Safe as houses! That’s what we say, isn’t it! Here at the start of 2 Samuel 7, David is feeling safe as houses. He has, as we mentioned last week, been declared king over all Israel, he has captured Jerusalem and made it his capital, he has acquired more concubines and wives, and is having more sons and daughters, he has decisively defeated the Philistines, and he has brought – with some delay – the ark of God into Jerusalem, and – feelings safe as houses – he has been gifted (chapter 5), by King Hiram of Tyre, an actual house – a fancy house (i.e. palace) of cedar.
So, he decides – Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says this is part royal-aggrandisement and part genuine piety – that if he is living in a house of cedar it’s a bad look for the ark of God to still be housed in a tent, and begins to draw up – at least in his head – building plans for a house for God.
We don’t always feel safe as houses! Perhaps when a software bug causes an unprecedented global IT crash. Perhaps when our work or financial plans or relationships or our health are uncertain and unstable. Perhaps when the physical structures we live in actually fall down around our ears.
Thinking about this reading, about the building of buildings for God, I have been reminded of my 2019 Pastor’s Retreat that was held in Christchurch, New Zealand, and about the very different buildings we visited that churches there were building following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes.
On the 4th of September 2010, the pastor of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Chris Chamberlain (I’ll just say it like a New Zealander once – Chris Chamberlain) guessed from the initial reports that the church would be deemed unsafe. It was a good assessment. They moved into a temporary worship space and made plans to repair the front façade, but with the second earthquake, on the 22nd of February 2011, the side walls fell outwards, and the roof collapsed taking the façade with it. On that first morning, however, Chris says it only took a few minutes before he began thinking about the possibilities for a new and very different church building.
2 Samuel 7 is a significant passage in the Old Testament Perhaps the most significant, according to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. It shores up the house of David as rulers of Judah for the next 350 years, and for us, as Christians, says that Jesus, who belongs to the Davidic line, is the fulfilment of the promise here; verse 16, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” And it is a passage entirely built on the word ‘house’ (bayit in Hebrew) and three different meanings of the word ‘house’; the house that King Hiram built for David (vv. 1-2); the house that David wanted to build for God (vv. 5, 6, 7, and 13); and the house – the dynastic house – that God makes of David (vv. 11, 16, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, and 29 (twice)).
What is most surprising about this passage, considering all we know about God being with David and blessing David, is that God says no to David’s plans.
Firstly, God says, no, because you are not the one I have chosen to do this. Verse 5, “Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in?”
No. David is not the one. And this passage, at least, gives us very little reason for why.
We might be tempted, having just read of David’s conflict with Michal, to lay the blame at his failure to bless his own house. If those cedar walls could talk, what would they say? Or his mixed motivations in bringing the ark to Jerusalem and now wanting to build it a grand home. 1 Kings 5:3-5 tells us David was kept too busy fighting wars to build God’s house, and 1 Chronicles 22:8 and 28:3 builds on this, saying he had fought too many wars and shed too much blood to build God’s house.
But none of these reasons are found here. We are not told David is too violent or too sinful or too flawed a human being to build God’s house. In fact, verse 14 tells us that David’s offspring will also commit iniquity; and that God will punish him but, verse 15, “I will not take my steadfast love from him.” This could be simply royal propaganda – differentiating the house of David from the house of Saul – or God’s promise to the very human – sinful and faithful – David; as it is God’s promise to each one of us! As it says in Romans 5:6 and 8, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.… God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
No, God does not reject David because he is weak and sinful. Just as God does not reject us because we are weak and sinful. In 2 Samuel 7, God simply choses someone else to build the temple. While David, verse 8, has been chosen to go “from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel” and “I have been with you,” says God.
As you enter the worship space of the new Oxford Terrace Baptist Church there is an alcove in which sits the baptistry. When not in use, it’s top is a water fountain, a constant reminder that none of us have clean hands and pure hearts, but through the grace of God, the forgiveness of God, the steadfast love of God, marked by the washing away of our sin in baptism, we can stand in God’s holy place. We can play our part in the household of God, as Ephesians 2 says, the dwelling place for God.
And above the baptistry in that alcove, is what the Maori call a whakapapa (literally in English to ‘place in layers’ or ‘create a foundation’) the names of all those who connect you – in this case – of those who connect you to the household of God or as the verse says there, “the great cloud of witnesses”. The cloud of witnesses which David and Nathan the prophet – the prophet who also gets it wrong and has to admit his mistake – are among.
Secondly, God says no to David building him a house because God has always been – to borrow the business language of today – agile. God has, verse 6, “moved about in a tent and a tabernacle”; verse 7 “moved about among all the people of Israel.” There is a hint here again that David should not attempt to contain or control God and God’s blessings by bringing the ark to Jerusalem. It is God, 2 Samuel 7 says, who will plant the nation and bring them rest from their enemies. It is God who will – rather than David building God a house – build David into a house; a house that will last and bless and house others forever.
There is something of this agility, and this evident desire to bless others, about the new Oxford Terrace Baptist Church. Entering the foyer, it is light and open and there are multipurpose rooms to the left and right, larger and smaller spaces that can be used for different groups. The architect who designed the building described it as ‘a modern-day monastery’ – a place where people are living, working and worshipping together. (And having a laugh together! I particularly enjoyed the signs that were posted throughout the building; like this one pointing the way to the church office, “Obey your leaders and submit to them – for they are keeping watch over your souls.” Hebrews 13:17. And this one for the lift, “He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” Luke 24:51. I might save the toilet sign for Sunday to Sunday this week!)
Other churches, too, had adopted the same elements of open, light, multipurpose spaces. This is The Village, the Presbyterian Church Community Centre, with rooms that can be closed off on the side, and a central space where the only permanent furniture is a large communal table. And this is All Souls Anglican Church built on the same principles.
We are fortunate not to have experienced an earthquake. Though we have gone through a pandemic and, I think, and I am so grateful to God and the faithful people of this church, navigated all those changes with great agility and a great desire to bless one another. And so, in any new changes, developments with the Association or new initiatives in mission – whatever form our desire to bless others takes – I am confident that our agile God will be with us.
Another feature of the new buildings we saw in Christchurch was that they acknowledged the real grief and pain of the events of 2010-2011.
This is a plaque outside the Christchurch Chinese Methodist Church remembering a member who died among the 115 people who lost their lives in the CCTV Building on the 22nd of February 2011, and their grief at the loss of their beautiful heritage church, built in 1902, which was damaged beyond repair.
This passage in Samuel, and the psalm we read, are thought to have been composed in their current form during the exile. Those reading these promises of a house and a kingdom and a throne that will last forever, also know that these things – as they knew them – have come to an end. “You are full of wrath against your anointed,” they cry. “You have broken through all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins. How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?”
The extraordinary thing about Scripture is that it speaks to the real events of our lives, to the real heartbreak and the real theological wrestling – “How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?”
Chris Chamberlain said that coming back to church, worshipping in the new building, was something many struggled with – and a small number were unable to do. I suspect the same is true for some of our congregation after Covid.
Grieving takes time. Wrestling takes time. And yet in this psalm we see, as commentator Anna Grant-Henderson writes, “both the honesty and clarity [with] which the psalmist can relate to God and [them affirming] in the start and finish their faith in God no matter what has happened, even when it appears that God has broken promises…. The final line is able to acknowledge their relationship to the Lord (v.52) … [a relationship that] is still intact on both sides.”
All the churches we visited in Christchurch have mementoes of what has been lost. What remains of the pillars, pillars that were modelled on Spurgeon’s Baptist Tabernacle, now stand outside the new Oxford terrace church. At All Souls there is a round prayer room, hung with the original stain glass windows. At Knox Presbyterian Church the Communion Table which that was damaged by the falling organ pipes, has been re-planed, but not so that the marks cannot be seen.
We worship a God who also bears scars. 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” We worship a God who bears scars because God would not – could not – sever relationship with us. In Jesus the promise given to David, “I will not take my steadfast love from you” goes on.
This is the hope we have that God has invited us unto God’s household and that each of us, as Ephesians 2 says, whoever we are, in whatever comes, as we grieve and go on, are being built together into a place where God is at home.
Call to Worship (inspired by Psalm 122)
We were glad when they said,
“Let us go to the house of God!”
Our feet are standing within your gates, O Holy City!
We pray for the peace of all God’s beloved cities:
“May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers.”
For the sake of friend and stranger we say:
Peace be within you, O Jerusalem!
Peace be within you, O New York, O Washington, O Shanksville!
Peace be within you, O Kabul!
Peace be within this community!
For the sake of the house of the Holy One, our God,
we will seek your good.
Let us worship the living God, tender and just!
Loving God
we are glad that we can come to worship today
and worship you with others who love you.
Thank You for inspiring and leading your people
Those who established this work and this church in this place.
We pray that all who worship here
will experience your love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
We do pray for the community we live in that it may experience, through us,
Your goodness,
And for our world community that it will know peace at this time.
We bring our love and thanks and needs and hearts and hands
to you now. Amen
Prayer of Intercession
Loving God, we pray for your blessing on our hearts and on our houses today.
In the doorways of our lives, we ask, that you keep the doors of our hearts ajar,
that friends and strangers may experience your love and peace in our welcome.
That you watch over our coming and our going
and be our constant companion on the way.
In the lounge rooms of our lives, Gracious God,
we give you thanks for places to unwind from care and enjoy company.
Give your blessing to us so that we might find joy in our relaxation,
and always be generous hosts.
In the kitchens of our lives, we pray that you supply our every need
according to your great riches,
we also ask that you feed the hungry with good things
And bless us in our work.
Gathered around our tables, we give thanks that you welcome us to your table
and are mindful of your presence
we remember those who need your special presence with them now;
we think of the families in our church and the challenge of raising young people who are confident and compassionate and connected to community.
And we lift up to you the needs of this community – as we seek to serve you God and bless others – helps us to find ways to meet the needs in our community centre and in our church programs.
In our bathrooms, creating God, we give you thanks for making bodies – with all the curiosities and joys and frustrations of being human — you called us good.
Give us a proper respect and love for our bodies
and be with those who are sick in mind or body or spirit.
We give thanks for David Scoggins good news – and we remember others at this time.
In our bedrooms we know, Sheltering God, that you are the true rest of your people.
Bless us in our hours of rest and refreshment.
We dedicate our houses and our lives to you
May they be filled with joy and laughter
may they offer rest and refreshment for the weary,
listening and healing and comfort,
and may they encourage and enable us to work for peace and justice,
to love others and to love you. Amen.
Offering Prayer
God of tent and tabernacle, settlement and seashore,
you are always moving,
always calling us to come along with you
into unexpected and wonderful places.
May the gifts of money given here and through our financial transactions
help us, help your Church to be agile as you are.
May each of us fulfill our role as stones in your temple
resting upon and supporting one another.
Help us to remember and give thanks for all who are part of who formed this temple before us
welcomed us into it and with whom we are still united on earth and in heaven.
We ask these things through Christ our cornerstone.
Amen
Benediction: Ephesians 2: 11-22
We leave this place no longer strangers,
but members of God’s own family,
brothers and sisters through the lving and the dieing and washing away of our sin by Jesus Christ.
Together, we are being built into a holy dwelling place
where God lives by the Spirit.
So go out with joy and confidence
to love and serve the world,
for we do not go alone.
Amen.