[Uucf-bible] 2 Samuel 7:1-14a

[Erika Noll Webb]

Sorry to once again post only what was dropped in my lap, but some weeks are
like that!  This is from Samuel again, and tells the story of David, and
that God will make David a house.  Given the strong emphasis in some of the
Gospels on establishing Jesus' connection to the House of David, this story
is pretty critical as a set up for some of the things that happen in the
Gospels.  The fulfillment of this prophecy was supposed to be the coming of
the Messiah.

E

Week leading to Sunday, July 23
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Weekly Theme
God's Place

Focus Statement
"Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house."

Focus Scripture
2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest
from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, "See
now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent."
Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is
with you." But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: Go and
tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a
house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the
people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a
tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of
Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel,
whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not
built me a house of cedar?" 

Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of
hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince
over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have
cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great
name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a
place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in
their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them
no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people
Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD
declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are
fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your
offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will
establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will
establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and
he shall be a son to me.

Focus Meditation
By Kate Huey

David has made a long and difficult journey from pasture to palace, from
shepherd boy to prince, from persistent warrior to a king whose reign
promises peace for the people at last, peace and a place of their own.
David, in a house of his own, thinks about the ark being in a tent and
realizes that God deserves a house, too. Don't they say that "We make plans,
and God laughs"? God, through the prophet Nathan, turns the tables on David
and says, "You think you're going to build me a house? I'M going to build
YOU a house. A house that will last much longer and be much greater than
anything you could build yourself with wood and stone. A house that will
shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after 'you lie down with
your ancestors'." God promises to establish David and his line "forever,"
and this is a "no matter what" promise, even if the descendants of David
sin, even if "evildoers" threaten. 

The reading from 2 Samuel goes very nicely with the Epistle reading from
Ephesians if we think about the power and promises of God to build us a
house of our own, a dwelling place of peace and reconciliation. Just as
amazing as the victory and security at last of the people of Israel is the
vision of bringing together Gentiles and Jews, the uncircumcised and the
circumcised, across a barrier that seems irrelevant to us today but was
nevertheless formidable in that day. Strangers and aliens become citizens
with the saints when they come home to the house that God builds in Christ,
whose cross trumps "the law's ability to make qualitative appraisals between
different kinds of people" (Matthew L. Skinner, New Proclamation Year B). We
become with them members of a household built on a Cornerstone who is the
fulfillment of God's promise of peace and healing and reconciliation. The
Gospel reading from Mark illustrates just what this Cornerstone is about,
drawing great crowds of desperate people to himself, people hungry for
healing, for food, for forgiveness, for hope. In Christ, the dividing walls
that we have built (instead of a sacred dwelling place for God!) are torn
down, all of our paltry attempts to build barriers falling short of God's
power to create community not out of stone and wood, gold and silver,
stained glass and soaring ceilings, but out of people and the promise that
shapes them into a community that says yes to the call to follow Jesus, to
love one another and the world. In our United Church of Christ
congregations, strangers and aliens become sisters and brothers because of
"no matter what" promises we make to one another. 

People who are very different from each other, whose differences make a
difference in other settings but make no difference here, come together and
are joined together by the power of God into a household, a "whole structure
joined together," growing into a holy temple. If you think about the ark of
the covenant, God's dwelling place in the 2 Samuel passage, being mobile and
moving about among the people, you may find a better way to think of the
church than just buildings. No matter how beautiful and sacred the space of
our churches may be, the church is the people, the Spirit moving within us,
the community sent just as much as the community gathered. It's ironic that
the imagery of cornerstones, structures, and foundations all sound rather
heavy for a people on the move. 

The call to peace also has implications for our life beyond the walls of our
churches, for our public life in which we have the opportunity and
obligation to make sure that all of God's children share in the goods that
God has so abundantly provided in creation. In today's world, that means
health care and a social safety net, protection for children and the
vulnerable, like the widows, orphans, and strangers so long ago. It means
good schools and care for the elderly, nourishing food and clean water for
all, not just for some, clean air and unpolluted land not just for us but
for those far away and for the generations who will follow us. It means
money for building instead of money for tearing down, blowing up, and
destroying, money for peace and plowshares instead of wasting our precious
resources on armaments and war. It means that God's house is all of creation
and all of it is sacred, that God's place is shared by us but not owned by
us, that God's law requires us to recognize and honor the image of God
dwelling within each one of us. Rather than presuming that God approves of
our political systems, we should look at our public life and see if God
approves of our systems of sharing and justice. 

Would God approve of the house we have built for one of politics: "In David,
God risks the dangers of ideological manipulation of faith for the sake of
bringing the grace of divine promise into close engagement with public and
political realities. The church can do no less" (Bruce Birch, The First and
Second Books of Samuel: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections" in The
New Interpreter's Bible, volume 2). What is the long journey that you have
taken; from where did you come, and where are you now? Where are you going?
Who are the people who may be effectively kept out by the walls of your
community, both physical and metaphorical? What walls have come down in your
life together, in your personal life, in the greater community and the
world? Who or what in your community decides who is the insider, and who is
the stranger and the alien?  

All Readings for This Week
2 Sam 7:1-14a with Ps 89:20-37
Eph 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34,53-56 


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