Loving God, your love is everlasting and your promises stand forever.  Help us to believe and trust in your promises to us, and fill us with your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    The reading that we heard today from 2 Samuel contains some of the most important promises in the entire Old Testament.  Yet, it is entirely possible to hear it and still not have the faintest idea what is really going on.  The thing is that all the way through this passage there is a play on words.  The word “house” is used with at least three different meanings, and so it’s easy to lose track of which kind of house we’re talking about.

    It starts out with King David, who has now settled into Jerusalem and has built himself a nice house of cedar.  And David says, “Here I am in a really nice house while ‘the ark of God stays in a tent’” (2 Sam. 7:2).  David is in a house, but God is hanging out in a tent.  While the prophet Nathan initially thinks that God would be quite pleased to have a house, it turns out that God is simply not on the same page.

    God’s response goes something like this: Why do you think that you need to build me a house?  All those years in the wilderness after I brought you out of Egypt? – the whole time I was moving about in a tent.  Not once did I ever ask any of the leaders of Israel to build me a house.  I brought the people up out of Egypt.  I took you, David, from looking after the sheep to be prince over my people Israel.  I have cut off your enemies before you and will make a great name for you.  Moreover, says God, I will build you a house.  Your throne and your kingdom shall be established forever.  One of your descendants will rule forever.

    Don’t you love how God always takes things and turns them totally upside down?  David is just full of all of these great plans he has for what he’s going to do for God, and God says, No thanks, and here’s what I’m going to do for you.  This covenant that God makes with David is pure promise.  There is no, If you do this for me, then I’ll do this for you.  Instead, God reminds David of what God has already done and then promises that even when his descendants sin (and they will), God will still establish David’s house (or dynasty) forever.  This is what we call “grace” - an undeserved gift.

    David’s response to God’s grace comes in the verses following today’s reading.  He spends time in the presence of God and in prayer, and his prayer is one of humble gratitude.  He knows that he doesn’t deserve such awesome promises, and he thanks and praises God for all that God has done and all that God has promised.

    As for us? – We are just as much recipients of God’s grace as David was.  God gives us salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ as an undeserved gift.  There is nothing we can do to earn it.  God does not say to us, “If you do this for me, then I’ll do this for you.”  God saved us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8).  God saves us first, and everything we do from that point on is in response to God’s gracious gift.

    This is why we baptize little people like Kaiya.  Salvation is a gift that God is giving to her.  She has done nothing to earn it.  Jesus is the one who did that.  And just as we can talk about God making a covenant with David, God makes a covenant with us in baptism.

    These covenants are similar in that they both start with what God has already done, and both are undeserved gifts that include God’s promises.  However, there are also differences.  In the covenant with David, God’s promises were no matter what.  In spite of what would happen both in David’s life and in the lives of his descendants, God’s promise would never be withdrawn, and ultimately was fulfilled through Jesus.

    As we think about God’s covenant with us through baptism, we can also say that God’s promises to us will never be withdrawn.  However, we have the ability to break this covenant if we choose to do so.  If I am baptized and then spend my whole life doing whatever I want to and ignoring God, I have effectively rejected the covenant that God has made with me.  However, when I live my life in relationship with God and honestly seek to love as Jesus loved, God’s promises stand firm, and God’s forgiveness is there for me when I stumble along the way and turn back to God to seek it.  God does not reject those who honestly seek to live as children of God and followers of Jesus Christ.

    For our part, we are called to grow up into Christ.  God welcomes us into the communion of saints at baptism, and invites us to become the people that God has created us to be.  No matter what age we are or how many years it has been since we were baptized, we are still growing up into Christ.  For none of us end up being perfect - at least, not on this side of the grave!

    And so, remember that you are baptized.  Remember the covenant that God has made with you through Jesus Christ.  Remember how God is faithful and keeps God’s promises, even when it takes hundreds of years to do so.  Above all, remember Jesus Christ and how he gave himself for us long before any of us were ever born.  For God continues to love us and forgive us and empower us by the Holy Spirit.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 23 (NL 3)                            2 Samuel 7:1-17
October 23, 2016
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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