(A sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost July 19, 2009 2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)
Well.
After 16 months, this will be my last time speaking to you from this pulpit. I am already half-gone, living in a strange Twilight Zone of saying goodbye in one place while I try to learn the names in another. I spent Friday at the Clam Festival, and in the afternoon I volunteered at the book sale. On a table of dedicated to political science, there sat a hefty volume listing the 100 most influential people in history. A quick perusal of the Table of Contents revealed a surprise about Jesus: he ranked third, after Muhammad and Sir Isaac Newton. The author decided that Muhammad ranked higher because his success came in both the religious and political worlds. Jesus, you see, did not even establish his own religion. St. Paul received the credit for Christianity and came in at number six.
It reminds us that evaluating people and systems is an entirely subjective act. It’s impossible not to bring our own prejudices and experiences and loyalties and preferences into the mix. We look at a situation and imagine how it ought to be handled, and some of us throw ourselves right in to try and fix or establish or renovate or contain, or to perform whatever vibrant act seems appropriate.
I have to confess that I came to work here last year with a lot of ideas about what you could do or ought to try, and when the downturn in the economy shook things up last summer I drew up a revised mental list, and when other things shifted I created another. I’m nothing if not adaptable. I considered your possibilities and I told you openly and subtly in as many ways as I knew how something that I believe with all my heart. No matter how pretty the windows, no matter how familiar the architecture, no matter how beautiful the organ music, there is more to being church than being in a building. It’s not the building that matters. It’s the community within the building that expresses God’s love. You might think I picked today’s Hebrew Bible lesson to illustrate just that point, to lay it before you one last time. But in truth, I might have hesitated to go there with you once more, except that the story is today’s lectionary reading.
We don’t know what kind of house God will make out of this church. This is not the first location for this congregation and it may not be the last. And God is not interested in being indoors with you in one particular place. We might draw any of those conclusions from today’s story about David the King and Nathan the Prophet.
They were on new ground with one another, these two. David, after many heroic exploits, is now the King of both Israel and Judah, and he wisely chooses to consolidate his power in a new capitol, Jerusalem. In the tradition of kings, he will take on an advisor, a prophet to help him figure out whether he is on the right path as far as God is concerned. As you heard last Sunday, David arrived in triumph in Jerusalem, dancing into the new city to usher in the Ark of the Covenant, that holiest of treasures belonging to the people of God, their assurance that God would be always with them.
To show his authority and power and confidence and importance, David plans to build a palace of cedar in which he will live. For a people accustomed to living in tents, this made a statement of intent to stay in one place. Naturally David took the next step in his mind and decided to build a Temple in which to place the Ark containing the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The Ark, like the people, had traveled from one place to another, sheltered by tents, quickly moved in case of danger, guarded carefully and carried only by a particular family of priests. This container of holiness could finally rest.
Nathan, new at this prophet gig, gave his approval.
And suddenly a story about David becomes a story about Nathan, doesn’t it?
But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in?
I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" (2 Samuel 7:4-7, NRSV)
But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan. I don’t know about you, but I find that mildly terrifying! The word of the Lord came to Nathan—how? A dream? An angel? A voice in the darkness?
I had a dream once that I stood in an enormous, formal sanctuary in a church with a high chancel, in which a group of tall men presided, while at the same time a friend and I prepared round Communion tables suited to groups of 8 or 10 people, right on the sanctuary floor. The word of the Lord? Holy, holy, holy! My heart beat so hard it woke me!
I imagine Nathan’s heart beating right out of his chest. This is a new relationship with David, with a King who can get rid of him pretty easily at this stage of the game. And he is supposed to ask, “Are you the one?”
Are you the one to build a Temple for the Ark? The very question is full of disrespect. What right have you to think you would be the one?
Well, I am a hero, and I am the general, and I am the victor, and I am the King. David might have said all these things in response.
I find it fascinating that God puts both Nathan and David in this position from the beginning of their relationship. David receives some humbling news. Not only does God not want him to build a Temple, not only does God revel in the freedom of living in a tent, not only does God make it clear that God is the one in charge of establishing David's house, but someday, there will be a Temple, and David will not be the one to build it.
Are you the one?
It’s an occupational hazard for religious leaders, thinking we can be everything to everyone. It may lead to overwork and burn-out, or it may lead to neglect of family time, or it may lead, as a pastor in another state once said, to many hours a day zoned out in front of computer solitaire. We may forget that ministry belongs to all of us. We may forget that even Jesus tried to get out in the boat for a break now and then. We may forget that there are jobs to be left for the next generation, or even the next one in the job to accomplish.
We may be far too inclined to answer the question, “Are you the one?” with a resounding “Yes!”
In the gospel lesson, Jesus tries to get some rest for himself and for his disciples, and there is no question that we hear our own church members saying they feel worn out with working hard. We might wish we could get out there on the boat with them and rest. But in this passage there will be no rest for them, because the people who want help from Jesus and attention from his followers find them wherever they go. They seek a deserted place and are found. They cross to the other side and are found again.
“And Jesus had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd."
Worn out and hungry himself, he fed their spirits. In the verses we skipped today, he made dinner for five thousand men out of just a few loaves and fishes, feeding the people in body, too. He loved them too much to say no. He loves us that much today.
The really good news about Jesus is that even though he got tired out when he lived among us in human form, he has long since transcended the box of a body. The really good news about God is that under a tent or in a Temple or even with the Ark who knows where now, no container can hold the Divine Source of All Love.
Today we end our season of worship together, but in the greater scheme of things, it’s just one more Sunday in the life of this gathered body of Christ’s people. I came to you with a list of things I thought you might do, and I adjusted the list as we went along, but in the end, my list doesn’t matter. What matters is how you go on together and how you listen together for God’s words and guidance. What matters is how you receive Christ’s compassion and live in God’s love. What matters is how you reach out with compassion to share that love with those who need it most. When you do, whether you meet in a palace of cedar or a tent where the wind blows through, you will be the ones who build God’s House. Amen.
