Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever [2 Samuel 7:16].
As I noted almost six months ago in another post, Walter Brueggemann, notable, contemporary OT theologian (Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary) allows that the word of God never comes to fruition as we expect it [see Genesis: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Pp. 181, et seq., emphasis added]. Brueggemann’s point can certainly be made about the OT reading for this upcoming Sunday [2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Fourth Sunday of Advent, RCL, Year B].
As we would have noted from 2 Samuel 5, in his early years on the throne, King David made some significant changes in the governance of Israel/Judah. Where the people had previously been known as a nomadic sort, shunning any specific site within Canaan as the basis of their power, David has established a new, permanent city, Jerusalem. In 2 Samuel 6, we see that David has been able to lay claim to the old Ark of the Covenant. Having been stored away for almost 20 years, much in the manner depicted at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie, the Ark now resides in Jerusalem, having been triumphantly paraded through the countryside by David.
As we move to chapter 7, scholars note a delicate balance at the core of David’s plans. On the one hand, as seen particularly in chapter 6, David seeks to utilize the Ark as an old, galvanizing symbol. On the other hand, in chapter 7, David seeks a bold articulation of a new theological claim unlike anything yet known in Israel. The claim: that Yahweh’s plans for the people are centered within a new, stable, urban environment. David’s difficulty: the old theological assumptions do not easily apply to his “new world.” Something else is required.
David’s plan for something else is to give Yahweh a permanent residence–a temple–within Jerusalem. Such a temple represents no little measure of tension with the Ark, however. As Brueggemann separately notes, whereas the Ark speaks of Yahweh’s freedom, contingency, and mobility, the temple removes the danger and possibility that God might depart [First and Second Samuel: Interpretation, by W. Brueggemann].
To be sure, David’s motives are not purely practical and political. Most writers see within him a mixture of genuine piety and self-serving legitimation. The distance that David has traveled since tending the flock near his father’s home to being anointed and later crowned king has not been lost on the young king. At various points in his recent past, he had acknowledged his indebtedness to his LORD. Yet more is at stake here. While the proposed temple will guarantee Yahweh’s presence, it might also mitigate Yahweh’s freedom. And yet, as we see, Nathan’s initial response to David’s plan is to tell him to go for it. The prophet says, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” [2 Samuel 7:3].
Not so fast, says Yahweh, who comes to Nathan that very night in a dream. Yahweh cautions that a permanent temple will violate Yahweh’s freedom; such a locus would prevent Yahweh’s free movement. Yahweh is a god who cannot be held in place by any specific religious arrangement. Yahweh cannot be domesticated nor controlled. David is being presumptuous. He is projecting his own thought pattern onto his LORD’s and there is danger in doing so. In short, Yahweh tells Nathan to communicate to David that Yahweh’s head won’t be turned by the mention of a house made from fine cedars. Yahweh, after all, is the One who created the cedars in the first place. And so, Yahweh says to Nathan:
Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? [2 Samuel 7:5].
Yet, and here’s the tremendous irony of this passage of scripture, while Yahweh will not be corralled, while Yahweh will not be controlled or domesticated, Yahweh will, out of Yahweh’s own mind, bless David beyond any thought or dream that David might imagine. Reminding David, on the one hand, that the king’s preeminence and power are Yahweh’s doing–not David’s [see 2 Samuel 7:8-9]–Yahweh goes on to say, on the other hand, that what has been true in the past will continue to be true in the future. Yahweh will give David a great name, appoint a specific place for David and the people (Jerusalem), and give David rest from his labors. This last gift is something that David has not yet been able to experience because of his conflict with Saul and David’s many rivals.
Yahweh’s promise ends with a vivid bit of word play. Reversing David’s plan, Yahweh tells the young king that David will not build Yahweh a house (i.e., a temple); rather Yahweh will build David a house (i.e., a dynasty). At least for now, there will be no more talk of a temple; Yahweh doesn’t want or allow it to be built. In Yahweh’s oracle statement through Nathan, Yahweh sees far into the future and asserts for the foreseeable future a Davidic dynastic claim. The dynasty is not wholly separated from the concept of temple; it is, however, very different. Yahweh’s plans are culminated in the last verse from the OT reading:
Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever [2 Samuel 7:16].
Centuries later, after the collapse of the Davidic monarchy, many in Israel would turn back to this scripture and point to Yahweh’s promise that David’s throne will continue forever. Had that promise been taken away? No, they thought. They would come to understand that the text points inevitably to a messiah. And as they anticipated a messiah, the vision of King David would predominate among the people of God. Likewise, for many within Israel, the character of David’s kingdom–and that of Solomon–would be what the world should look like under a true leader’s rule, with everyone subordinate to and in fear of Israel/Judah.
It was because of that messiah expectancy, at least in part, that the 2 Samuel 7 passage was chosen years ago by the Lectionary committee for this week’s OT reading. The reading emphasizes the unconditional promise of Yahweh and yet the reading also shows that there is a sense in which Yahweh’s promise has not yet been fully fulfilled. Moreover, the pairing of this week’s OT lesson with the Annunciation story found in Luke 1:26-38 shows us that just as David could not domesticate and control Yahweh’s presence among the people of Israel through David’s desire to construct a temple to manage and “protect” Yahweh, likewise the notion of messiah similarly cannot be manipulated for our own purposes.
Perhaps like me, one of your favorite Advent hymns is the beautiful “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus,” by Charles Wesley. And yet, can we see that the coupling of the 2 Samuel 7 story with that of the Annunciation starkly shows us that the child who is to come to us isn’t going to be anything like the expected paradigm, thus undermining generations of conventional wisdom on the subject?
As our NT reading shows us, Mary is far from royalty. She’s a young girl, no doubt no older than 15, who lives in a long-forgotten town among long-forgotten people. Under the standards of the day–indeed the standards of our day–Mary is a nobody from nowhere. Her son’s birth story, as told in Luke starts out in a humble cattle stall and ends on a criminal’s hill. Jesus is certainly nothing like the messiah that many saw promised within the verses that make up our OT lesson this week.
That’s why Brueggemann’s comment about the word of God is so much on point. For once again, the word of God never comes to fruition as we expect it. Just as Yahweh refused to allow David to limit Yahweh’s presence among the people, just as Yahweh refused to allow David to domesticate the Living LORD, to dictate where Yahweh might move and act, so Yahweh continues to be uncontrollable today.
Jesus Christ is, of course, the Word of God [see John 1]. He comes to us proclaiming a kingdom that is unlike anything that we might imagine or expect. Like God the Father, Christ the Messiah is uncontrollable. He took his own good time to teach his disciples–even us–to yearn for a kingdom as different from others of its kind as the Messiah would be from all other kings. In these days of Advent, we grapple with an impending Lord who is “God with Us.” We listen to Yahweh’s unconditional promise and we see that Yahweh’s carefully woven plan to fulfill the promise He made to David was not about wealth and power, but rather about Love. That unexpected, startling reality has a knack of turning our world upside-down.
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