Camping Out
2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

July 23, 2006


I am certain now that King David of Israel had to be United Church. You see, most of the Biblical narrative runs at break neck speed, things happening and being described in extremely concise and terse forms. Skip over a sentence and you may well have missed the crucial event of a year. Of course, we are reading a narrative in real time. The description of the Biblical events and its people wastes no breath, and there are no hesitations, no barking up the wrong trees allowed. You know what God wants you to do, you do it, or you are left behind, left out, left field.

That’s not the way we like to do religion and faith. We take our time, put out the coffee and tea, in England a few other beverages, and talk about it. In the Bible because something soul-threatening is always on the verge of happening there is no time to talk about it. Except for David, and here we listen in on a thoroughly United Church-ethos conversation between the King and his minister, the prophet Nathan. All the wars of accession to the throne in Jerusalem are over, no foreign enemies are threatening at the gates, not even any Ba‘al worshipers sneaking about seducing the faith of the faithful. It was a time to lay back and enjoy the kingdom of God, and to talk out loud and think about religion.

David turns to Nathan and throws out an idea. “You know, I live in this wonderful space, a house of cedar, and we’ve got God in a box!” Sure, the box was the Ark of the Covenant and anyone who has seen Indiana Jones knows it wasn’t a slovenly container, gold-laden at that, charged somehow with a stunning current for the unsuspecting and skeptical. David wasn’t in any real distress, but it was a good liberal thought, complete with a little bit of self-flagellation.

Since all is going really well in the Israelite world, Nathan responds in the same relaxed tone of voice. “I can see you are thinking, so keep on thinking and act upon it, because certainly God is with you now.” This is the way we want the world to run: a successful benevolent leader comes up with a good idea and his most trusted advisor encourages him to run with it.

But that very same night, a Divine ‘But’ was communicated to Nathan, successor to Samuel. The Word of the Lord came to Nathan. We don’t really know for sure what exactly happened when the Word of the Lord came to a prophet or leader, but they never seemed to mistake or misinterpret it. This is why Nathan is a prophet: he has the ability and the grace to receive such Words of the Lord and the message is meant for David. A lot of people want to claim that skill - especially if they have a television program - but the Word of the Lord has always had a rarity about its occurrences.

Go tell David, my servant, “Are you the one who is going to build a house for me to live in?” I have never had lived in a house since I brought the Israelites up out of slavery from Egypt. I have always moved around in a tent and I am more than satisfied. Did I ever say to anyone that I needed a proper house of cedar? All those other dead religions that worship non-existent deities build sanctuaries of the greatest materials, the most opulent and obvious wealth. Who do you think they are promoting - the glory of their gods or their own magnificent self-importance? I don’t need a place to live; I am Life and the One Who Lives. Life doesn’t stay put, it keeps moving and changing and evolving. I am always on the move, so what made you think you could give me an address? When you pin a god down to a specific place, when you define what and who a god is supposed to be and do, then that god is no longer God, just a figment of your imagination. You can’t do that to me anyway, so listen now to what I am going to do with you.

I have brought you up from being an insignificant shepherd and you certainly have had your travails. Now I want to concentrate on building up your house, the house of David. I want to make all the world know that there is a kingdom that operates with the Lord God as its king. That’s going to take a lot of work, and if you get everybody distracted with some beautiful edifice, then they will be ... distracted and forget about what is important going on inside the hearts and lives of people and their society. Oh, I’ll get around to a nice sanctuary eventually; but let’s allow your son to get the glory much later on. I am going to establish for you a house that won’t fall down because of crumbling stones. That’s going to take up all of our time for now.

Others have pointed out that the reason David and Nathan got carried away with their good idea about a Temple for the Lord was because they forgot or didn’t think they needed to pray, to be in the presence of God’s consciousness. So once Nathan heard the Word and once David heard it relayed to him, they knew. They knew they had made themselves gods for a few moments, in all innocence and purity, we should grant them. So now David goes back to the Lord in prayer and doesn’t whine or complain. He gives thanks to God for remembering him and for remembering Israel. There is no one like you; there is no God besides you. And what other nation on earth is like Israel whom you have redeemed and established in your name and ways? You’ve got ideas for me, Lord, don’t let me stop you. Give me your grace so that I can get out of your way.

It is this relatively placid inner exchange that Walter Brueggemann, the United Church Old Testament scholar from Missouri, as the centre of the Samuel story and one of the most crucial Old Testament texts for evangelical faith. Not the mighty battle, but the still small voice shapes and bends us most permanently inside where it counts. This is theology, make no mistake, for theology’s first task is to enable us to recognize where we start. God starts with us, not the other way around. Too many people believe that our agenda starts with the world and God comes along for the ride. David, for now, has that figured out. Wait for the next installment. David is human, all too human. So are we, come to think of it!

We’ve got a God who prefers to camp out, never getting stuck in any one locale, living in a way we can’t comprehend in every locale. Wherever there is life, God is camping out because God is what lives.

Let’s not get swallowed up in that typical United Church plaint about having marvelous sanctuaries like this one when there are so many other problems out there in the world. We did not build this space; it has been given, handed down to us, and we are expected to use it for the building of God’s kingdom. We certainly do use it and know we don’t use it enough. But if we get caught up in the debate about buildings it just another version of David’s dream of a grand temple. You haven’t solved anything if you think by selling your building or meeting in a public facility that you have established the kingdom of God here. God is already busy building us, this church - this gathered company of saints, people set apart to be something beautiful for God, to live as full human beings whose very breath is love breathing life into those who are gasping for breath and for love.

God initiates a lot of loves and builds in our inner mansions rooms for love’s sake. Yet, as befits the quiet interlude, this pregnant pause in all the turbulent action of David and his companions, may we never devalue the virtue of living together uniquely as servants of God who love and serve one another in ways the world doesn’t even want to imagine, yet alone busy itself doing. As we live among one another as the people singularly called by God, it is now that we are living in God’s tent, always on the move.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan