Sermon - 4th Sunday of Advent (12/20/2020)
2 Sam. 7:1-11, 16; Lk. 1:46b-55; Rom. 16:25-27; Lk. 1:26-38
The first reading today does not, on first glace, seem to have much to do with Christmas or Advent. There is, of course, the promise at the end of the reading that God would give David descendants to reign as king forever, a promise that the angel Gabriel tells Mary in today’s gospel will ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus, the royal descendent of David. But there is more to this story, and to Mary’s story, than royal genealogy.
The Bible tells the story of the people of Israel, freed from slavery in Egypt, after wandering in the desert for forty years, settling down in the land God had promised them. For generations Israel had no king; each of the twelve tribes more or less governed themselves. There was also no central place of worship; the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized the presence of God, was kept in a tent, a portable shrine that moved about from place to place among the territories of the different tribes.
But other nations in the region had kings, and armies, and wars, and Israel knew little peace. So the people decided that they needed a king too. Eventually David rises from being an obscure shepherd boy to become king. He fought many battles and defeated many enemies, and became more powerful than any ruler of Israel before him and – with the possible exception of his son Solomon, after him. And David was happy to let everyone know that his rise to power was God’s doing, that David was the one anointed by God to be king, and so obedience to God and obedience to David were pretty much the same thing.
David consolidated power as no one in Israel had ever done before, and built himself a luxurious palace for himself in Jerusalem. To David, it’s the most obvious thing in the world that the portable tent of God should be replaced with an equally impressive and imposing temple for God, also in his royal city of Jerusalem. When David mentions his plan to the prophet Nathan, the prophet says, of course, makes sense, God is with you.
And then Nathan goes home and sleeps on it. And on further reflection, he comes back to David and says, actually, no. This is a gift that God does not want. Have you ever gotten a Christmas gift you didn’t want? “No, really, you shouldn’t have.” “That’s a lovely sweater, but I’m never going to wear it.” It’s awkward to receive an unwanted gift; it’s even more awkward to find out you’ve given one. An unwanted gift creates expectations that are hard to meet. And even more, it reveals that the giver of the gift really doesn’t understand what the givee wants, or who the givee really is. Which is awkward.
David is the one who thinks God would want David to build a house for God. But God says, no thank you. Eventually, of course, David’s son Solomon would build a temple in Jerusalem. A temple that would get rebuilt after the exile in Babylon, and that would then get completely redone and expanded under King Herod. It’s interesting, actually, how there are different voices in the Bible. In some passages, think Ezekiel or some of the Psalms, the Temple is the heart of worship and a central point for God’s people to come together and find their identity. And yet in other passages, in this one, in prophets like Jeremiah, and also to a degree in the gospels, there is great skepticism about the Temple, about our human efforts to put God in a box, to define who God is and how God can work in the world.
And so here the prophet Nathan tells King David – God has never asked for a Temple. God has always been content with a portable shrine, with moving around among the people, with having no fixed dwelling place. And then God says something quite interesting: I do not want you to build me a house. Instead, God says to David, I want to build a house for you. Not a house of cedar, but a house of flesh and blood.
At first, Nathan and David understand that the house God will build for David is a royal house – like the house of York or the house of Tudor, a line of succession, descendents of David to sit on the throne. A line of descendents that ends up, a thousand years later, in Jesus of Nazareth. Who takes to a whole new level the idea of God wanting not for us to build a glorious house of cedar and precious stones for God to live where we want God to stay, but rather God wanting to build a house of flesh and blood where God can live among human beings, wherever God chooses, however God wishes, in whatever way will advance God’s purposes for life and flourishing and communion.
It’s an interesting word for us, as a congregation that has a building we have not been able to gather in for the past nine months. For God to say, I never needed or wanted a building to dwell in. My home is in flesh and blood, my presence is in the people I have called. Those people, perhaps, might use a building to advance that mission, as they might use anything in God’s good creation as a tool to make God’s presence clearer and more tangible. But God’s presence has always been, first and foremost, in people, in human beings, in the complexity and the relationships and the commitments we make to one another. This year, of all years, this message is for us: The gift God cares about most is the house that God makes in flesh and blood among us, not the house that we make for God.
So which is more important: to go to a building to celebrate Christmas, or to celebrate Christmas in a way that protects and preserves the health and the safety of the members of the body of Christ? I don’t think there’s any doubt what the prophet Nathan would tell us about how God would answer that question. And yet there is a part of all of us that is attached to particular places, and customs, and memories, and to assume that this is where we should go to look for God’s presence. And so, every year, we are given Advent and Christmas as times to hear again, to hear in yet a new way, how God really wants to be present among us.
Which brings us to the gospel reading today, and to Christmas. The angel tells Mary that God wants to come and to dwell within her, that God wants to build a house for God among people out of her own flesh and blood, in the most personal and intimate and material and tangible of ways.
And the gospel tells us that Mary is perplexed by the angel’s message. Not just for the obvious reason, which is really the easiest thing to understand – after all, God is the creator of the world and the universe and everything in it. How is this possible? Nothing is impossible for God. But the really perplexing question, in my view, is: Why? There is already a perfectly good Temple in Jerusalem for God to dwell in, an enormous and glorious structure, where trumpets play and incense burns and the glory of God is made manifest. Why should God want to dwell inside of a human body, fed by an umbilical cord, washed in amneotic fluids, utterly dependent on another human being? Why is this the house that God chooses to dwell in?
And another perplexing question: Why me? Why does God want to live through my flesh and blood? Surely there must be somebody else more qualified? More experienced? More ready to take on this responsibility? It would be so much easier if God’s dwelling place among humans was some place over there – someplace I could visit and enjoy and then come back home. Why should God want to come and make a house in me? Affecting every part of my body, and every part of my life? Why does God ask this of me?
And a yet more perplexing question: How is this going to be possible? Not just the beginning of the process, that’s almost the easy part. In the gospel, after Mary says yes, we read “Then the angel departed from her.” And what next? What happens the first morning that she wakes up and feels … pregnant? Who’s going to help? Who’s going to understand? Who’s not going to make assumptions and judgments, who’s going to walk with her and support her and make sure she is safe? How is this going to work?
It would be so much easier if only God wanted us to build a house for God that fulfills our needs, that expresses our conception of who we want God to be, a gift to which we can contribute our money and our things while holding back our actual selves. If only God actually wanted that as a gift! Like David we would be happy to give it.
But that’s not who God is, and that’s not what God wants. God wants to build God’s dwelling place on earth in human beings, and more specifically in you and in me. This is how God’s presence comes into the world, this is how we are saved from ourselves and drawn into the life of God. How is this possible? Easy, for God all things are possible. But why? Why me? How will this work? These are questions for a lifetime of pondering and exploring and experiencing.
But today we are told: This is what God desires. This is what God desires for you, and so you are highly favored and full of grace, you are beloved of God. For today it is enough to say: I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be done to me according to your word.