A Sermon on the Temple of David’s Son (2 Sam. 7:1-14a)

Year B, Pentecost 9 (2 Sam. 7:1-14a, Eph. 2:11-22)
(Video begins at the 22:00)

My the words of mouth and the meditations of our hearts, always be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Good Morning –

In the midst of the American Civil War (I use that terminology for y’all from Ohio, NY, NJ, etc.) a war correspondent asked Abraham Lincoln whether he thought that God was on his side. Lincoln replied that his concern was not whether God was on his side, but rather whether he was on God’s side. Our concern, my concern, should never be whether God is on my side. But whether I am on God’s side.

This brings us to our story about David today. In our Old Testament reading, we are at the very apex of David’s reign. Today’s reading takes place soon after David captures the citadel of Jerusalem. The City was one of the last Canaanite cities to fall into David’s hands. At its capture, David had prevailed or was on the cusp of prevailing over all of his enemies at home and abroad. Through his military prowess, his political acumen, and God’s powerful support, David had risen from being the eighth son of a shepherd from a small town in the southern tribe of Judah to being the leader over all of Israel. All of the 12 tribes and all of their elders and leaders supported David.

David had subdued Israel’s arch-enemies, the Philistines. Almost all of the old Canaanite cities had been absorbed into Israel. He had vanquished the desert tribe of the Amalekites. He had made vassals of the kingdoms of Moab and Edom to the South and of Syria to the North. He had deepened the economic and political ties with Tyre on the Mediterranean, with the treaty being sealed with the exchange of wives. David was at the very top. David answered to no one.

Well, almost no one.

Throughout his career, David had always given thanks to God for his rise to power. We see this in the Psalms 95, 106, and others. David had seen God move very powerfully and the Spirit move very freely in supporting David’s rise to power. But now that David has obtained it all, David wants to ensure that God remains on his side.

David has just built for himself a grand palace, but the Ark of Covenant, upon which God’s very presence rested, remained in the Tent of Meeting. We can see David going to Nathan the prophet and Abi-a-thar, the priest who had been with David throughout his rise, and telling them of his plans to build a temple for God. Imagine David describing this new structure to them. David showing them how grand and luxurious the temple would be, particularly the living quarters for the priests and prophets, and how this temple would be built right beside David’s palace so that David could oversee the Temple itself.

David was going to make sure, that God remained, on his side. David had seen God move powerfully for him, he did not want to see God move against him. David wants God beside him to bless his decisions not only on public policy issues, like whether to go to war, but also in his personal life. David wants God’s approval and support. He wants God to be on his side.

Nathan initially goes along with the idea, but God does not. God knows David’s heart and the heart of all people. God tells David “No.” God tells David that God will not be placed in a box to be overseen by a man who has no other overseer. God will not allow himself to be constrained by David and his temple. God requires the freedom to move about to do and to act as he will. And so, God tells David, that God will not be on David’s side, but that David will have to make sure that he is on God’s side.  God tells David that he cannot build the temple to put him in.

But you see, what David wanted to do is what we all want to do. We all, or at least I, want to build my temple for my God to live in. Like David, I want to ensure that God is on my side. I want God to love those whom I love, hate those whom I hate, support my opinions on the issues of the day, the actions I take, and the decisions that I make. I too am like David. And you may be as well. Like David, I desire to build a temple for God, right beside me, so that I may ensure that God is on my side.

And the temple that I like to build for God to live in, is built of good things. Just as David was going to build God a temple from the choicest cedars of Lebanon, so do I often seek to build God a temple from the choicest of bible verses, prayers, and good works that I can find. The best temple to build is to go out and find those bible verses that clearly and unequivocally support my ideas and my life. There is always a bible verse somewhere to support whatever you want. I can build a pretty box for my God to live in. I want my God right here beside me.

You see the problem with a temple, is that a temple necessarily constrains God’s actions. If I already know that God is on my side, what is the purpose of repentance? If God lives in my temple, right here beside me, then why would I need to turn back to God – he’s right here! If God lives in the temple that I have built, then how can the Holy Spirit convict me or lead me into a deeper truth or understanding? If God lives in my temple, then how can I ever understand or learn from those with whom I do not agree? These temples create insiders and outsiders, and because I built this temple, I can decide who is in and who is out.

This is the exact situation Paul faces in our reading from Ephesians. The Jews (and when I say “Jews” think good religious people), had built a grand temple for their God. (Not the temple in Jerusalem, but the Temple in their hearts and minds.) This temple was carefully constructed from the Law of Moses and generations of tradition. The rules of this Temple were that no one could come into a saving relationship with God without first obeying the biblical laws. To be part of God’s community, the Jews (i.e. the good biblical religious people – that means all of us here today) said that a person must obey the rules such as keeping the seventh day holy, obeying the dietary restrictions, and be circumcised. You had to know that the right prayer, believe the right things, take the right actions, and your relationship with God could be complete.

And what Paul says in Ephesians, is that God does not reside in these temples that we create even if these Temples are created out of the choisest of bible verses or spiritual practices. He writes that God, by and through the blood of Christ Jesus and his Passion and Resurrection, has torn down all of these temples. Paul tells us that when our false temples are torn down, then it allows for all of us to be “joined together and grow into the holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

Paul’s concluding statement in the reading today is the same concluding statement that Nathan gives to David. Nathan says that it is David’s son who “shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” 

Nathan may have thought he was speaking of David’s biological son Solomon, but beginning with the letter to Hebrews (Heb. 1:5), and throughout church history, the church has understood that Nathan was speaking of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David. Solomon’s reign ended at his death, and Solomon’s successors and the physical temple he built were destroyed four hundred years later by the Babylonians. His reign and his temple did not last forever.

But it is Jesus’ reign that will last forever. At the beginning of John’s gospel, when Jesus is in Jerusalem, he tells the Jewish leaders “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19). As John points out, Jesus is not referring to a physical temple but to his resurrected body.

You see, it is Christ’s Resurrection which is the true temple of which Nathan and Paul speak. It is the body of the Resurrected Christ, not bible verses forced into service or good works that make us proud, that is the true temple where we must worship. And it is this temple that should cause all of our temples, as Paul says, to be broken down and abolished.

The question for us is how do we know if we are worshipping at a temple that we have created to make sure God is on our side, or whether we are worshipping at the true temple of the Resurrected Jesus which takes us on God’s side? I could tell you to read your Bibles, come to church on Sunday, study group on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and develop a prayer life. But these are the same building blocks that I use to build my temple.

And if you think about it, it is very easy to see temples built by other people. Within the history of South Carolina, we have seen how easy it is to build a temple to show that God is on the side of slave-holders and later of segregationists. It is easy to see the Temples that other people build, it is harder to see it in yourself. At least it is for me.

So how do we know the temple that we come to? How do we know if we are trying to place God on our side, or us on God’s side?

Jesus says, that you will know a tree by its fruit. (Luke 6:43-45). The fruit of worshipping in the temple that we make is obvious. My temple will produce the works of the flesh – such as anger, jealousy, dissensions and divisions. (Gal. 5:20-21). Or as Paul writes in our lesson from Ephesians, it produces walls and hostility. If I build my temple so that God is on my side, then that necessarily means that God is not on your side. It means that I must fight to defend my temple and God as mine. It means that I must build up walls and create divisions – insiders and outsiders. It means I only need to love those who agree with me, and it allows me to sit in judgment of everyone who does not. If God is on my side, then I’m always right. It’s why Nathan told David “No” and why Nathan tells us “No.”

But, we should all know what the fruit of worshipping in the temple of Christ and being on God’s side looks like. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, we who are in Christ, should love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and not judge one another. Or as Paul writes in Galatians, we should exhibit the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The temple of Jesus tears down all divisions so that there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor free. This is what it looks like to be on God’s side and to worship in the temple built by David’s son. It means, as Paul writes, that our divisions cease and that we are all reconciled to God and to one another.

To worship in the temple of the Resurrection, means to be on God’s side. It means that when we engage in our prayers at night, when we come to church on Sunday morning, and when we read the scriptures and study them, we must always be on guard that we’re not engaging in these practices for our own affirmation and that we are not engaging in these practices so that we can build a temple to make sure that God is on our side and that others are kept out.

Rather when we come here on Sunday morning, when we open God’s word, when we engage God in conversation, we must always keep ourselves open to be overcome by the power of God and to be overwhelmed by the movement of the Holy Spirit, to have our hearts and minds changed and transformed, to turn us back to being on God’s side so that we may enter into his Temple in the person of Jesus Christ.

Amen