2 Samuel 7: 1-17
October 25, 2020

Peter … the rock upon whom the church was to be built … had ministered throughout the Mediterranean region for about 34 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.

He had travelled to Rome to continue to nurturing congregations when he was arrested and crucified in the Circus of Emperor Nero.

A shrine was erected at the burial site and some 300 years later, Constantine constructed a basilica at the burial site.

About 1,000 years after the first structure was built, St. Peter’s Basilica had fallen into disrepair.

So, plans were made to renovate and add to the building … making it grander … something befitting the popes at the time.

By Pope Leo X’s time, the expenses were mounting and money was needed to continue the work.

Leo hit upon the idea of issuing indulgences to collect the funds.

He sent out representatives into the countryside … collecting money from people wanting to shorten their time in purgatory … in essence, allowing them to jump the waiting line to get into the Kingdom.

Well, the move didn’t sit well with Martin Luther … among others … and it ended up spitting the house that was the Catholic church. Something we recalled this morning.

Houses mean a variety of things in today’s reading from 2 Samuel.

In his words to the prophet Nathan, God speaks of three types of houses.

It means a place for people to live … David builds a house for himself; David also wants to build a home where God can be found … a place where the people can go to worship; and a house means a promised lineage … a line of descendants stretching out from David into the distant future.

Today, God tells Nathan to give David a message after the king decides to build a home for God.

David lives in a house constructed of cedar, while the ark of the covenant … the symbol of God’s presence in the world … resides in a tent.

David, like most rulers of the time, wants to build something more splendid and permanent … something more suitable for God … a sign of thanks for all the blessings God had brought into David’s life and into the life of the people.

But God tells Nathan that David is not to build such a structure … not to build a temple … that job will be left to his children.

God instructs Nathan to point out to David that since the people left Egypt … God has never asked for a permanent structure … God has been content moving amongst the people … in tents and tabernacles … being felt intimately in their lives and moving amongst them and fostering loving and faith-filled acts.

And God has been with David … not because of what he has done … not because of what he has built … or will build … but because David had faith.

God has raised David up from the pasture where he tended his family’s sheep … protected him from his enemies … and will make his a great name.

God will also give the people a place where they can put down roots and find peace … and where David can rest.

God has done great things for David and the people and promises to do more. God will build a new kind of house for David … a house that will eventually stretch to Jesus.

This covenant has no conditions placed upon it … no matter what happens … God’s promise to the people will remain in place.

It is an eternal promise.

God’s graciousness is the result of faith … not because of the works that have been or will be performed by David … or by his sons … or by the people.

The construction of a place where God can reside isn’t important.

In his book on discipleship, German pastor and scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that only God can build God’s temple and that a temple build by human hands will eventually crumble.

Bonhoeffer wrote, “The temple is the place where God dwells and is graciously present among human beings.”

Today is Reformation Sunday.

It is a time when we can reflect upon our lineage … the line of our faith community that stretches back to 1517 when Luther published his 95 theses.

At time, Luther wasn’t out to create something new … to start his own denomination or to anger the Pope Leo … or to provide others with the means to break away from the Catholic Church and start their own denominations.

Luther simply wanted the church to reform its ways … to stop bilking the common folks for the construction of the basilica in Rome and for worship to become more accessible to the people. Luther wanted the barriers the church placed between God and the people removed.

Luther wanted to see the church re-centred on God’s actions.

In his studies of the Book of Romans, Luther latched onto a verse that would change everything … “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘the one who is righteous will live by faith.’ ”

For Luther, grace came through living a faithful life and not through a person’s actions or deeds. People were still called to serve and to love, but they acted because their heart was overflowing with the love they received from God … not because they were obligated to do anything out a need for personal salvation.

Reformation Sunday is a time when we can ensure that God remains at the centre of our lives and actions.

We can reflect upon a church that should continually re-form to meet the needs of the world … and upon what form that should be.

We easily find ourselves building temples that seek to confine God within a certain community … We can look at the walls around us as a buffer from the overwhelming needs of the world around us … something to keep the unfamiliar out and the familiar … the traditional … in.

This is especially true during the uncertainty that has surrounded us in recent months. A time when we can desperately seek anchors.

But if anything, the pandemic has underscored the fact that God is not confined to this building … that God is active in the world … and that we are called to serve … regardless of whether or not a building’s doors are open or closed.

Injustice … inequality … hatred … isolation are still present and God’s love needs to flow outward even more than in pre-pandemic days. We are … after all … to quote Bishop Mike … still church.

So, let us take the opportunity to reflect on re-forming our faith life and how we serve others … on how we share the full expression of the grace we have received.

If the temple is where it needs to be.

And in that way … we ensure that the true loving temple is in place in the world … a house that is grander … larger … and more glorious than anything that could be built in the world … a house that shelters all … that welcomes all … a house whose foundation lies within our hearts and whose doors are open.

AMEN