A Home for God
Message Preached at Wyoming Park UMC
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
July 19, 2009
In July we are talking about the theme of traveling; it’s a kind of summer-time theme, assuming that vacations happen in summer, and some day the economy will turn around and normal people will once again enjoy some of the wonderful opportunities for travel in our own state and elsewhere.
What we’ve been trying to say is this series of messages, is that even when things are tough all around, we have a God who provides everything we need. We dare not forget that God provides.
So we come to this story in 2 Samuel.
King David had moved the Ark of the Covenant to his city, Jerusalem, and he has now settled into his residence, which even by ancient standards was no doubt a luxurious palace. It was made of cedar, and that wasn’t easy to get around there. You had to go to Lebanon for it, and employ craftsmen from Tyre to build a house like that.
So he is resting after his victories, getting settled into his nice house. And being a very pious King, David begins to think pious thoughts. You might even say he is feeling a bit of pious anxiety, living in a stately house while the Ark lies neglected in a tent: “Here I am living in this fine house of cedar, and there is the Ark of the Covenant, our symbol of God with us, resting in a tent. It’s just not right.
On the one hand this is a good thought. It has the mark of a genuine gift from a thankful king for the good fortune he believes God brought him. David is feeling secure in his power, feeling thankful and pious about the good things that he is experiencing; he has been blessed, and so he wants to give something to God.
So David tells his prophet friend Nathan what he wants to do for God: he wants to build God a house to live in. Nathan answers spontaneously in agreement: “Yea, good idea; go for it king.”
But…you gotta love the scriptures. One simple phrase turns a whole story upside down. “But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan…”
God speaks to Nathan, and says “Tell David ‘thanks, tell but no thanks’. I have been with you ever since you left Egypt, moving about in a tent; I never asked for anything more than that. Didn’t need it then, don’t need it now.”
Moreover, I’m going to build you a house. Your name and your sons’ name will be on the throne of Israel forever.
Two things and then I go to camp: (I know, it’s usually three things, but I’m anxious to get to camp).
1. We can’t improve on God’s provisions. If this sounds slightly familiar, it should. It is exactly the problem that God had with Adam and Eve in creation. Do you remember? God explained they had everything they needed, but they didn’t trust that, and tried the forbidden fruit from the one tree God had told them to avoid. They couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Human beings have been trying to improve on God’s provisions since the very beginning, and it doesn’t ever work out.
2. We can’t locate God according to our needs. Building a house for God was David’s agenda, not God’s.
Once we fix a location for worshipping God, we can get lulled into believing that the space within the walls is God’s real, maybe God’s sole stomping grounds.
God will not be limited to a fixed location. When we impose restrictions on God’s freedom of movement, we leave ourselves vulnerable to a form of idolatry: We worship something we created, instead of worshipping the creator.
And it’s not just in buildings where we are tempted to confine God.
Sometimes we confine God to heaven. Most of us have had at one time or another, an image of God sitting on a throne in heaven, ruling from on high.
God is somewhere “out there” beyond the clouds, as if on some lofty perch, away from us, watching our comings and goings in a detached sort of way with a telescope. That idea doesn’t feel very comforting to me.
Or maybe we coop God up in our churches, “sacred barracks” as someone has said. Once inside our doors, you really find God, Buildings mean furniture, and furniture means symbols, and symbols – if we are not careful – become the essence of God. While the furniture and the decorations and the physical appointments we add to church buildings are important reminders of God, they are still only reminders. They are to be valued, but not worshipped.
Reminds me of the story a friend of mine tells – he’s a Lutheran pastor in a fairly “high church” setting – very formal liturgy…and once he was conducting a tour of the sanctuary with a pre-school Sunday school class. One of the tykes had made himself this pastor’s assistant, and clung to his side all the while they walked from place to place, noting the pews, the windows, the baptismal, the pulpit.
The altar in this church was a large, formidable solid piece of wood, massive in weight and size. When they got to the altar my friend was about to explain the purpose of it, and this self-appointed assistant piped up, “I know what that is. That’s the box where you keep Jesus.”
No doubt the pastor’s turning to and from the altar as he prayed had planted this idea into the mind of this young-un.
Or maybe we are prone to localize God to our own land, slipping into a habit of thinking that God is our way of life, our national destiny. Without even meaning to, we can come to believe that it is only here, on this plot of earth, that the Almighty pitches tent, within the boundaries of “this nation under God.” It’s not a huge leap from that, to concluding that we are God’s favored children.
God is found in moments of worship in our churches, and in our other sacred private places, and in searching the Holy Scriptures, in choir songs, and hymns ancient and new, in gatherings like this, or in a small and simple gathering with old friends.
But here’s the thing – God keeps surprising us over and over again, by stepping into your life and mine, even when we least expect it.
This brings us back to David, who wanted to build a house for God. He had good intentions; he was grateful for what God had done for him.
But God said to Nathan, “tell David thanks but no thanks.”
Instead God preferred, and I believe still prefers another kind of house – mysteriously – still the house of David. But a spiritual one – a dynasty kind of house.
This is the house of David that you and I belong to as we trace our spiritual roots back through someone who introduced us to God in Jesus Christ; back through the one who introduced that one, who introduced that one, and so on…all the way back to a young woman who lived in Nazareth, engaged to her beloved, and who like Nathan the prophet, received a message from God; a message regarding the place where God wanted to make his home – Mary’s heart.
And so it is – no box, no place however well-intentioned and beautiful, is able to limit God’s freedom of movement.
And that means that we had better be ready to have God appear right under our noses, lest we miss the chance of a lifetime to see God face to face.
One of the reasons I go to camp every year is because I have learned that God shows up there in a big way. Others have learned that a week living in Christian community is an opportunity for God in Christ to go to work in people. True – it takes place in a particular spot: Lake Michigan Camp near Pentwater, Wesley Woods near Battle Creek, Crystal Springs near Dowagiac, Lakeview Camp near – Lakeview; Albright Camp near Reed City, Lake Louise near Boyne Falls, and even Duncan Lake Middle School in Caledonia. (Who says God isn’t alive in public schools?)
But when all is said and done, the camp location isn’t the main thing. The campground or school building is the tent where the people of God live for a week or so; and it’s the community of faith that reveals the living God; it’s the people where the resurrected Christ finds a home.
It’s the family of God, even the family gathered here at Wyoming Park Sunday after Sunday – this is the house that God has built for us.
