Over these past many weeks, we have been moving through the Hebrew scriptures under the theme, Promises Made, Promises Broken. We have learned about the great promises that God has made to humanity. And ways in which humankind has made and often broken promises, both to God and to one another.
This idea of promise - or covenant - is one of the most important themes in the Bible. The covenants in scripture are the background upon which the entire narrative of God and of God’s story of redemption are built. They’re like the backbone of the Bible.
From Genesis on, God enters into a series of formal, covenanted relationships, one after another, in order to rescue God’s world. Understanding these divine-human relationship stories are central to our understanding who Jesus is. That for us, is pretty important, isn’t it? So, we’re going to remember, for just a few minutes, these key biblical covenants.
We began the fall at the beginning. Creation. God made this beautiful world and placed humankind in it to care for it and to partner with God to bring more good out of it. But the humans don’t want to partner with God. They rebel and try to create a world on their own terms. It’s this broken partnership that the Bible gives as an explanation for why we’re stuck in a world of corruption and injustice and death. So God selects a small group of people and makes a new partnership with them. God’s purpose is to use this covenant relationship to renew God’s partnership with all humanity.
There are four central covenants in the Hebrew scripture through which God is forming a covenant family into which all the world will be invited. In the first covenant with Noah, God promises him, his family and all living creatures that God will never again destroy earth. No matter how evil it becomes.
In the second covenant with Abraham, God enters into a partnership with him. And promises Abraham a huge family that will inherit a promised piece of land in Canaan. And that through Abraham and his family, all humanity will be blessed.
The third covenant is with this huge family that eventually became the nation of Israel. God rescued Israel from bondage in Egypt and promised to make them God’s treasured possession. A holy nation. Set apart. And with whom God would personally dwell in their midst and bring into the land originally promised to Abraham. God would be their God. And they would be God’s people - a kingdom of priests that would show God’s goodness and glory to all the nations.
Today, we come to the fourth covenant. Beginning last week and continuing today, we find that Israel has entered Canaan, the promised land. Eventually, to be like the surrounding nations, they demanded a king. God appointed Saul. Yet, he fails to obey God. And so, God chooses another king for Israel. David. Son of Jesse. From the tribe of Judah. King David becomes a successful leader, overcoming Israel’s enemies. Uniting the tribes. And establishing Jerusalem as the political center of Israel, where he builds his palace - a “house of cedar.” Then, in the chapter before today’s reading, David restores the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Making it, not only the political center of Israel, but it’s religious center, as well. It is here where our story begins. In 2nd Samuel, chapter 7.
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 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.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”
But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 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. 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?” Now 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; 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 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, 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. 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. 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. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. (2 Samuel 7:1-17 NRSV)
One of the first things we notice in this story is that the narrator does not refer to David by name. Instead, he is always called “the king.” This is to underscore that David - and not Saul - is now king. It also underscores his role as the leader of the nation Israel. Yet, when God speaks, beginning in verse 5, God always refers to him as, “my servant, David.” God knows him by name.
It isn’t long before David gets a grand idea. He has a house to live in. It’s time to build a house for God. Something stable. And permanent. And secure. 
Now it’s not entirely clear here what his motivation is. Was he simply coming from a place of gratitude for all that God had done for him and for Israel? Or maybe this was a way to stay in God’s good graces? Or maybe, just maybe, it was a way for this earthly monarch to attempt to contain the heavenly monarch. To put God in a box. To control God.
But, whatever David’s motivation is here, it is clear that he does not fully understand the nature of God’s grace. Whatever God has already done for David, God will continue to do more. To make for David a great name. To give him rest from all his enemies. And, for Israel, to plant them so they may live in their own place, secure. Where they will no longer be disturbed or afflicted by evildoers.
But, the promises don’t stop there. It is in the next verses where God pivots on David's use of the word, “house.” Promising unconditionally to make a new kind of “house” for David. Not a dwelling place of cedar, but a dynasty. And from this dynasty, from this royal line, will come a descendant. A Messiah who will rule God’s kingdom. Forever. And ever. And ever.
As we hear this story, I’m struck by its similarities to the Reformation. One of the main catalysts for action at the time of the Reformation was the desire of the church to build a bigger and better house. It was the selling of indulgences to collect funds for this newer, bigger cathedral that set the Reformation in motion. As if God can be contained in a building.
The story of King David. The story of the Reformation. All of these are stories of God’s great reversals. God recentering the direction of the action, putting God’s promises once again, front and center. And driving the question, “What is God doing?”
In this year 2020 with all the terrible things that have happened and the chaos that seems to surround us. As we have been pushed beyond the walls of our churches into this virtual place is this perhaps, another of God’s great reversals? God recentering us, once again, to ask the question, “What is God doing?” And, as God is once more being placed at the center, how might our own imaginations be reshaped for how we are, in fact, seeking to live out God’s will in our world today?
What we do know, though, from the stories we have heard this fall is that God keeps God’s promises. It is this that we, as God’s people, cling to today. God keeps God’s promises. And God will find a way - a surprising new way - to be faithful. And, as with David, to shower us with grace upon grace upon grace.
And so I end this now, where we began this morning. In Psalm 46.
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Amen.
Preached October 25, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Reformation Sunday
Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Luke 1:30-33
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