2 Samuel 7:1-14 Commentary

Spoke Too Soon

In last week’s Old Testament reading, we had a shocking example of how politicians and public figures can use the Name of the Lord in vain, using it to baptize their causes and leadership.  This week’s text is far more subtle but, in a sense, the transgression against the 3rd commandment remains.  Nathan hears David’s plan to build a Temple for God’s presence and it sounds reasonable, holy and respectable even.  So, because it ticks all the boxes on a decision-making flow chart, Nathan — speaking on God’s behalf — gives the project a green light.  How often have we done this ourselves?  Running out ahead of God with our big ideas?  Telling others that because a course of action makes sense to us, it must be of God?

Biblical scholar John Goldingay writes of this story, “God’s problem with us is that we like to tie God down, keep God under control. We don’t want God on the loose. God likes being on the loose.”  Nathan’s plot line in this story is a cautionary tale for all those who would dare to speak for God.  Be judicious.  Leave room for the possibility that God might be doing something other than the reasonable, rational thing you would do.  There’s plenty of evidence to support that possibility.  And, at the very least, sleep on it.

God’s Plan or Ours?

Let’s remember the story of David’s life as we know it so far.  Plucked from a sheep field for no apparent reason (perhaps even against reason.) Trusting God to give him victory over Goliath. Trusting God while he waits the accomplishment of God’s purposes. Now, at last, David is living into his anointing.  The people made him King over Judah and then all Israel.  He has chosen Jerusalem for the seat of his kingdom.  Through a fitful process, David has brought the ark to rest in Jerusalem.  He’s had decades to plan what his reign will be like. Can’t you see David dreaming? “One day I will build a house for God.  Because I love God. Because I’m grateful. Because of all God has done for me. When I am king, I will start giving back.”

If that thinking sounds familiar to you, I imagine it’s because you’re human. Again from John Goldingay, “God’s other problem is the one from which we started. David is getting too fond of taking initiatives for God. He is reversing the relationship between people and God.”  Often, when our desire is to do something for God it is because the nature of our dependence on God is uncomfortable.  We imagine it is something we ought to outgrow. But David’s plot line in this story is a reminder to us: self-sufficiency is not a Christian virtue.

God Doesn’t Need You

I wonder what you felt when you read the subheading of this section?

Indignation?

Confusion?

Relief?

The first thing to say is to assure you that God loves you. God wants and desires relationship with you.  But God’s plans for the world cannot be thwarted by your weakness. Neither do they rest upon your perfection.  Both Nathan’s and David’s plot lines remind us of this, as does the larger witness of Scripture.  Again, from Goldingay: “In the Gospels, the only things we do to God’s kingdom are wait for it, see it, enter it, seek it, receive it, inherit it, and declare that it has come.”  Notice the verbs that are missing from that list: establish, make or further.  He goes on to say, “In U.S. culture, this is an unpopular point to make, because people like to feel they can make a difference. They want to achieve…We don’t like the fact that the gospel is about what God has done for us and not about what we do for God.”

This is why Paul and writers throughout Christian history have referred to the gospel as a “scandal.”  It erases our pretense to self-sufficiency. It stops us short when we think we speak for God, that God is on our side.  God does not need us.  But I would pray you feel some relief in that truth as well.  Especially those of us who *literally* work for God, it can be hard to remember.

Illustration

I recently attended the final worship service of a retiring colleague. Full disclosure, it was the Center for Excellence in Preaching’s own Doug Bratt. After decades in ministry and over 20 years in this one church, I was blessed to watch them say their thank yous and goodbyes. I thought about all these faithful people had built together: a community of deep care that stands in for often-far-away family in times of illness and grief, a joyful congregation nurturing the faith of children, from baptism through college and into adulthood, remarkably tenacious love to cover a multitude of social, political and theological differences of opinion, a food pantry that fed over 800 neighbors a week during the height of the pandemic, leading to beautiful relationships of shared ministry and learning with many local Jewish synagogues.

It’s a beautiful legacy. It’s the kind of thing pastors hope will outlast them in their churches and the lives they’ve touched.  It’s such a natural impulse that when David says, “I want to build something beautiful for God,” the prophet Nathan doesn’t even pause.  “Yes, obviously. Do that.” But then God.

Here God delivers a sermon first to Nathan, and through Nathan to David and now through Scripture to us.  “I don’t need you to do.  I don’t need you to perform.  I am a wandering God, at home in pillars of cloud and fire, in tents and, even leading from within the hearts of God’s people.  All that you have done and all that you ever will do is a grace.  It is me working in you. And someday, when you are gone, those who come after you will keep building, keep caring, keep nurturing faith, keep loving over a multitude of differences, keep feeding and sharing in ministry with neighbors. And when they build what you would have liked to have built, that will be grace too.”

As you will suspect from reading Rev. Bratt’s commentaries through the years, this was the message he brought to God’s people on his las Sunday.  Not from this text but from the text of Scripture, which provides ample witness to God’s grace. With wisdom born of years of ministry, his conclusion echoes God’s words to David through Nathan: it’s all grace.  It’s all been grace.  By God’s grace, we have been graced.  Thanks be to God.