Bible reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-15.

When King David was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies, he 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 replied, “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 for ever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever”.

Message.

“It’s lovely, it’s just what I wanted”. I’m sure we’ve all said that when we’re unwrapped a present and discovered something appalling inside: garish novelty socks, a kitchen gadget which we know we’ll never use, a book by an author we dislike, or a food item that’s guaranteed to turn our stomach. We put on a wan smile and try to say the right things while thinking, “I wonder if there’s a gift receipt so I can get a refund?”, “How soon can I get this to the Oxfam shop?”, “I’ll save this for the church fair, someone’s bound to like it” or, more charitably, “They meant well and it’s the thought that counts”.

Well, we may have said and thought all those things – and the person who gave us the present may have genuinely thought we’d appreciate it. But what about God? Has he ever been presented with unwanted gifts? The answer, perhaps to our surprise, is “yes”. For instance, way back in Genesis 4 we read that God accepted Abel’s meat offering but rejected Cain’s vegetables – an action which led to Cain murdering his brother. In Isaiah we hear God saying, “I have had more than enough of the sheep you burn as sacrifices and of the fat of your fine animals. I am tired of the blood of bulls and sheep and goats”; he says much the same in Jeremiah: “What do I care about the incense they bring me from Sheba, or the spices from a distant land? I will not accept their offerings nor be pleased with their sacrifices”. And in Hosea, late in the Old Testament, we get to the nub of what God desires: “What I want is plain and clear: I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”. The reason I’m saying all this will soon become clear.

Today’s Bible passage begins in a very relaxed way. For years David had been fighting both his predecessor Saul and Israel’s enemies. Even after he became king, he’d had to fight to be finally accepted by all the Jewish tribes. As we’ve heard over the last couple of weeks, he’d driven the Jebusites out of Jerusalem, made it his capital city and built himself a palace; he’d also recovered the Ark of the Covenant from the Philistines. Things weren’t exactly happy on the home front as his wife Michal still despised him (but he could always have some naughty fun with those slave girls). Nevertheless today’s story begins with David resting at home, perhaps with his feet up and a cool drink in his hand. He’s climbed his way to the top, he’s made a success of his life, now he can sit back and enjoy the privileges of being king.

And then he has a thought. Is it right that he should live in a palace built with expensive cedar wood (it must have smelled gorgeous) and presumably filled with the finest artefacts and furniture of the time, while God is still being worshipped in the tatty old tent called the Tabernacle? I think David is feeling that he’s “feathered his own nest” but neglected God – to whom, he freely admits, he credits his success. “This can’t be right”, he thinks. “What I should do is built a Temple that’s fit for God. No more canvas and wood, we’re past that: this Temple must be built of stone”. David summons his pet prophet Nathan (this is the first time we meet him, by the way) and tells him about his plan. “What a good idea”, enthuses Nathan, “Go ahead and build the Temple, I know that God will bless you if you do”.

But Nathan is wrong; he’s rubber-stamped an idea which sounds excellent but he’s failed to actually check it out with God. And God speaks to Nathan that night (we’re not told how, but he is a prophet!); he tells him to tell David, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve been with the people as they’ve moved from place to place over the years but I’ve never said to their leaders, ‘Please build me a proper Temple’. And even if I did want a Temple (which I don’t, as I can be worshipped anywhere) then I’d have to say that you, David, wouldn’t be the right person to build it. So thank you for your kind offer; I appreciate the thought but please don’t take it any further; I’m fine just as I am”. Well, those weren’t God’s precise words, but you get the gist! We’re back to God not wanting the offering that David wants to make.

David must have felt a bit snubbed after that surprising reply – after all, he’d genuinely wanted to do the right thing. So why did God speak in the way he did? I can think of three possible answers (in addition to the one which God gives David in Chronicles, which is that he has too much blood on his hands). One is that David’s motives may not have been as pure as he thought they were. Yes, he genuinely felt embarrassed by the contrast between the Tabernacle and his own house: but did he also have a political motive in building a Temple? Did he see it as a focal point, not just for worship, but as a way of bringing people to “his” city so they would say, “See what good king David has done for us”? I don’t know, of course, but he’d hardly have been human if that thought had never entered his mind!

Another reason for God not wanting David to build him a Temple was that he didn’t want to be pinned down or domesticated. For centuries God had been mobile, he’d moved with his people. But he couldn’t do that with a static and permanent Temple; insofar as we can say that God has emotions, it would make him feel constrained, even claustro-phobic. God saw himself as active, leading his people and journeying with them. How could he do that if he was confined to a building? David clearly needed to have a more dynamic understanding of God.

The final reason for God’s response was the danger that the temple itself could become the focus of devotion rather than God himself. People (and we’ve all done it) go to cathedrals and temples to admire the amazing architecture and artwork, or to listen to marvellous music; they can have a wonderful aesthetic experience and go home enriched but having somehow missed the point of what the building is for; they’ve admired the container without encountering what’s inside. Don’t get me wrong: there’s no virtue in religious buildings being drab and shabby, beauty can indeed draw us closer to God. But the New Testament in particular teaches us that people can worship God anywhere: a marketplace, a hired hall, a private home as well as a specially-constructed building. Was that something David had to learn?

We need to move on; and one important thing you need to know about this passage is that it contains a play on words. This actually happens a number of times in the Bible – perhaps the most famous instance is when Jesus says to Peter, “On this rock I will build my Church”, which is a word play on the Greek word “petra”, meaning a large rock; there’s also quite a lot of word play in the Psalms. But, of course, we don’t notice any of this because we don’t speak Greek or Hebrew, the languages the Bible was written in. So what I must tell you is that this chapter contains a play on the Hebrew word “bayit” which means “house” – it comes in the name “Bethlehem” which means “House of Bread”).

Fortunately for us, the play in this chapter works in English as well as Hebrew. For “bayit” can mean just a plain, ordinary building to live in, it can mean a temple, and it can also mean a dynasty. In this chapter David talks about his own house or palace (that’s the first meaning) and proposes to build a house for God (that’s the second). Much to his surprise God rejects this idea but promises to build the house that’s a dynasty for David and his descendants. We use this last meaning in a perfectly serious way when we talk about our Royal Family as “the House of Windsor” (although it was only given that name in 1917 at the height of anti-German feeling during the First World War, previously it had been “the House of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha); we might also think of fashion houses such as Chanel or Gucci or Dior that have been passed down through several generations. However I have to say that the word “dynasty” takes me straight to the original book of “101 Dalmatians” which closes with Mr Dearly buying Hell Hall and declaring that he will start a “dynasty of Dalmatians” there.

What we should remember is that, up to the time of today’s story, Israel hadn’t had a royal house. Indeed it had only had one king, Saul; his family (including Jonathan) had been wiped out in battle. So, when David became king, he was starting with a clean sheet. Not only could he fix his palace in the city of Jerusalem which he had conquered, but he could inaugurate a royal line which would stretch down through the generations. The heirs to David’s throne would by no means be perfect human beings but God, although he might punish them, said that would never reject them: this was the message he gives to David. Israel now had a capital city and a royal family; it could be a stable society in a way it never had been before.

This, of course, leads us directly to Jesus: “great David’s greater Son”. Both Matthew and Luke, in the “Who do you think you are?” genealogies which begin their Gospels, are determined to show their readers that Jesus was David’s direct descendant (although of course, by that time there must have been thousands of people who could make that claim!). This theme of Jesus’ kingship runs throughout the Gospels, reaching its climax in Palm Sunday’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and in Pilate’s order to place a sign on Jesus’ cross saying, “This is the King of the Jews” – although Pilate was clearly wanting to make the point that Jesus was a failed Pretender, crushed by the might of Rome. Most of us aren’t Jewish, so this link between David and Jesus doesn’t mean much to us; however many commentators believe that God’s promise to David in this story is one of the most crucial turning-points in the whole Bible. It offers the hope that one of David’s descendants will ultimately bring God’s peace or shalom, not just to Israel but the world.

We’ve covered a lot of ground; let’s draw some threads together and see what we’ve learned. We’ve learned that we can make plans which seem to be obvious and sensible – but that God may see things very differently. This is very relevant to any church that’s considering some new project or initiative; of course we need to build that extension or start that new community initiative – but it that what God is asking us to do? There’s a time for action, of course; but there’s also a time for prayer and discernment. In many ways that’s the hardest bit”

We’ve also learned something about God: not only that he doesn’t want to be locked into a building (and only consulted at specific times) but that he wants to actively and constantly lead us. The Tabernacle was a sign of impermanence and pilgrimage; a Temple says, “We’ve made it, we can comfortably stay here for ever”. All of us naturally want to feel that we are settled; perhaps we need to be ready for God to say, “You’re too cosy, too comfy: time to pack up and move on with me”.

Finally we’ve learned about God’s faithfulness. David and his son Solomon were great kings even if they were imperfect human beings; the record of later kings (and indeed the nation) was patchy and often condemned by prophets such as Jeremiah and Hosea. But, although Israel was defeated, overrun and despoiled more than once, its people held together as a nation. One reason for that must have been God’s promise that, one day, a new and greater David would appear to save them. Christians may say that the Jews have misunderstood that promise; nevertheless we too await the coming of God’s king of kings.