David: An Eternal Covenant
Lenten Sermon Series
(based on Susan Robb’s Remember: God’s Covenant’s and the Cross)
2 Samuel 7.1-13, 16
Lent 4B
March 10, 2024
Back in college, I worked for two summers as a summer camp counselor at Camp CaRAway, the North Carolina Baptist Convention’s boy’s camp outside of Asheboro, NC. Being part of a misson-minded denomination, we always had a camp missionary. These were usually overseas missionaries who were on furlough, taking a break back in the States for R and R, personal education, and educating congregations about their work and the various needs of the people they served. At Caraway, that education took the form of presentations to the campers—usually with visual aids like slides and cultural items.
There’s one missionary couple that I still remember all these years later. I can’t recall their names unfortunately, but they were favorites of all us counselors. They were an older couple, a pastor and his wife. They could have been our grandparents. Indeed, when one of my fellow counselors pointed this out by referring to them as Grandma and Grandpa, they told us we were welcome to call them that.
Besides their humility and kindness to a bunch of college lads, I remember a particular story each one told about themselves. The husband had pastored several churches before feeling that God was calling the two of them to foreign missions. One of those tenures as a pastor had not ended well. It was during the Civil Rights era and he had spoken up from the pulpit in favor of Civil Rights. As I recall, he had expressed admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr. and suggested that black folks were our fellow humans, made in the image of God just like white folks and they should therefore be treated fairly and with dignity. They deserved equality. This didn’t play well in an all-white Southern congregation—such talk didn’t always go over well here in the North either, did it? Well, unsurprisingly, he was fired. He was right of course and I was awed then—and even now—by his courage.
The wife related a somewhat different story that has stuck with me. She was very supportive of her husband’s work and quite involved with the church herself. She knew that pastor’s families often had to move and she was fine with that. She just wanted one thing for her and her family: a nice little place to live with space for her to grow flowers. She even prayed for that: “Lord, I’m willing to go wherever you call our family, to serve at whatever church you will. But please, give us a nice place to live and raise our children, nothing fancy, just a comfortable place to call home. And let me have a little space in the yard to raise flowers.”
Well, they moved around a fair bit and some of the parsonages were better than others. And the local weather affected what she could grow. And they didn’t usually end up staying at a church for very long; no twenty-year pastorates, as I recall it was usually five years or less. I suspect her husband’s outspoken views in favor of Civil Rights effected his employment prospects. She really wished they could find a place and stay there.
When he first mentioned foreign missions, she was unsure. But they talked about it and prayed about it and eventually, they were both in agreement that God was calling them to serve overseas. Still, she was anxious: where would they be sent, what would the culture be like, what type of climate, what language would folks speak—there were so many unknowns. The training went well, though. And then they got their assignment: an island in the Caribbean.
It was funny, she told us. She had never imagined living in the Caribbean. It turned out to be a wonderful and fulfilling ministry for both of them. They met and worked with wonderful people: kind, hospitable folks who took them into their community. And they stayed for many years and accomplished a lot. As a bonus, she finally got that house, nothing fancy, but a little place where they could stay and be at home. Oh, and the flowers? Well, now she could grow them not just for a season. In that tropical climate, she could have a garden year-round. God had given her more than she expected.
Life doesn’t always work out as we want or even as we expect. God has a habit of not conforming to our plans. But, often we discover that God has something even better than we imagined in mind.
That’s the case for David in this morning’s reading from Second Samuel. David has, by God’s grace, risen from a shepherd to King of Israel. He has subdued most of the enemies that threatened Israel, bringing a peace that the land had seldom known. Indeed, he has just returned from his greatest triumph. David and his army had defeated the Philistines, neutralizing the threat posed by one of Israel’s most persistent foes. More significantly, they had recaptured the Ark of the Covenant—the physical symbol of God’s presence with the people. They had liberated it from its Philistine captivity and returned it, in joyful procession to Jerusalem. God’s promises to Abraham and to the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai seem to have been fulfilled: God’s people now rest secure in their own land.
David sits in his palace, a mighty stone structure with an interior paneled in expensive cedar. He looks about him and thinks of the contrast between his palace and the tent in which the Ark now rested. The Ark was understood to be the throne of God, the focal point for God’s presence. Why, David wonders, should God dwell in a tent when I dwell in a palace? It doesn’t seem right; it doesn’t seem appropriate. And so, David decides to do something for God. He will build God a house, a temple, a proper place of worship.
To be sure, David seems sincere. The text give us no reason to believe that he is consciously trying to domesticate, contain or control God. And the prophet Nathan, a trusted advisor, gives his blessing. After all, David has gone from success to success, everything he touches seems to turn to gold, so surely this must be a good idea too. One can’t help but wonder, though, given the ancient world’s close identification of the king with the deity, if Nathan hasn’t fallen into the trap of thinking the will of the king equals the will of God.
Soon enough, that very night in fact, Nathan discovers that God has different plans. David is not to build a house for God. Regardless of David’s sincerity, it was a presumptuous idea. God cannot be contained. God has always moved about among the people of Israel. As David Jensen observes, “The God of Israel, since the exodus, has been a God on the move: dynamic, transformative, bringing a people out of slavery into the promised land, making covenant with a people, anointing a king to serve the people….To build a house for the Lord would represent a vain attempt to contain God’s spirit or domesticate God’s presence.” [David H. Jensen, 1 and 2 Samuel, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, p. 261] God will decide If there is to be a house for God built. And if so, it will be built on God’s terms and in God’s time.
There is a warning here about presuming to know the mind of God. Eugene Peterson points out that it is telling that neither David nor Nathan prays about the building project. [Peterson, First and Second Samuel, Westminster Bible Companion, p. 167] It seems like such a good idea they just assume God must be on board. They forgot who is in charge; they forgot to listen. At a continuing education event for pastors this past week, our speaker, Dr. James Knight, told us about a time that he and his mission team had come up with the idea to buy backpacks and fill them with school supplies for students in their neighborhood. It’s a needy neighborhood and everyone agreed it was a great way to help the kids and share God’s love with them. They got the backpacks put together and were feeling really excited and good about it. Then a gentleman came to the Pastor Knight and said, “You preachers need to learn to listen.” “What do you mean?” Knight asked. “Do you know there are five other churches in the immediate area which are also filling backpacks with school supplies? These kids are going to have more pencils and paper than they know what to do with! What they really need is underwear and socks.” There are lots of good things we can do, but we need to listen to God and to our neighbors to determine what is the right thing to do. Instead of presuming, we need to be humble and listen. [Dr. James Knight, presenter, “Cultural Sensitivity, Humility and Awareness;” A Healthy Practices for Ministry seminar presented by the Living Water Association, Ohio Northeast, United Church of Christ; March 5, 2024]
This God who is on the move has plans of their own. As Susan Robb observes in our Lenten study, “God has always been, and will always be, moving among the people of God, leading, directing, and protecting them (not the other way around).” [Remember, p. 65] God is always out in front of us, leading us, guiding us toward renewal, calling us to new ways and opportunities, beckoning us toward a future of abundant living that is greater that we hoped for or imagined. [Jensen, p. 202]
God has something more in mind for David, something unexpected. God says to David, “Don’t get ahead of yourself and definitely don’t get ahead of me! You’re not going to build me a house. I’m going to build you a house.” There is of course a play on words here. “House” can mean “dwelling place,” “temple,” or “dynasty.” David is not going to give God a temple. Instead, God is going to give David a dynasty.
God essentially makes a covenant with David: David’s offspring will inherit the throne and they shall reign from one generation to the next. “I will,” says God, “establish [their] kingdom forever.” That’s a lot more than David had in mind, far more than he expected.
It’s an astonishing promise. Walter Brueggemann has called this passage “the dramatic and theological center of the entire Samuel corpus. Indeed, this is one of the most crucial texts in the Old Testament for evangelical faith.” [First and Second Samuel, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, p. 253] This passage is the source of the messianic hope that characterizes both Judaism and Christianity. God has freely, graciously committed God’s self to God’s people. God will be with them no matter what. God will act for their good, for their liberation, for their salvation. As Bruggemann says, “Out of this oracle there emerges the hope held by Israel in every season that there is a coming David who will right wrong and establish a good governance.” [p. 257]
Christians, of course, connect this promise with the coming of Jesus, whom we understand as the Messiah. The genealogies at the beginning of Matthew and Luke identify him as a descendent of David. On Palm Sunday, as he enters Jerusalem, many in the crowds hail him as the Davidic messiah: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” David himself could never have imagined such a thing.
That promise of “forever” has proven to be a powerful thing. The term that we commonly interpret as “forever” often means in Hebrew “a very, very long time” or “an indeterminately lengthy amount of time.” And indeed, David’s dynasty was lengthy; his offspring sat on the throne for four centuries. That’s impressive. But God has even more in mind. David Jensen contends, “The most stunning dimension of this promise is that God will be with God’s people, no matter what: that God will not abandon or turn God’s back on God’s anointed. This is a radical statement about the kind of God that YHWH is: a God who binds God’s very self to God’s people forever, and that means that God’s people will endure, whatever comes.” [p. 204] This promise of faithfulness gives God’s people, gives us, strength to endure difficult times and hope that God is still with us, always with us and always at work.
It is a remarkable promise, far more than we could ever have hoped for. God who is ever on the move, who is uncontainable, chooses to bind God’s self to a people; the unpredictable God is also eternally faithful; the One who is not ours to possess is also the Love which claims us as God’s own; the holy, righteous God is at the same abounding in grace and overflowing with mercy; God is enthroned above the heavens and yet present with us, closer to us than our own heartbeat; the Almighty, Incomprehensible Creator is also Immanuel. Nothing in all creation can ever separate God’s people, any of us, from God’s steadfast, faithful, that eternal love that was promised to David, that unfailing love that was embodied in David’s Son, Jesus.
Let us rejoice in the good news of God’s unexpected covenant with David. Let us give thanks for the promise of an eternal kingdom of justice and peace. Let us have faith in David’s Son, the King of Kings, Jesus the Messiah. Let us place our hope in God’s unfailing goodness and unending love. Let us live as people of the covenant, people of faith, hope and love, the people of God. Amen.