Advent 4 – Promises, Promises

2 Samuel 7: 1 – 16

Psalm 89: 1 – 4, 19 – 26

Luke 1: 26 – 38

After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him,
 he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent."

 Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you."

That night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying: "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says:

Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.
Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"'

"Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. "'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.
He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.'"
2 Samuel 7:1-16 (NIV)

This reading from 2 Samuel seems like a strange text for the fourth week of Advent. It’s not very Christmas-y is it?  None of our nativity set figures are in it. We don’t sing any carols about it. It seems a strange choice for the lectionary selections for this particular Sunday. Now, I’ve heard plenty of sermons on this week’s text from Luke concerning the annunciation to Mary and her response. It’s a Christmas favorite, after all.  It’s been pictured in art and sung in songs.  And every preacher worth his or her salt has preached from it at some point. But I don’t know that I’ve heard an Advent or Christmas sermon from this story about King David… come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon on this story at all.

Yet one of my favorite biblical scholars, Walter Brueggeman, says that this passage from 2 Samuel 7 may be the most important part of the Old Testament; he says that it is “the dramatic and theological center of the entire Samuel corpus . . . one of the most crucial texts in the Old Testament for evangelical faith.”[i] And if that is the case then it would behoove me to try to understand why. So, for a moment, let’s set aside our expectations.  For a moment let’s forget all the sermons we’ve heard about the angel that came to visit that poor and humble young maid and the announcement she received.  Just for now, let us – you and I – go back, way back, to the legendary King David.

At this point in King David’s story things are going pretty well.  He’s secured his throne from both internal and external forces and he is at rest.  He has secured his kingship against the claims from King Saul’s descendents and followers and he has staved off attacks from the Philistines and, as the narrator of this story tells us, the king was settled and at rest in his palace.

Not a bad life if you can get it.  His palace was built from cedar wood.  Maybe you have a cedar chest at home.  If so, you know how nice that wood smells.  And here we find him, at rest and comfortable in that beautiful palace. But he’s slightly uncomfortable.

One of the things that King David did to secure his rule as king over Israel was bring the Ark of the Covenant from its resting place in Shiloh to the city of Jerusalem.  This is seen by some as an expression of his devotion, but others of a more cynical stripe (myself included) see it as an act of political pragmatism.  Israel, though they’d had a king for some time now, was still more of a loose collection of tribes than a united nation.  Building his palace in and bringing the ark to the city of Jerusalem created a central point in the nation for the people to focus; it brought everyone together, it centralized both the politics and the religion in one place - under King David.

But there was a bit of a PR problem.  The Ark of the Covenant which had always been housed in the tent of the tabernacle was now sitting just down the road from the king’s newly constructed opulent cedar palace.  Suddenly that tabernacle seemed shabby and threadbare by comparison.

"Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent,” King David said to his advisor, the prophet Nathan. It wouldn’t do for the people of Israel to see their king living in greater luxury than their God.  So David did what kings do: he decided to build a house – a temple – for God.

This is what kings do: they build things to impress and to awe. If we jump forward to the time of Jesus again for a moment we remember that King Herod the (not-so) Great knew that the people didn’t really trust him so he initiated numerous and massive building projects – including an extensive remodeling and expansion of the temple in Jerusalem[ii] – to try and curry their favor.

Kings build to awe and impress and to delight their subjects. They build to demonstrate their power and their wealth.  But God wasn’t impressed.  That night God spoke to the prophet Nathan and told him to ask King David this question:

‘When did I ever ask for you – or anyone – to build me a house?’

God was quite content to have the visible symbol of his presence – the Ark of the Covenant – in the tent of the tabernacle.  The tabernacle was mobile.  The tabernacle could travel.  The tabernacle – the tent of God – was among the people. 

Putting it in a permanent house within the king’s capital city was a way to control God and to control the people’s access to God. This temple wasn’t going to be an improvement. 

No. God wasn’t interested in David’s plan to build him a house.  Instead God would build a house for David - that is, God promised that a descendant of David would always be on the throne of Israel - that he would protect and bless the descendants of David as they led the nation of Israel.  But God has more in mind in this promise than simply a Davidic dynasty of kings.  And though the kingship of David and his descendants is legitimized (even blessed by God) in this chapter, our expectations are rebuffed.  Things are not going to proceed as King David expected.  He would not be allowed to build the temple.  [iii]

The years of history have been kind to King David. They glossed over the darker parts of his story - his ruthlessness and political machinations - until he became “the man after God’s own heart.”  He’s become the legendary King David, the beloved hero.  His life makes a great story, doesn’t it?  He’s a winner.  He’s the epitome of the rags-to-riches story:  Obscure farm boy grows up to be great warrior, beloved king and a national hero.  But that’s the whitewashed, sanitized, Sunday-school version.  The real story includes the fact that everyone – everyone – who ever opposed or spoke out against David ended up dead.  He was everything that we, even to this day, despise about politicians. He flattered. He bribed.  He extorted.  He cajoled.  He betrayed.  He manipulated. 

And yet he is remembered as the heroic and beloved warrior-poet-king, and he became the model of messianic expectations.  By the time of Jesus the people of Israel expected their coming messiah, the descendant of David, to be one like David.  They expected him to come in great power, with wealth, and pomp.  They expected the warrior-king who would lead an army to overthrow their Roman oppressors. 

God never wanted a permanent house for the visible symbol of his presence among the people of Israel.  The tabernacle was just right.  It was mobile. It was among the people. It was not built to awe and impress and manipulate the people by a violent warrior king.[iv]

And here we are coming back around to that familiar story of the annunciation to Mary – but we are finding our expectations rebuffed.  The promised descendant of David, the one who would fulfill God’s promise to King David, the one who would sit on an eternal throne would not be what the people expected.

He would not come to impress.  He would not come to awe. He would not come to manipulate. And he would not come with violent military power. He came as a tabernacle and not a temple.

And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 (Young’s Literal Translation)

The Kingdom of God is not like the edifices erected by kings and politicians. It is not flashy and covered with gold. It is given to the humble and the poor. The Kingdom of God is not containable.  It is mobile and moving.  It moves within the people of God, for that is where God is – dwelling among his people. 

 "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”  Revelation 21:3 (NIV)

The Kingdom of God is not built in violence and bloodshed. God refuses this kind of building. His Kingdom is built by a man of peace – the Prince of Peace.  There are no swords in his kingdom.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
Luke 1:29-33 (NIV)

Amen. 

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[i] Walter Brueggemann, I and II Samuel (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), p. 253

[ii]  But just as God wasn’t impressed with David’s plan to build a temple neither was Jesus impressed with Herod’s temple.  When his disciples expressed their awe at the splendor of the temple, Jesus brushed it aside with a prediction of its imminent destruction.

[iii] And even though Solomon was eventually allowed to build this temple – we should remember that it was built with slave labor and excessive taxation of the people.  It was a monument to the Davidic dynasty – not God. 

[iv]  We’re told in 1 Chronicles 22: 7 – 8 that David was prohibited from building the temple because he had been a man of war.