Text: 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Luke 1:30-33
Speaker: Mark Rupp
The High School Sunday School class that I lead is currently working through a series about politics and faith. I try to run this series every four years during presidential election seasons when political issues are especially front and center, and questions abound in people’s minds about how our faith intersects with the political landscape. We spent the first few weeks of class setting some groundwork for understanding what we even mean when we use the word “politics” and looking at some of the ways various scriptures spoke directly to the political issues of their day and, hopefully, can inspire us to think about what wisdom these passages might offer us today.
Last Sunday I asked the class to suspend their disbelief a little more liberally than normal to imagine a world where Jesus was running for president. After a bit of well-deserved pushback from the class about how Jesus would probably never do anything like run for political office of any kind, I convinced them to go on this journey with me. And of course, we started by watching a satirical attack ad someone published on YouTube defaming Jesus as a presidential candidate. (You can watch the video HERE.)
The video had all the hallmarks of a typical attack ad: images with inverted colors to look more sinister, a narrator whose voice dripped with incredulity toward every claim made about Jesus, and out-of-context quotes extrapolated to the point of absurdity. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the ad (and I’ll do my best to capture the right tone):
How much do you really know about the self-styled “Prince of Peace?” Millions of innocent Americans like you are going bankrupt, losing their homes. But Jesus thinks being poor just makes them blessed. Meanwhile Jesus thinks middle class hardworking families should give money to the poor. Sounds like another way to say, he’ll raise your taxes…Jesus says that we should love our neighbor, but can we afford to give out free love to the world’s evil nations? After 9/11, Jesus would have had us turn the other cheek…to Osama Bin Laden! And that’s exactly what he’ll do if he’s in office when the terrorists strike again, which they will, soon. Jesus Christ: wrong for your family, wrong for America.
I started class by having us consider this attack ad partly because I think it’s an interesting way to immerse ourselves in this thought-experiment about Jesus running for President and what the reaction might be, but also because I think it helps us think about what kind of President Jesus would be. While some of the ad’s claims are outrageous and overblown, toward the end, they start to point toward things that probably would make Jesus a tough sell even for those of us who claim to follow him. What would it mean for President Jesus to love the nations that commit terrible acts? How would he turn the other cheek to those who commit violence?
As part of this class session, I also had the group name current political issues. First of all, let me say that our kids are paying attention to what’s happening in the world. And they care, even if they are, like many of us, unsure what to do with that. But one of the political issues that was named was the reality that politics is becoming more and more like a comedy skit and the rise of social media forces politicians to become almost exaggerations of themselves, caricatures with very little substance. These are my words, but I would add that so much of our politics has become a cult of personality where it’s more about a person maintaining power than about working toward a common life where all can thrive.
In this regard, I don’t think Jesus would do very well as a presidential candidate. He spent most of his years of ministry pointing beyond himself, teaching and preaching that each of his followers would do even more amazing things than he ever did. His kin-dom was not of this world, and his home is not in any White House.
As we pick back up into the arc of the narrative in the Hebrew Bible, we zoom ahead from the song and prayers of Hannah we heard last week to the halls of King David’s fledgeling rulership. We skip over Samuel’s rise as a prophet and priest, the people’s clamoring for a king to rule over them, Saul’s anointing and subsequent rejection, and David’s rise to power. It wasn’t quite a presidential election, but it did turn out to be a contentious rise for David with intervening years of hostility between him and Saul. But here at this point in the story, David has already won the election, has ousted Saul, and is finally able to begin making the move toward ruling and, perhaps, uniting.
The text tells us we are at a point where “the king was settled in his house and God had given him rest from all his enemies around him.” The dust was beginning to settle, but there was still much work to be done. David had already won the metaphorical White House, but he hadn’t quite secured his position yet. In our own political context, there is often talk of a new president’s first 100 days as a benchmark of their early successes, and here it seems as if David is ready to make those first weeks of his reign truly count, establishing not only himself in his palace of cedar, but deciding that his God deserved something even more grand.
We skipped over much of David’s rise to power, but we should understand that he is a clever and shrewd leader, making strategic decisions to place himself on the best footing and focusing his energy on things that strengthen his position. Thus, his desire to build a more permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God’s presence with the people, was possibly another cunning piece of political maneuvering. Not only would he be the king, but with a temple built by his command there would be no doubt that he was THE God-ordained king.
When he floats this idea to Nathan, one of his closest advisors, Nathan gives automatic and complete approval, “Go, do all that you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.” This is the first time Nathan is introduced, and it seems he has not yet taken up the mantle as a prophet ready and willing to speak hard truths to those in power. Later in the books of Samuel we will find Nathan speaking very pointedly to David, naming his corruption and calling the king to repentance. Yet here he gives tacit approval to the king to do whatever he wants, just another ‘yes man’ propping up those in power.
But that very night, before this scheme can get too far underway, the word of God comes to Nathan. God’s response to David’s desire and Nathan’s uncritical approval comes across as a little bit sassy, putting David in his place and reminding him that it is God who provides, not the other way around. God never asked for a house and has been pleased to be a God who dwells wherever the people have roamed.
We do not get much insight into David’s thinking, but God’s response seems to call into question David’s motives. Does he truly wish to honor God, or, like so many other political powers both then and now, does he wish to prop up his own name by claiming Divine favor? Like most of the biblical characters, David is a complex character who represents virtues and vices, and I imagine that his desire is likely a mix of both.
Perhaps the challenge of this text is for us to consider deeply our own motivations and desires, even those that seek to honor God’s will. To search our own complex hearts and minds, discerning together the will of a God who goes before us, whose ways are not our ways. How receptive are we to the God who will not be confined or enshrined but retains and cherishes the freedom to surprise us?
Yet God responds not just with sass and putting David in his place, but also by reminding David that God has been present in all the places David has been put. God tells him, “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 a bit further on, God says, “I 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 forever.”
A name. A house. A throne forever. After God reestablishes God’s place as the one who provides and does not need a house of cedar, this second part of Nathan’s oracle to David will become a centerpiece of messianic theology, the longing for a coming figure who will set the world aright. This covenant God speaks through Nathan to David promises an everlasting love. “I will not take my steadfast love from him,” God declares of David’s ancestors immediately after naming the reality that those to come will falter.
One commentary I read this week put it rather bluntly: “The promise of an enduring house for David seems in 2 Samuel 7 to be unconditional, but turns out to have limits. God, we may hear the story saying, offers a gift that is lasting–a gift to Abraham, to Moses, to David. But God cannot be taken for granted. That comment catches the story of the nation from entry into the land to exit. The promise of a ‘house’ offers a gift that establishes order. But in itself no institution can secure order, no institution is secure. The promise cannot be presumed upon. It is not a crutch, but an invitation to share in God’s gift for the future.”
Last week Joel pointed out how the story of Hannah was a story that had reverberated through history. It was an echo of Sarah’s story, and Rachel’s story, and in some ways it resonated through Mary’s story. In a similar way, as this commentary points out, David’s story is an echo of Abraham and Moses and those who came after David all the way through Mary and Jesus once more. It is a story about longing for a better life, a renewed world, and a legacy that lives beyond ourselves.
And just like David, perhaps we too place too much of our hope in the structures and systems of this world. Perhaps we too long to honor God but end up trying to fence God in behind our walls, forgetting that the God we serve is a God who dwells not in houses of cedar but wherever justice and righteousness meet. The covenant with David inspired the people through the ages, including, it seems, direct inspiration for a number of the Psalms. Psalm 89 reads:
You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one;
I have sworn to my servant David:
4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever
and build your throne for all generations.’
…
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;
steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
A name. A house. A throne for all generations. But not just any throne; one built on righteousness and justice.
The kingship of David arose out of the people’s longing for security and our passage from 2nd Samuel seems to be the culmination and climax of that story. A time of peace and a promise of steadfast love. Yet as 2nd Samuel continues to unfold it will quickly become clear that no earthly throne, no literal kingdom or other institution can offer the everlasting security we long for. The temple denied to David will be built by his offspring, yet the lure of power will cause corruption, in-fighting, and eventual fracturing of this kingdom. The temple will be destroyed and the people will be exiled.
Many scholars believe that this part of the Bible was being written and first used during this period of exile. So when we read of this brief time of peace and God’s covenant with David, we ought to do so through the lens of these first readers. Once again, the Harper-Collins Bible Commentary suggests, “The original readers of the story perhaps sat in exile and wondered whether they might hope to rebuild a broken house…But it is not just their story…The readers of Genesis-Kings are those who ‘today’ stand beyond a river and yearn to cross and to build or rebuild a house. This is a story for them, wherever their ‘today’ might be.”
It is a story for those in exile. And it is a story for us and all the ways we sit in exile longing to build and rebuild the world. The Luke passage for today is paired here because it reminds those of us who follow Christ that Jesus is part of this lineage of promise. We Christians name Jesus as messiah, though we must be wary of turning him into just another figurehead who will single-handedly fix everything. The salvation Jesus offers is not an easy out from a broken world, but an invitation to join in the work of God, repairing the breaches and restoring the streets we live in.
And while the tools available to us to do that work will likely include systems, institutions, churches, temples and, yes, engagement with the political landscapes of our day, we should always remember that our hope lies beyond these. The promise of God is not bound up in a location, a specific ruler, a denomination, a political party, or a nation. Rather it is an invitation to a future built on both righteousness and justice. A promise that love conquers death and that a better world is not only possible but that God can be found dwelling wherever and whenever we live into that promise.
I agree with my Sunday School Class that Jesus would never run for president. He doesn’t long for the White House anymore than God longs for a house made of cedar. But what kind of home shall we build for God? Whatever it looks like, be it a grand temple or a lowly stable, may it be a place where the promise of God’s steadfast love for all Creation can grow and flourish.
