2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 (Luke 1:26-38)
When
Mike and I were in Romania we had the privilege to be able to get to spend one
night in a Peleș
Palace, well the carriage house. It was the last castle built in Romania having
been begun at the end of the 1800s. It is a picturesque castle whose façade is
often used in TV and Movies when they want to make an idyllic palace as their
setting. I often tease Mike saying that had we eloped while we were in Romania
we could have stayed in a Palace for our honeymoon.
Peleș was built to be the home
of King Carol I. This palace like so many others was built to be a reflection
of the King and the Kingdom he rules. Palaces are often symbols of the values
and culture of a nation. When Peleș was built it was the first palace anywhere
to be completely powered by electricity (in fact the King had built a separate a
power plant just to power the Palace and the surrounding buildings). Peleș being completely powered
by electricity was a matter of national pride, and was a symbol of the King
leading the Romanian people into the future. It brought Romania in to the
modern age and secured them a place of belonging in the future as a stable nation.
It
is a common idea that a king’s palace is a reflection of the nation and its
people. A king with no palace at all would be seen as a weak king. It would be
a signal to the surrounding nations that these people were a people who could
be easily conquered. Most kings palaces are symbols to their people and are
reflection to the world of the king’s power and authority
This
is the thought process of David as he built his palace. He needed a palace to
join the people of Israel together as a kingdom and to present to the nations
around them that Israel was indeed a legitimate nation whom they could not
bully. So once he has established Israel, he immediately begins by building a
palace for himself, for the people and for the security of the nation. . David’s
palace by providing a home and a place for their King to belong, gave the
people of Israel stability and showed the world around them that they belonged
here. This was their land, this was their home. As a people, it tied them to
this place. They would not be easily chased from the place they belonged.
Once
he has finished his palace, he looks around him and sees how far God has
brought him, after all when God “found” him he was a boy in the countryside
watching sheep. He was so much of “a nobody,” his father had not even bothered
to ask him to come in from the field when the prophet asked to see all his
father’s sons. He is grateful to God. He wants to show God that he is grateful.
He sees how God has blessed him. He sees himself surrounded by all the
trappings of a King and he can look out of his palace and see the little tent in
which God “lives.” The same tent the Israelites carted around the dessert. The
same tent that crossed the Jordan river with them. The same tent which has been
God’s house since they arrived in the promised land and it looked mighty
pitiful next to David’s fine palace.
This
makes David want to build a place where God can belong among the people, a
palace where God can dwell, a home for God. He wants to give God what he has.
He has found rest, perhaps he should not rest until God also has a place to
rest. David wants to give God what he would want if he was in God’s position. He
wants to give God a house that befits the God of the universe. He wants to
build God a proper place to dwell among the people, so God knows that he is
grateful for all which God has done for him. He wants to build a temple where
God could belong which would befitting of the God of the universe, so the
nations around them will know that their God is the one and only living God.
God
says, “No.” God says, “I don’t need a house.” Later the prophet Haggai will run
up against the opposite problem, where God got upset with the people for
waiting 18 years to rebuild the temple after Cyrus told them they could. In
Haggai the problem was they spent time building their own houses while God’s
house stood in ashes. But here at this time, God does not want David to build God
a house, the tent is just fine. The temple can wait.
What
God does want David to do? Right now? David has been busy, setting up the
kingdom, expanding its borders, winning peace for the people and now that David
has a place where he belongs, God wants David to be still for a while, to rest
in the home he now has, to enjoy the place and be at peace in the place he
belongs. David has done much work to bring the nation to the place it is right
now, but now is the time for rest. From almost the moment David had been plucked
out of his rural shepherding life, chosen, by God, through the prophet, to be
the next King of God’s people, David’s life has been in chaos. When he was not a
warrior fighting in Saul’s wars, he was in conflict with Saul either directly
or indirectly and then even once he had gained the throne he had almost
continually been at war with one nation or another defending and expanding the
borders of the nation, until now they were finally at peace with all the
nations around them. God had given David rest from all his enemies.
Now
is not the time for building, or the time for more laborious work. Now is the
time to be still, to be in one place. Now is the time for rest. Instead of
building a house for God, God wants to take this time to build David’s house
for him. David has been very busy, his life has been exhausting up until this
point. Right now God want to allow David to rest for a bit, let God do some of
the heavy lifting. Rest, relax. God can handle this, enjoy this time of peace.
God will take this time to build up you and your house.
Calling
for David to be still and rest, does not mean God does not have plans for
David. Calling for David to rest does not mean God is finished with David. God wants
David to be a good Godly king. God wants David to rule God’s people the way
they should be ruled. God wants David to be the kind of great king who will be
praised throughout the generations, you know the kind of king David continues to
be known to have been. putting God first, and the people’s needs and wants
ahead of something God does not really “need” anyway, is not what God wants for
David or the nation right now.
God
wants David to be the “father” of the King of Kings. God has plans for David,
they just don’t include building a temple. God has big plans for David. David
will be the “father king” of this nation. He will be regarded as the finest king
they will ever have. God is still at work with and through David, but God does
not want David to build a temple, instead God wants David to take this time to
be still and rest.
In
the Gospel passage this morning we encounter Mary. Mary is just a girl, she is somewhere
between the ages of 13-16. By all modern standards she is not even a grown
woman at this time. But she is kind of amazing. Even at her young age, she is
faithful and is ready to listen to God. How many of us, full grown adults, are
ready to listen to God and has the kind of faith Mary exhibits here in this
passage. Who among us, even at whatever age we are right now, is ready to allow
God to work in our lives the way that Mary allowed God to work in hers? God
tells her that she will have a baby (the Messiah). And she does not even seem
to skip a beat. She like, “Oh, wow, ok.”
Can
you think about a teenaged girl? Can you imagine how she must have felt in the
moment she realized what was going on? Can you think about how her stomach must
just fall right out of her, how sick she must feel in that moment (perhaps
literally as well as figuratively), how scared she must be? What will she do?
What does she need to do first? She realizes first things first, I have to go
get a test.
So
here is this young lady, sitting there waiting for the test to do its thing. We
can imagine those long minutes as she waits. Then she sees that second little
blue line that says so much while being so silent. We can imagine her fear and
her anxiety. So many young girls who find out this news are alone and scared
when they find out. Then there is young Mary, Mary doesn’t find out from an impersonal
test, she finds out from the angel of God, but I am sure some of the same
feelings had to be brewing inside her; the anxiety, the fear. She was human after
all, and she was still very young.
Now,
of course finding out from a messenger from God is the ultimate way to find out.
The angel has already told her not to be afraid. He has already told her that
she is favored by God. Then he tells her that she will conceive and bear a
child. She asks a few obvious questions and then just accepts God’s plan for
her life. She says, “Let it be for me as you say.”
Not
my response: my response would be. Umm,
God, I don’t think this is a good idea. I don’t think people are going to buy
the whole virgin birth thing. I am not sure this is a very good plan. Can I
think this over and get back to you. I am not quite so sure I am the right
person for this job.
No,
Mary says, “Let it be for me as you have said.”
????? What a humble response! What an obedient response! What an
absolutely amazing response. If only I could be more like Mary! If only all of us could be just a tiny bit
more like Mary!
Sometimes
we have great amazing plans. They are plans to do work for God, plans for the
betterment of the kingdom, they are good plans. But sometimes God says, no, and
calls for us to be still, for us to just rest. To sit back and let God do some
work for a while. This kind of message to God does not usually sit well with
us. We are a go, go, go, get it done kind of people. We always have a goal
toward which we are striving. We always have somewhere we need to be. There is
always a project we want to complete. We live in a culture in which we define
ourselves by what we do. We actually take pride in being tired and overworked. It
is a badge of honor to never rest, to be so busy you don’t have time for
yourself. We live in a culture which sees nothing wrong with having to work
60-80 hour work weeks. So to hear a passage where God says,” no, don’t do this
thing for me, even though it is a good thing, rest instead,” is almost complete
and utter nonsense to us. We are not a people who rest, who relax, who like sit
down in peace.
At
this time of the year we, as a congregation, following Christmas we would
usually move into what we call Sabbath month; a month in which we par back our
congregational activities and slow down following the busy season of Advent. It
is a time for us to remember God’s call for us to rest, a reminder that scripture
tell us both Jesus while he walked this earth, as well as God following the
creation, rested and that we too are to find time, days, and seasons in which
to rest. Time for us to let God be in control and to listen intently to God’s
voice. As I look at this passage this week, I cannot help but think this would
be a great message for the beginning of Sabbath month. But this year Sabbath
month seems to be a little redundant as we have already cut down our activities
as a congregation during Corona times and are once again moving back to an all online
format, as we wait out these colder months for the vaccine.
Yet,
even though this would be a perfect sermon to move us toward Sabbath month, it is
probably also a good message for us all right now anyway. These past nine
months have been exhausting. As a nation and as a world we have been fighting a
pandemic. We have to wear masks anytime we leave the confines of our home, which
is not as often as often as we used to. We work from home, while our children are
schooled from home. All this is tiring even though we don’t go very many places
anymore. We go to the grocery store, to necessary appointments, we may have travelled
during the summer when the weather was warm and the cases were down, but not
now.
As
the cases have gone up, we all realize it is not the best choice to travel to
all the places we might at this time of year. So we continue to stay at home
and are getting just a bit antsy. We want to do something, something other than
just being at home all the time. Wouldn’t a trip to go see relatives, be nice?
Can’t we go somewhere, do something, anything? And the voice of God in this
passage comes to us as God speaks to David saying, “No, not right now.”
Right
now is the time to rest. We may have taken time to venture to other places this
past Summer when the weather was warm and the more humid conditions slowed the
virus down and made it harder to pass from person to person. But the virus
thrives in this cold dry season and now it is the time to stay put. We have the
peace which comes with knowing the vaccine is coming but right now we need to
rest; to be still, to slow down. We need to stop for a little while and catch
our breath. And trust God.
Stopping,
resting, relaxing, being still is about trusting God. I really think our antsy-ness
right now, our need to go somewhere, do something, something fun, something
else, is a byproduct of our inability to be still, to step back, take our hands
off the plow and rest. It is a symptom of our continual desire to be in
control. Doing all the things is a by-product of our need to always be in
control. When we can’t do something, we want to go somewhere, when we can’t go
somewhere, we really don’t know what to do with ourselves and we feel out of
control. Most of us are conditioned to think, if we aren’t getting things done,
then nothing will be done. If we are not working, if we are not striving, if we
are not doing, if we are not go, go, going all the time, then what needs to
happen will not happen. We do not know the good in being still, in resting. We
do not know how to trust God to do some of the work which needs to be done.
I
know we all had plans, we had great plans. But right now, we can’t do those
plans. They are not the right plans for right now, they are for another time,
another year. Right now they are not God’s plans. They are our plans. That does
not mean God does not have plans for us, great, amazing plans but they may not be
the plans we had wanted or hoped for. For right now, we need to set aside our go,
go, go plans, and our need to keep moving and our desire to go somewhere. Right
now is the time to rest and let God do what God needs to do right now, to
relinquish our need to be in control.
It
is time to give over the control we want to have in and over our lives and give
it to God. In many ways we need to let God be God. We can’t make plans for God,
we have to allow God to make plans for us, even if those plans are for us to be
still, to rest, to take this time to slow down and listen to God. Perhaps the
things we are wanting to do are fine things to do, greats things which were for
the furtherance of the Kingdom, but whatever it is we wanted to do, if it is
not what God wants us to do, it is the wrong thing to do. Right now is the time
to slow down, to rest, to stop, to be still. Right now is the time to stop, to
be still, to wait, and to listen. So
often we are so busy, busy busy, we are making the plans, giving the directions.
Perhaps right now is the time to allow God to do the work God needs to do and
to allow God to direct our plans; allow God to make the plans to give the
directions.
When
we are resting, when we are still, and we are able to better listen. When we are
listening, that is when we are able to actually listen, we are able to hear what
it is God wants from us, what God needs from us. Sometimes it is not simply
that God has “other” plans. It is not simply that our plans are different than
God’s plans. Perhaps God’s plans for us are so completely amazing that we would
never have thought about it on our own because God’s plans would blow our minds
– like with the plans God had for Mary.
Now
wouldn’t that be cool, to get to be Mary. Sometimes, sometime we get to be like
Mary and what God is calling us to do is so beyond our grasp of understanding
that we would never think of doing those things ourselves. Sometimes the plans
that God is giving us sound crazy and scary and absolutely unobtainable. But they
are God’s plans. They are the plans that God is putting before us and we need
to respond obediently, as Mary did. We need to say, “Let it be for me as you
have said.” But first we need to be still enough to listen. First we need to
rest. To allow God to do what God needs to do, so that we are ready to do what we
need to do, so we are rested, rejuvenated, relaxed enough, have learned enough to
trust God that we can, are able to say, “Let it be for me as you have said.”
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