2 Samuel a (NRSV) Mark , 30-34, (NRSV)

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1 2 Samuel a (NRSV) The Domestication of Transcendence 1 By the Rev. Eric O. Ledermann 1Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 the king said to the prophet Nathan, See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent. 3Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you. 4But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: 5 Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6 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. 7 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? 8Now 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; 9 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. 10 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, 11 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. 12 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. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 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. Mark , 30-34, (NRSV) 7[Jesus] called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. [In the mean time, John the Baptist is beheaded by King Herod.] 30[Later,] [t]he apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31He said to them, Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves 1 Sermon title borrowed from William C. Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), quoted by Rebecca Button Prichard, Proper 11, 2 Samuel a: Theological Perspective in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Additional Essays, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 3.

2 and rest a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. [Then the disciples realize that there are about 5,000 people and they are getting hungry. Jesus says to feed them. Five loaves and two fish are blessed and given to the people, and 12 baskets full of leftovers are collected. Jesus makes his disciples get into a boat and go ahead to the other side. A wind blows on the lake and the disciple struggle to row. Jesus walks out on the water and joins them, and the wind settles down.] 53When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. This text from Mark s gospel surrounds last week s devastating passage about the death of John the Baptist. The passage from 2 Samuel is a continuation of last week s passage from the Revised Common Lectionary. King David and many others have danced the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, and now David is pondering with the prophet Nathan what might be next. More often than not in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, sadly often referred to as the Old or obsolete Testament, God is perceived as angry or vengeful. In the Greek or Christian scriptures, again sadly often referred to as the New Testament, God is perceived through Jesus as being very present, as close as one s own father or mother, but still separate and contained. When we read a bit closer, we might begin to see a God in both libraries of scripture who is experienced as being very close, very intimate, very involved, very compassionate and very uncontained. What we read in our ancient scriptures is about a God who is seeking to be in close partnership with Creation itself. Unfortunately, too often humanity has sought to control or contain this God, to manipulate this God like some cosmic Santa Clause who gives them what they want (and when this God does not give them what they want, they rebel). But then we read in C. S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, where God is animated in the lion Aslan, who is a good lion, but not a Page 2 of 7

3 tame lion. In the Exodus, the people whine against a God who has just helped them escape slavery because somehow the dysfunction of slavery was better than the challenges of freedom. They are lost so they build for themselves something to throw all their worries and frustrations on: in the absence of Moses who is up the mountain trying to seek the will of God Aaron, leads the people in building a golden calf for them to worship. The calf represents the people s insecurity and lack of trust in this untamed, uncontainable God, and all that is selfish and glutton- esque about humanity. Moses comes back from a face- to- face encounter with the Holy One only to find the people drunk on indulging their basest fantasies. But look at the promises given to David: though God, through Nathan, tells David that he is not the king to build any sort of temple (maybe due to David s wanton desires for self gratification?), but this same God promises that David s line of descendants will essentially be the greatest kings of Israel (sadly, that doesn t turn out to be entirely true). David is reminded that God has been with him every step of the way, from the fields where he shepherded, to the battle field, then to be crowned prince over my people Israel. This story begs some questions: Why does David want to build a temple, a house of cedar for God? Is it about God, or about David s ego as the new king? Why do we build sanctuaries at all? Look at the great cathedrals of Europe, architectural wonders of technology, grandeur, and beauty. But most of them are empty and some now serve as museums paying homage to a forgone age of religious power. A temple was eventually built, by David s son Solomon. Several times the temple was destroyed by enemies of Israel. And at least twice it was rebuilt. Today, all that is left of those ancient monuments is a wall not even a wall of the temple itself, but part of the outer wall that surrounded the temple. Some call it the Wailing Wall. It is a sacred place for Jews to remember that God is close; to remember their call to be blessings to the world; to remember that God has not forsaken them. One of the things that I think Jesus tried to remind people is that God is never far off. In fact, in the aftermath of multiple Babylonian invasions, when the people seemed to have lost all hope, the prophet Jeremiah receives a word from God, a word of hope: Page 3 of 7

4 31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah [the now split northern nation of Israel and the southern nation of Judah]. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2 Despite the challenges of the day, God does not give up on God s Creation. God is as close as our own beating hearts. Our invitation is to get in sync with beat of God and discover the new life Jesus taught his disciples and invited others to join in. William Placher published a book in 1996 entitled, The Domestication of Transcendence. It is where the title of this sermon comes from. In it he challenges the narrow views of modernist thinking: a perspective that seems more bent on conquering or domesticating God for our own purposes (building our golden calves of all shapes and sizes, and focusing our attention on them because it s just easier). Placher seems to argue that God is not something to be revered or worshiped. God is the very soul of the universe, as opposed to some omnipotent being. He and others argue, under the banner of process theology that the universe is a more collaborative affair. 3 He goes on to write that God is the very Soul of the Universe. When in John s Gospel in chapter 14 Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life, If you know me, you will know my Father also, Jesus is not actually pointing to himself. He is pointing to the reality that the Soul of the Universe exists inside him and he is showing us that it lives inside the disciples as well. His life shows how to live in sync with it. When we do, all kinds of healing is possible. When we start to believe in a God that is on our side, as opposed to the other s side, we 2 Jeremiah , NRSV, emphasis added. 3 William Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 8. Page 4 of 7

5 begin to demonize that in which God is present. When we start to believe in our own righteousness, we miss the opportunity to allow the Soul of the Universe to speak to our hearts and help us see what is already there. When Jesus sends his disciples out, he is sending them out not to test or practice the power they have been given, but to practice being in sync with God, the very Soul of the Universe. He is sending them out to be in partnership with God and each other and those they meet. I was always fascinated by Jesus instruction to the disciples to stay at whatever house they find first, to not house hop. We can t get to know people if we don t spend some time with them. If they skipped from house to house, they would be using the people like the Israelites used the golden calf, a tool to satisfy their own self- righteous and base desires. Instead, stay. Work through any issues that may arise. Learn to see the Soul of the Universe in the other. Learn how to work out the kinks; see the log in your own eye before you try to help the other with the spec in theirs; and grow in your awareness of the presence of God in that space, in you, as well as in the others you meet. It was Mother Teresa who said, I see Jesus in every human being. But then she went on to say, I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. 4 She was a busy and focused woman. What I don t hear her say, though, is, This is God s Son, Jesus, I need to just listen and learn to understand. Maybe she did and I just haven t found that part. So much of Christianity has turned people into projects for our own self- gratification. We named this during our last mission month when we talked about the dangers and purposes of mission. When we turn people into projects for ourselves, we are seeking to domesticate and contain the Soul of the Universe that lives in the other. We are using them to satisfy our need to be helpful or feel good. The disciples come back yammering on about all that they did nothing about the relationships that were built. Jesus response: he tells them to get into a boat and get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The text does not say why he wanted them to go to the other side of the lake, but I imagine he wanted them to take a time out, to get some perspective, to think more deeply about what is happening. It s a common theme in the gospels for Jesus to retreat in order to pray I imagine, to get back into sync with God again. 4 Mother Teresa of Calcutta, i- see- jesus- in- every- human- being- i- say- to (accessed July 19, 2015). Page 5 of 7

6 A week ago our high school youth returned from their biennial short- term mission trip out of state. Two years ago Suzanne Niemann led us to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where we helped ready a house that belonged to the parents of Jack Armstrong s late wife. There was a personal connection to that town as several of our youth were practically raised by Nancy Armstrong, and remember her fondly. If you watch the video on our website from the trip, you learn about the area, some of the history of the house, and a few stories of the people involved. It was more than a project the whole trip was about relationships. This year, we went to S. Carolina, to Myrtle Beach. We learned quickly it is a popular summer play land for fairly wealthy people. But we also learned there is a dark side to the summer festivities. The other nine months of the year, jobs become scarce. We learned that behind the backdrop of the boardwalk, the t- shirt shops, the rides, and the gorgeous beach, there is incredible poverty, desperate need, and real suffering. Each night we asked ourselves, in the spirit of St. Ignatius daily examen: where did we experience the presence of God? At first, we saw God in the gorgeous sand and playing in the salty waves. As the week progressed, we began to see God in the faces of the people we met. I d like to believe that our hearts began to beat in sync with the Soul of the Universe, even if just for moments at a time, and our eyes began to see as God sees. King David didn t get to build a house for God. I m not convinced anyone really can because God cannot be contained. The disciples went out and did amazing things, but I like to believe that it was the relationships they forged that helped them move their hearts closer to being in sync with the heart beat of Creation, that is, the heart beat of God. In Paul s letter to the Ephesian Church, he calls the congregation to live in Christ: for he is our peace; in his flesh he has... broken down the dividing wall... between us. [Y]ou are... members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. 5 There is no need for a building or a monument to God, for God is within us. 5 Ephesians 2.14, 19-22, NRSV. Page 6 of 7

7 Pastor Darin told us last week that Jesus is our plumb line the standard by which we should measure how in sync our lives are with the Soul of the Universe. How are you doing with that? Where and how are you experiencing the presence of God in your life? What about in the lives and others around you? And how much are you allowing God to be present in you? May God be made known to us in the lives of others as much as in our own lives. May we not try to domesticate or contain the Soul of the Universe, but try to live in harmony with it, so that all may be blessed by it. Amen. Page 7 of 7