a nation.  Many Israelites thought that they needed a king, too.   David was the supreme warrior among them, a charismatic leader of soldiers, and a bright tactician.  Most of all, this David had an abiding love for his God.  The people wanted him king!  Some of the people did, at least.  Here the Biblical witness is not of one mind of this one, though.  Listen to the words of 1 Samuel 8:4ff:

4  Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah,

5  and said to him, "You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations."

6  But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to govern us." Samuel prayed to the LORD,

7  and the LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

8  Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you.

9  Now then, listen to their voice; only--you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them."

So in is in this context but complete with a tension that would abide with and the Israelites consciousness for generations between those who thought having a king was a mistake and those who believed that having a king like all of the other nations was necessary.

In today’s 2 Samuel lesson, King David is he is wondering whether or not it is a good idea to build God a house, the Hebrew word is bet.  Through all of their wanderings in the wilderness the Hebrew people carried the Ark of the Covenant symbolizing the actual presence of Yahweh with them.  Now that they were settled in the city of Jerusalem as the power center of their new nation, it just made perfect sense to David that this would be an appropriate act, to take the Ark out of the tent that housed it and build God a proper house. 

The prophet Nathan appears for the first time in this story.  At first he of grants David a blessing to go ahead and build this house for God.  But that very evening the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying that God was not interested in having David build him a house.  Yahweh reminds David in this communication from Nathan that God always has traveled with the Hebrew people for generations and led them and their struggles against enemies, granted them fruitful lives.  YHWH wants no a house that David would build.

Instead God says, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be his father and he shall be my son. "  Just a couple of verses later we hear, “And your house –your “bet”- and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before.” In the original Hebrew this is a clever word play with Yahweh  and David using the same word “house”, bet, to refer to David’s house, a hypothetical house of God, and then in verse 16, David’s “house” is referring to David’s lineage as we might say the House of Saud, the House of Roosevelt, or the House of Bush.

*

          Now, as Christians, we recognize this passage as the very first promise of a lineage that will pass through King David all the way to the Messiah that we claim as Jesus the Christ, our Lord.  We see in Jesus’ supremacy the fulfillment of God’s promise.

          But there is more for us here.  First, I think we can recognize that uneasy shock that David experienced when he - acting out of the best of motives to build God a proper house- discovered that following common sense is not always the way to honor God.  God didn’t want the house.  Sometimes listening to a prophet is called for.

          We might also come to see that God was not only interested in building a wholesome house out of David.  God wants that for us, too.  God wants to build you and me a house.  Yes, a sanctuary, such as this which God built by inspiring many brave souls in the generation that preceded us to pledge, and give, and invest in this magnificent church home – our bet- that we are to be stewards of for our leg of the great Christian relay race.

          But far more than this physical house, we are together here as a congregation, a church, and we are directly addressed by 1 Pet. 2:4-5, 9-10:

4  Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and

5  like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

9  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

          We are God’s house.  We, together as a congregation and also individually, are God’s temple. 1Cor. 3:16ff:

16  Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

1. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

God says that we are holy, that we are the vehicle God is using now to manifest God’s divine love, and mercy, God’s forgiveness, and God’s peace.  We are to be that light of holiness shining brightly for all to see. 

Last week we installed and dedicated our new church leaders for the year stretching out ahead of us.  This morning our youth and their leaders began their mission trip to Arkansas.   I guess it is time for all the rest of us to roll up our sleeves and get to it, too, with God’s guidance and help building ourselves into a house for God.