Let’s talk about David for a moment. I really like David. He makes all kinds of mistakes, does all kinds of wrongs, is very human, and STILL gets along well with God. In this story, we hear how 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. 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.
God however had other plans. God appeared to Nathan in the night and said “Um Nathan… tell your king I don’t like his plans” Perhaps God got the idea that David wanted to be known for all eternity as the one who built this glorious temple. I’m not saying David didn’t want to make a proper dwelling place for God, but he wanted to make it as grandiose as possible. It’s no coincidence that David wanted to make a temple out of cedar, the cedars of Lebanon to be exact. David wanted to make a statement. At that time in history, each nation in the area had its own deity, its own god (god with a small g). Each of these gods had their own temples, and the most impressive of these had temples made out of cedar. We should also note that David’s palace was built out of cedar. So I think we can say that when David built buildings, he made sure they made a statement of power, authority and riches. In this case I think he was trying to make this statement both for himself and for God.
The thing David doesn’t realize is that in building a temple for God, he is putting limits on God and on himself and his nation. Not only is God contained in one place but it also changes David’s, and really the whole of Israel’s relationship with God. Instead of God going to them, they now have to seek God, and they can only do that in one way. The other thing David doesn’t realize is that God doesn’t want to be confined to a temple, even one as grandiose as the one that David was planning.
This isn’t only a problem for David’s time though. As we prayed in our prayer of confession – we too are quite good at confining, limiting and using God for our own purposes. How often do we walk out of church on Sunday, leaving God behind until the next week? I confess I find it easy to do when I’m on holidays. Or to put it another way: how often do we think that we can only find God in church or in doing church activities?
David is trying to define God as the most powerful god in the area. He is trying to define God, but God resists definition. Defining God is a bit like nailing jello to the wall. Granted, I’ve never actually tried nailing jello to a wall but I imagine that it will only stay for a half second or so, and then, only if it’s well congealed, and maybe frozen… really something like our attempts at defining God: we think we might have something, but it can never define God’s entire being.
The trouble is that God doesn’t always react in the way we expect God to react. God doesn’t always give us the answers we want, and God can’t always be found in the places we seek God. God is always moving, always just out of reach.
The God we find in this scripture reminds me of the God we find through Christ Jesus. God wants to be in the midst of the people, working with and through the people, in surprising and new ways. God is surprising. God is playful.
One of the reasons I think of God as playful, is because of a pun that’s in this scripture. It’s one of the few that translates into English. The word that it centers around is the word “house”. In Hebrew this word is Bayith – which can mean two things: temple and dynasty. We have it in English too, to some extent. We often talk about the church building as being the house of God, and if we talk about the House of David, for example, we know we’re referring to David’s offspring and their offspring and so on and so forth. So here when David says he’s going to build a house for God, and God says no thank you, God also says but David I’ll build a house for you – a house made of people, a dynasty. You won’t be known for eternity because of your building but because of your family.
I read this scripture and was reminded of a plane ride I took not too long ago where there was a toddler in the seat ahead of me. We were five hours into a six hour flight and this little guy started to get a little squirmy and fussy. I don’t blame him, five hours of sitting in one spot and I was starting to get a little squirmy too. Well his mom picked him up, and all of a sudden he could see behind the seat. He could see me. He caught my eye with curious interest, but I moved quickly so he couldn’t see my face for a second, and then popped back into view. The result: a fit of giggles from this little boy, and a classic game of peek-a-boo that lasted the entire last hour of the flight.
Perhaps a prayer we could utter in light of David’s experience, and our own experience, would echo the words of a song in Godspell one of my favourite musicals:
Day by day
Oh dear Lord three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly
To love the more dearly
To follow thee more nearly
Day by day.
Interesting enough, I opened up my RSS feed this morning, and there was this post, as well as one from a paster-blogger from Calgary. And as I read both, I thought "Gee, I bet Erin would like Brad's blog." So here you go: http://bradhuebert.blogspot.com/ -- his archives are quite amazing. Hope all is well and you're getting settled :-)
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