From Quid Pro Quo To Heck No! -- Israel Strikes Back
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
It's often said that "anything is possible if you truly put your mind to it," but the offbeat experience of Kyle MacDonald -- in which he turned a paper clip into a house -- gives new meaning to that tired phrase. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Carter Shelley relates MacDonald's amazing story of unlikely possibilities to the Old Testament lesson for Proper 11 (2 Samuel 7:1-14a), in which David expresses a desire to build God a house. Though both stories seem on the surface to be textbook examples of a "quid pro quo" exchange, Carter notes that's not what's actually occurring in either case. Carter provides an alternative option for approaching this biblical passage as well -- one that addresses the current escalation of hostilities in the Middle East. Team member Steve McCutchan offers additional thoughts on how God's promises allow us to build the "house" of faith, and this week's material also includes the customary illustrations, worship resources, and children's sermon.
From Quid Pro Quo to the Promises of God /
From Quid Pro Quo to Heck No! -- Israel Strikes Lebanon after Hezbollah Attack
by Carter Shelley
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
(From Quid Pro Quo to the Promises of God)
THE WORLD
An interesting story in the news this week concerns Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old Canadian who began with an insignificant item -- a single red paper clip -- and over the course of a year engaged in a series of fourteen barter transactions in which he "traded up" to items of greater value. The ultimate result of this quirky chain of events was the exchange of a role in a yet-to-be-filmed movie for a house given to him by the Chamber of Commerce of the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, who wanted the free publicity such an act would provide. Both the new homeowner and the good citizens of Kipling are now known far and wide due to the human interest and humor of this unique story. Who knew you could buy a house without committing to a mortgage and a 7.5% interest rate? (Click here for a thumbnail version of this story; or see MacDonald's own blog at for a more complete account.)
The term "quid pro quo" refers to the exchange of one item or action for another so that each of the parties receives what he or she wants:
* "You pay me half-a-million dollars and I'll sell you my lovely beach house at Hilton Head."
* "If you'll quit being so disruptive in my English class, I'll give you a C just to get you out of here this year," a high school teacher told a bright but bored friend of mine during his senior year.
* "I will be your God if you will be my people," begins the covenantal relationship of YHWH with the liberated slaves of Egypt just prior to their invasion of the promised land.
This week's Old Testament reading, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, begins with the cessation of fighting between David and his enemies. Bruce C. Birch, author of the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, identifies this text as foundational to the development of a Davidic theology that retains the covenant promises and expectations of Sinai while both people and God move into a new era and relationship. In 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, God advances the terms of the covenant in a way that anticipates the new covenant God will ultimately establish in Jesus Christ. Where the Sinai Covenant was conditional, depending upon a quid pro quo, God's words to David, his heirs, and the children of Israel establish a more grace-filled and gracious covenant than that of yore.
In gratitude for his victories and for his palace, David offers God a quid pro quo -- but God has no need for a temple, because God's favor and grace are not dependant upon any gift or promise a human being or king might make. Kyle MacDonald's new house and King David and Israel's identity as a nation under God and blessed by God are not examples of quid pro quo. In both instances, it is the generosity, the heart, and the enthusiasm of others that provides the rewards. While MacDonald's success story reads more like a quid pro quo, the ultimate final exchange goes beyond the free PR and fun with which his project began. The same holds true for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. The grace and sanction God offers God's children outweighs any gift we can offer in return.
THE WORD
In examining 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, one needs to think about the contents of this text as one might the layers of a garden-variety onion. At its center is a core theological idea: God continues to choose and bless the children of Israel. The second layer recalls how God liberated "the people of Israel from Egypt." In the third layer God asks Nathan, David, and the people: "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?' " Rejecting the proffered gift of a permanent home, layer four contains God's review of support for David from his salad days as a shepherd on into a future in which a dynasty established through David becomes a reality. Verses 1-12 remind David and the people of God's essential role in their move from slaves to liberated tribal people into an established nation.
These earlier theological layers are encased in a later notion that God allows Solomon, the son and heir, to do what father David cannot: build God a temple. Verse 13 contradicts God's explicit rejection of a house in which to reside. Until studying this text more closely, I had believed that God did not allow David to build God's temple because of David's many sins and peccadilloes. Yet Solomon's own behavior does not support such a reading. As the king with a penchant for marrying foreigners, Solomon would have been a sorry candidate for building a temple to the one, true God. Old Testament scholars suggest that verse 13 was added at a later time in order to justify Solomon's building of the temple. This interpretation gains more teeth when one recalls that it is during Solomon's reign that the process of organizing and writing the earliest books of the Pentateuch began to occur as an insurance faith policy, for a faithful people afraid for the future of their religion and service to Yahweh in the midst of synchronization.
The theological inconsistency verse 13 poses is offset by the layering of two compatible texts on either side of it. In this way, the Deuteronomist author explains the nation's religious focus upon the temple in Jerusalem while allowing the alert reader to identify the "son" mentioned in verses 12 and 14a to mean a son other than Solomon, David's son. This other son will be more intimately connected to God than David, Solomon, or any of the other kings still to come.
The layers provided by verse 12 and verse 14a seem to acknowledge the failure of the Davidic line to succeed at the father-son relationship. For exiled Jews living in Babylonia, these two verses offer comfort that God has not forsaken God's people but also that God does not remain in the promised land while God's children weep by the waters of Babylon. For Christians these two verses anticipate the coming of Christ: "I will raise up from your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom." Even more prescient is the Davidic genealogy at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel followed by the dream to Joseph explaining God's ability to save God's people through the birth of a child.
Alternative Lead Topic for July 23, 2006
(From Quid Pro Quo to Heck No! -- Israel Strikes Lebanon after Hezbollah Attack)
THE WORLD
In light of the fighting currently taking place between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the story of Kyle MacDonald may seem less immediate and vital than a closer examination of this tragic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East. The whole notion of one's house as a private, personal place of safety and comfort becomes a contradiction when homes are being bombed and people are dying and being injured in Beirut, Lebanon and Haifa, Israel.
I am keenly aware of the irony of Americans such as myself criticizing Israel's heavy-handed response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Quid pro quo? Heck no! As a small Jewish country surrounded by hostile Arabic neighbors, Israel's military policy has been to strike faster and harder in order to quickly gain the upper hand. In this way Israel claims a psychological advantage as well. A "take no prisoners" kind of approach is much more intimidating than negotiation or a quid pro quo ("You've captured two of our soldiers; therefore we'll kidnap two of yours"). American dismay about this escalation of battle and tensions in the Middle East rings pretty hollow when we consider that our troops have been stationed in Iraq for over three years now and there's no peaceful end yet in sight.
THE WORD
In light of these events, we need to look at 2 Samuel 7:1-14a again. This text begins with a time of peace for David and Israel. Up until this point in 1 and 2 Samuel, God's chosen people have been fighting for possession of the land God has promised them. It's been a long, hard slog. First came invasion in the book of Joshua, then the recounting of the highs and lows of ongoing conflict by the tribes of Israel in the book of Judges. With only the brief, bucolic book of Ruth to offer a different tale, the children of God have been constantly in some state of war when the reader arrives at chapter 7 in 2 Samuel.
More is at stake in 2 Samuel 7: 1-14a than the building of a temple for God. People and king are in the process of a transformation. Their entire way of life will be different from their past. Even their relationship with God will be different. These people, who have known little peace, now are blessed with peace. These people, who have had no land they could call their own, now have national, geographical boundaries that will be recognized and respected by neighboring nations. For both king and people there will be time to build homes, codify laws, and organize a government. No longer nomads, they are now in the process of becoming a nation. Thus, they can quit carrying God around the countryside in the Ark as though that was the only way God could be in their midst.
In promising David and his descendants an ongoing history and land in which to make it, God also initiates a time of peace and settled-ness previously unknown by the children of Israel. So, while there will be plenty of battles and wars ahead for Israel, their entire purpose and nature will be different from what has gone before. David's son Absalom will rebel and try to take the kingdom while his father is still alive. Future kings will get embroiled in wars because of foolish alliances they make with neighboring kingdoms and empires. These kings will also get caught up in their own power plays and ambition, leading to a division of the kingdom in two. Over the centuries the Davidic dynasty will lose land, power, and independence due to its inability to obey God's will and heed God's Word. Ironically, what the people will never lose is the loyalty and love of God.
CRAFTING THE MESSAGE
In 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, God refuses David's offer of a temple in which God may dwell. The theological points below clarify the differences between God and humanity. The preacher may choose to preach a sermon in which the human need for shelter and a home are discussed before moving on to examine the co-existing need humans have to set particular buildings aside to be houses of worship. These residences for God, in fact, are nothing of the sort. They exist to focus human life and worship within a set of rules and practices, and among a community in which these customs are shared. As God states clearly in this text, God doesn't need a central location -- because God cannot be confined or contained by human buildings or expectations. We are the ones who need temples, synagogues, and mosques.
If one chooses to preach on the warring nature of Israel and its surrounding enemies, the same theological points may be made, but they should be made with an understanding that in 2 Samuel 7:1-14a God seems to lay down the weapons of war along with David. When there are weapons and wars in Israel and later Judah's future, God (according to the prophets) often seems to be allied against, not for, God's chosen people. In sending his son into the world as the Prince of Peace and King of kings, God rejects the human way of war forever. Peace doesn't start with war -- peace starts with the Prince of Peace.
Theological Points for Sermon
1) Houses are for people, not God. No longer a nomadic people, the children of Israel can build houses, establish roots, and set up vineyards, gardens, and so forth.
2) God doesn't need a house to be God. Being a God who is worshiped in a building is not who God is and does not define God.
3) God doesn't occupy a specific, geographic location defined by a building or country.
4) God is ever-present. Whether we are Babylonia, Beirut, Haifa, or Sheol, God is there.
5) God is known in God's activity in historical events. Both the Old and New Testaments testify to God's ongoing relationship and activity in the lives of God's people.
6) God is known in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
7) God is known in the lives of God's faithful people
8) God's will and God's grace remain consistent in human history.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Stephen McCutchan
Building the House of Faith
In one sense the Kyle MacDonald story is the ultimate example of the capitalist dream -- if you have enough imagination and cunning, you can turn virtually nothing into something of great value. As you follow the story of Kyle's "trading up," it is a celebration of the combination of human ingenuity and the profitable power of imagination that is evoked in others. There is nothing that is described as illegal, or even a "con game." What Kyle is doing is apparently above-board and is based on two factors: one, different people value things differently; and two, people love to play the game. Kyle is building his house on the basis of what Carter refers to as quid pro quo -- everyone gets what they want, but the overall value of things increases. This is sort of the Power of Positive Thinking gone wild.
I would suggest that such an approach is culturally what Christians assume but in stark contrast to the covenant that God actually offers God's people. In a far too simplistic way, many Christians assume that the Christian covenant is based upon an agreement with God that if people live a life that is pleasing to God, then God will reward them with a blessed life. Sadly, they often assume that this is in contrast to a Jewish understanding that is reflected, they falsely assume, in the Hebrew Scriptures; that the original agreement between God and the Jewish people was based on a quid pro quo arrangement that Carter references as "I will be your God if you will be my people."
What many Christians fail to realize is that in Judaism too, the whole covenant relationship with God is based on grace. It began not on the basis of what each could get out of the arrangement but rather on the inexplicable gracious act of God. You see that first reflected in the original covenant with Abram in Genesis 15:1-21. In that symbolic dream of Abram, it was the smoking fire pot and flaming torch that passed between the split animals. These symbolized the presence of God. It is significant that Abram was not asked to pass between the pieces himself. While much was expected of God's covenant people, the responsibility of fulfilling the promise of the covenant that formed them into God's people was God's alone. When God brings the slaves out of Egypt, as recorded in the book of Exodus, it is reinforced that God took the initiative. The beginning of the description of the Ten Commandments captures this in the words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." It is in response to the experience of the enormous grace of God that people are then asked to respond by obeying the commandments. There is no implied threat that if you don't obey these commandments God will send you back into Egypt. Kyle MacDonald's incredible adventure depends each step of the way on pleasing his next trading partner. The house was the reward for doing so and not some gracious gift offered at the beginning of the deal.
In some ways, we are much more comfortable with MacDonald's experience than we are with God's way of offering us an incredible gracious act before we have done anything to deserve it. Whether we are as clever as Kyle or not, at least we can fantasize that we might be able to pull off a similar act. Yet if grace comes first, there is nothing we can do to manipulate a similar situation for ourselves. We are not in control -- God is.
Since we are not in charge of "building our house of faith," we turn our attention to the possibility of our behaving in such a way that we might lose it. It is intriguing that humans are unwilling to give up the illusion of control. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament consistently explore that theme. How bad do people have to get before God gives up on them? This is the struggle reflected in our lectionary passage.
Given the human capacity for disobeying God, the lingering insecurity that pervades the spiritual life is whether God will get disgusted with humanity and give up on them. If Kyle MacDonald had made a bad trade, he could have lost his chance to obtain a house. Can we make a bad trade in relation to God and blow our opportunity? Many individuals live in that fear. They believe that their own behavior, not the incredible grace of God, determines their eternal future.
Many non-Jewish religions of the region perceived their God as someone who needed to be continually appeased or mollified. Human sacrifice was based on the understanding that only such a great sacrifice would satisfy the gods and convince them to share their beneficence with humanity. We see Israel's struggle with this question in both the story of Noah and the flood and the sacrifice of Isaac. Even closer to this event, the scriptures describe Saul as having been chosen by God and then rejected. While one could describe Saul as having been disobedient and therefore rejected, the haunting question was when the next human rebellion would result in God's rejection.
The whole heresy of supersessionism is based on the idea that humans can foil God's choices and God will have to start all over again. It is reflected in the prevalent (though I would contend false) assumption that the Jews finally failed God by their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and thus God replaced them with the Christian community. (See Romans 9-11 for Paul's argument against that assumption.) Later, the whole Islamic faith and the Mormon faith began on the assumption that the people of God had failed and God needed to begin with a new people.
Part of the mystery was and is that the behavior of God is never fully predictable. Why did God choose a people in the first place? What causes God to choose one person and not another? God's very freedom to be God was unsettling. The promise to David was an answer to this insecurity. If God was unpredictable, God's promises were sure. What the Israelites, and later the Christians, counted on was that God had made an irrevocable promise to be their God. Once God made a promise, humans could count on it being fulfilled.
A major theme of scripture is the often-surprising yet consistent ways in which God keeps promises. When Jesus promises to be with the disciples even to the end of the world, it is a commitment never to turn the divine spirit away from the church. Of course this promise does not mean that behavior is unimportant: "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" (2 Samuel 7:14). The community of faith is accountable for their acts of unfaithfulness, but through it all, they can count on the fact that God will never abandon them.
This theme is reinforced by the Psalm reading in our lectionary, Psalm 89:20-37: "I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.... I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure" (vv. 27, 29).
In scripture, God uses language in ways that contradict the ordinary meaning of words. Who is the firstborn of God? In Exodus 4:22 God says, "Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son." Now in Psalm 89 God declares of David, "I will make him the firstborn..." Later Christians would say of Jesus that he is the Son of God, and the implication is clearly that Jesus is God's firstborn and only son (John 3:16). Clearly the term is used metaphorically and not literally.
Drawing on the tradition of the favor shown to the firstborn son, we are speaking of those who clearly experience the favor of God. This David is so favored that God makes an eternal promise that his reign, in terms of his family line, will last forever. During the destruction of Israel and the exile of the people, this divine promise was clearly in danger. Of course, as the scriptures continually describe, God fulfills the divine promise, but often not in the manner that mortals expect. This is why, despite the confusion of the birth narratives, it was important for the early church to demonstrate how Jesus was of the house and lineage of David.
The importance of these verses from Psalm 89 is the affirmation that God always keeps the promises he made. As we read the scriptures and recognize the unbelievable birth of Isaac, the remarkable escape from Egypt, the survival of Israel despite political disaster, and the exceptional birth of Jesus, we are constantly confronted with our need to reinterpret our previous understanding as we confront the faithful, yet often unique, fulfillment of the promises of God. Eventually we are humbled by our inability to predict the acts of God and our need to simply trust that God will, in God's own way, be faithful to the promises God has made.
In our journey of faith, it is important to review the promises of God, which enable us to face the future unafraid, but then it is incumbent on us to wait for its fulfillment with a mind open to the unexpected. To draw upon the fairy tale of the three little pigs, the household of faith is a house that can't be blown down, despite the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolves of the shadow side of humanity.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Building
me --
a dwelling place for God?
my roof
leaks with wayward
and wanton thoughts . . .
my windows
look out on a world
lusting for more
and caring for less;
if any dare peek in,
they will see the same hungers . . .
my furnace
is filled with the ashes
of dusty dreams
and hapless hopes . . .
my foundation
cracks under the weight of loneliness,
ravaged by the storms of sadness.
i would build you
a house, my God:
re-build me
instead.
Amen.
-- Thom M. Shuman
***
Granny Sugars believed in bargaining with God. She called Him "that old rug merchant."
Before every poker game, she promised God to spread His holy word or to share her good fortune with orphans in return for a few unbeatable hands. Throughout her life, winnings from card games remained a significant source of income.
Being a hard-drinking woman with numerous interests in addition to poker, Granny Sugars didn't always spend as much time spreading God's word as she promised Him she would. She believed that God expected to be conned more often than not and that He would be a good sport about it.
You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.
He'll also cut you some slack if you are astonishingly stupid in an amusing fashion. Granny claimed that this explains why uncountable millions of breathtakingly stupid people get along just fine in life.
Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for the promises you didn't keep.
-- from Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
***
The Burt Reynolds movie The End is a forgotten classic about a man who, after being told he is dying, decides to "spare" his family by committing suicide. He enables us to laugh at ourselves over the ways we try to bargain with God.
At one point he swims out into the ocean, intending to drown himself. But he discovers that he really wants to live, and turns around and heads back. He realizes that he may have swum too far and begins to bargain with God, initially promising 80% of his income and holdings if God will just help him make it back to shore.
The more he swims and the closer he gets to the shore, the smaller the percentage becomes that he offers to God, until it is a mere fraction of the original 80%.
***
When our son was diagnosed with Stage 4 germ cell cancer three years ago, I discovered the reality of something I have often shared with others, but never had to deal with myself: bargaining with God is indeed one of the stages of grief.
After all that had happened to our son up to that point -- his birth mother drinking during pregnancy, resulting in him being born with alcohol-related birth defects; his birth parents literally giving him away to a couple who proceeded to abuse him (physically and sexually) during his first year of life; born with a multitude of developmental delays as well as moderate mental retardation -- now he had to deal with cancer, with chemo, with uncertainty?
So the bargaining began: whatever I/we/he had done to cause this, we would stop. Whatever I/we needed to do to bring about healing, we would do. Whatever it took to sway God to do what we wanted, needed, desired, we would do.
And all our bargaining did was to get in God's way. Like David, I was convinced that if I did something (anything, everything) for God, then God would do something for my son.
Yet in believing that a bargain was needed to bring about healing, I believed that God's hands were tied until I untied them!
But a bargain was not what was needed -- it was trust, it was belief, it was faith. It was remembering that God had covenanted to be my God, our God, and our son's God... that God had called him "Beloved" at his baptism, and promised the Holy Spirit would always rest upon him... that Jesus had said that he would always be with us, in whatever circumstance, in whatever place we found ourselves, even on the cancer floor at the Children's Hospital.
So I stopped bargaining, and started trusting. I got out of the way, and let God do the work of healing -- using the nurses, the doctors, the medicines, the treatments -- without requiring any quid pro quo on my part.
Just faith.
-- Thom M. Shuman
***
Once upon a time, there was a church that boasted a splendid Gothic stone building. Designed by a world-famous architect, illuminated within by sunlight filtering through lovely stained glass, it was a truly worshipful space. Over the decades, this church was the site of many a baptism, many a wedding, many a funeral -- not to mention glorious, spirit-filled worship on Sunday mornings.
The people of that church loved their building. They loved it so much that when their urban neighborhood began to change and people "like them" began moving out to the suburbs, the congregation made an extraordinary decision. They decided to move.
They meant it: literally. They hired a specialized contractor who dismantled the building stone by stone, labeled each piece, loaded everything onto trucks, and reassembled the building in the suburbs. It was costly, they thought -- but worth it, to preserve their splendid worship space.
The congregation had chosen a fashionable new neighborhood, near a university. Expensive new homes were under construction. Young families were moving in. Compared to the troubled urban neighborhood they were leaving, this location seemed ideal.
The people loved their newly reassembled church. They loved it so much, they didn't want a thing to happen to it. So, when a student group from the university asked for meeting space, they did what churches so often do: they referred the question to a committee, which carefully studied the proposal from every angle -- until the students gave up and went elsewhere. Eventually, policies were drafted for the use of the building that were so stringent, few outside groups even bothered to finish the application form.
The people of the new neighborhood got the message. Few of them joined the relocated church. Most of the old members continued to travel there, but in time their numbers dwindled. Finally, the church was closed and the building and land was sold to a nearby hospital for expansion. A huge crane then appeared in the churchyard and swung a wrecking ball, again and again, into the walls of that lovely Gothic building. It was the second -- and final -- time the stones of that church had been separated one from another.
Sadly, this is no parable. The story is said to be true. Even more sadly yet, there are other stories like it being created every day by churches across our land.
Not many churches would consider physically moving their building as this one did. But it's easy, all the same, for a church to become so preoccupied with maintaining the status quo that it overlooks God's call to mission on its very doorstep.
***
Fred Craddock tells the story of how he took his wife Nettie to visit his first church, located in eastern Tennessee. Fred hadn't been back in years. As he traveled, he remembered a time of controversy in that church. The nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory was expanding, and new families were moving into the area. Craddock urged the people of this beautiful little white-frame church to call on the new people, to invite them to church.
"They wouldn't fit in here," was the reply.
A week later, there was a congregational meeting. "I move," said one of the longtime members, "that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in the county." The motion passed, over the young pastor's objections.
When Fred and Nettie pulled up to the old church building, years later, it looked to be a busy place:
"The parking lot was full -- motorcycles and trucks and cars packed in there. And out front, a great big sign: Barbecue, all you can eat. It's a restaurant, so we went inside. The pews are against a wall. They have electric lights now, and the organ pushed over into the corner. There are all these aluminum and plastic tables, and people sitting there eating barbecued pork and chicken and ribs -- all kinds of people. Parthians and Medes and Edomites and dwellers of Mesopotamia, all kinds of people. I said to Nettie, 'It's a good thing this is not still a church, otherwise these people couldn't be in here.' "
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (Chalice Press, 2001), p. 29
***
Many, many years ago, there lived two brothers. Both were farmers. One lived with his wife and children on one side of the hill, and the other was unmarried and lived in a little hut on the other side of the hill.
One year the brothers had a particularly good harvest. The married brother stood on his side of the hill looking at his tall sheaves and exclaimed: "How good God is! Why does God bless me with more than my brother? I have a wife and children, but my brother is alone. I am so much better off than he. I don't need all these crops. When my brother is asleep tonight, I'll carry some of my sheaves over the hill to his fields. Tomorrow when he awakens he will never notice what I have done."
While the married brother plotted his surprise gift, the unmarried brother on the other side of the hill sat in meditation: "God be praised for the goodness I have received! But I wish God had done less for me and more for my brother, for my brother has greater needs. I have as much fruit and grain as my brother, although my brother must share his harvest with his wife and children. They will share mine too. Tonight, when they are all asleep, I shall place some of my sheaves on my brother's fields. Tomorrow he will never know that he has more or that I have less."
So both brothers waited happily, and toward midnight each went to his own fields, loaded his shoulders high with grain, and turned toward the top of the hill. It was exactly midnight when, on the summit of the hill, the brothers met. Realizing that each had thought only of the other, their hearts overflowed with joy and they warmly embraced one another with tears of happiness in their eyes.
-- Anonymous
***
In the familiar story of the three little pigs, Mother Pig sent her three little piglets out into the world to live on their own.
The first pig built himself a house of straw, and one day the big bad wolf came and knocked on his door and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
The little pig answered, "No, no, I won't let you come in, not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin."
"Well," replied the wolf, "then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down and ate the little pig.
The second pig built a house of sticks, had the same conversation with the wolf, and met the same fate.
The third pig built a house of bricks. The wolf could not huff and puff hard enough to blow that house down. He attempted to trick the third little pig out of his house, but the pig outsmarted him at every turn. Finally, the wolf threatened to come down the chimney, whereupon the third little pig boiled a pot of water into which the wolf plunged. The little pig cooked the wolf and ate him.
In recent years this story, like other fairy tales, has often been softened from its original version. In these versions, neither the wolf nor the pigs end up eating each other. For instance, the two less prudent pigs escape to the house of the third pig while the wolf is captured rather than boiled.
***
Matthew 7:24-27 is a useful sermon illustration for the 2 Samuel lectionary passage. If we are going to build a household of faith that will not be destroyed, how do we do it? "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock..."
Another illustration is Psalm 127:1-2: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain..."
***
Habitat for Humanity has been building houses and creating homes for over 25 years:
"In India, Habitat is building houses with widows who traditionally have had limited property rights. In Florida, Habitat has helped create a stable community for migrant farm workers. In El Salvador, after the ravages of recent earthquakes, Habitat's homes are intact and plans are being made to build more homes designed to withstand natural disasters common to the region. In Northern Ireland, Habitat has brought Catholics and Protestants together in a spirit of reconciliation to provide shelter for one another. And in areas where poverty has a more subtle face -- in Portugal, New Zealand, and Canada, for example -- Habitat for Humanity has helped family after family build a stable life in an affordable home."
-- from the front flap of One Family at a Time: 25 Years of Building Houses and Hope (Habitat for Humanity, 2000)
***
When Jimmy Carter was asked why he has participated in building Habitat houses every year since 1984, he said: "Have you ever viewed hurt replaced by hope? Have you seen fear replaced by joy? Have you had the privilege of working side-by-side with someone to build a better life?"
-- from the introduction to One Family at a Time
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Whether we are strangers or old friends,
God is joining us together in this place.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Leader: Whether we are "natives" or immigrants,
God is building us together spiritually.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Leader: Whatever walls we try to build between us,
in Christ, God tears them down to build a household for all of God's people.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Prayer Of The Day
God of aliens and strangers:
make the doors of this church wide enough so that all
find a welcome, a home, a haven, a heart.
Christ of the near and those who are far-off:
make our hearts wide enough so that all
might find a place in this household of faith.
Welcoming Spirit of saints and sinners:
open our arms wide enough so that all --
the guest, the neighbor,
the child, the widow,
the politician, the homeless,
the brother, the sister --
may be embraced by your love and grace.
God in Community, Holy in One,
open your arms wide enough to enfold us in your heart,
as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .
Call To Reconciliation
Do we really want God to dwell within us,
or are we only willing to "rent out" space for a brief visit?
Our actions, our words, our silence, our fears all show the presence, or absence,
of God in our lives.
Let us empty ourselves of all which burdens us,
and welcome the One who lives with us forever.
Please join me as we pray . . .
(Unison) Prayer Of Confession
Steadfast God,
we confess that we are so busy putting up walls between ourselves and others
that we cannot see the home you are building for all of us.
We spend so much time noting the differences between us and others,
while you are embracing everyone as your child.
We run to welcome those who look, talk, and act like us,
and you throw open your doors to the stranger, the alien, in our midst.
Forgive us, Faithful Heart.
By your grace, help us to see the household your are building for all people:
there are no plastic protectors on the furniture;
there are no rooms that are off-limits;
and even the smallest child is welcome to sit at the big people's Table
and be fed by your grace.
We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our peace, our hope, our Lord, our Savior.
(silent prayers may be offered)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: Do you remember? At one time, you were without Christ;
you were the stranger, the outsider, the alien.
But now, in Christ, you have been brought home,
living in God's household of hope and peace.
People: God's covenant with us is everlasting;
God's steadfast love is forever;
God's forgiveness makes us new and whole.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
The cornerstone
Object: some building blocks (one labeled Jesus)
Good morning! I thought it would be fun to build a tower today with these blocks. Let's build it together. (Build the tower allowing them to add blocks. Make sure you use the block labeled "Jesus" as the key block on the bottom of the structure.) That's a very good tower. Let me ask you a question. What will happen to this tower if we take this block out? (indicate the block labeled "Jesus" and let them answer) Yes, you are right. If we remove that block, the whole tower will fall down. Let's do it and see what happens. (let them remove the block so that the structure falls)
Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith. If we take Jesus away, what will happen to our faith? (let them answer) Yes, that's right. Just like this tower fell down when the cornerstone that we labeled "Jesus" was removed, so our faith would fall apart if we were to remove Jesus. Everything we believe about God comes to us through the Bible, and Jesus is the most important part of the Bible. A lot of people believe in God, but they don't believe in Jesus. Will that kind of faith save them? (let them answer) No, it won't. In order to be saved, we must believe in Jesus. He is the cornerstone of our faith. Let's thank Jesus for all that he has done for us.
Dear Jesus: We thank you so much for being our Savior, and for dying on the cross to pay for our sins. We know you are the cornerstone of our faith. Please keep us ever mindful of this truth. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, July 23, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
From Quid Pro Quo to the Promises of God /
From Quid Pro Quo to Heck No! -- Israel Strikes Lebanon after Hezbollah Attack
by Carter Shelley
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
(From Quid Pro Quo to the Promises of God)
THE WORLD
An interesting story in the news this week concerns Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old Canadian who began with an insignificant item -- a single red paper clip -- and over the course of a year engaged in a series of fourteen barter transactions in which he "traded up" to items of greater value. The ultimate result of this quirky chain of events was the exchange of a role in a yet-to-be-filmed movie for a house given to him by the Chamber of Commerce of the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, who wanted the free publicity such an act would provide. Both the new homeowner and the good citizens of Kipling are now known far and wide due to the human interest and humor of this unique story. Who knew you could buy a house without committing to a mortgage and a 7.5% interest rate? (Click here for a thumbnail version of this story; or see MacDonald's own blog at for a more complete account.)
The term "quid pro quo" refers to the exchange of one item or action for another so that each of the parties receives what he or she wants:
* "You pay me half-a-million dollars and I'll sell you my lovely beach house at Hilton Head."
* "If you'll quit being so disruptive in my English class, I'll give you a C just to get you out of here this year," a high school teacher told a bright but bored friend of mine during his senior year.
* "I will be your God if you will be my people," begins the covenantal relationship of YHWH with the liberated slaves of Egypt just prior to their invasion of the promised land.
This week's Old Testament reading, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, begins with the cessation of fighting between David and his enemies. Bruce C. Birch, author of the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, identifies this text as foundational to the development of a Davidic theology that retains the covenant promises and expectations of Sinai while both people and God move into a new era and relationship. In 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, God advances the terms of the covenant in a way that anticipates the new covenant God will ultimately establish in Jesus Christ. Where the Sinai Covenant was conditional, depending upon a quid pro quo, God's words to David, his heirs, and the children of Israel establish a more grace-filled and gracious covenant than that of yore.
In gratitude for his victories and for his palace, David offers God a quid pro quo -- but God has no need for a temple, because God's favor and grace are not dependant upon any gift or promise a human being or king might make. Kyle MacDonald's new house and King David and Israel's identity as a nation under God and blessed by God are not examples of quid pro quo. In both instances, it is the generosity, the heart, and the enthusiasm of others that provides the rewards. While MacDonald's success story reads more like a quid pro quo, the ultimate final exchange goes beyond the free PR and fun with which his project began. The same holds true for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. The grace and sanction God offers God's children outweighs any gift we can offer in return.
THE WORD
In examining 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, one needs to think about the contents of this text as one might the layers of a garden-variety onion. At its center is a core theological idea: God continues to choose and bless the children of Israel. The second layer recalls how God liberated "the people of Israel from Egypt." In the third layer God asks Nathan, David, and the people: "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?' " Rejecting the proffered gift of a permanent home, layer four contains God's review of support for David from his salad days as a shepherd on into a future in which a dynasty established through David becomes a reality. Verses 1-12 remind David and the people of God's essential role in their move from slaves to liberated tribal people into an established nation.
These earlier theological layers are encased in a later notion that God allows Solomon, the son and heir, to do what father David cannot: build God a temple. Verse 13 contradicts God's explicit rejection of a house in which to reside. Until studying this text more closely, I had believed that God did not allow David to build God's temple because of David's many sins and peccadilloes. Yet Solomon's own behavior does not support such a reading. As the king with a penchant for marrying foreigners, Solomon would have been a sorry candidate for building a temple to the one, true God. Old Testament scholars suggest that verse 13 was added at a later time in order to justify Solomon's building of the temple. This interpretation gains more teeth when one recalls that it is during Solomon's reign that the process of organizing and writing the earliest books of the Pentateuch began to occur as an insurance faith policy, for a faithful people afraid for the future of their religion and service to Yahweh in the midst of synchronization.
The theological inconsistency verse 13 poses is offset by the layering of two compatible texts on either side of it. In this way, the Deuteronomist author explains the nation's religious focus upon the temple in Jerusalem while allowing the alert reader to identify the "son" mentioned in verses 12 and 14a to mean a son other than Solomon, David's son. This other son will be more intimately connected to God than David, Solomon, or any of the other kings still to come.
The layers provided by verse 12 and verse 14a seem to acknowledge the failure of the Davidic line to succeed at the father-son relationship. For exiled Jews living in Babylonia, these two verses offer comfort that God has not forsaken God's people but also that God does not remain in the promised land while God's children weep by the waters of Babylon. For Christians these two verses anticipate the coming of Christ: "I will raise up from your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom." Even more prescient is the Davidic genealogy at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel followed by the dream to Joseph explaining God's ability to save God's people through the birth of a child.
Alternative Lead Topic for July 23, 2006
(From Quid Pro Quo to Heck No! -- Israel Strikes Lebanon after Hezbollah Attack)
THE WORLD
In light of the fighting currently taking place between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the story of Kyle MacDonald may seem less immediate and vital than a closer examination of this tragic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East. The whole notion of one's house as a private, personal place of safety and comfort becomes a contradiction when homes are being bombed and people are dying and being injured in Beirut, Lebanon and Haifa, Israel.
I am keenly aware of the irony of Americans such as myself criticizing Israel's heavy-handed response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Quid pro quo? Heck no! As a small Jewish country surrounded by hostile Arabic neighbors, Israel's military policy has been to strike faster and harder in order to quickly gain the upper hand. In this way Israel claims a psychological advantage as well. A "take no prisoners" kind of approach is much more intimidating than negotiation or a quid pro quo ("You've captured two of our soldiers; therefore we'll kidnap two of yours"). American dismay about this escalation of battle and tensions in the Middle East rings pretty hollow when we consider that our troops have been stationed in Iraq for over three years now and there's no peaceful end yet in sight.
THE WORD
In light of these events, we need to look at 2 Samuel 7:1-14a again. This text begins with a time of peace for David and Israel. Up until this point in 1 and 2 Samuel, God's chosen people have been fighting for possession of the land God has promised them. It's been a long, hard slog. First came invasion in the book of Joshua, then the recounting of the highs and lows of ongoing conflict by the tribes of Israel in the book of Judges. With only the brief, bucolic book of Ruth to offer a different tale, the children of God have been constantly in some state of war when the reader arrives at chapter 7 in 2 Samuel.
More is at stake in 2 Samuel 7: 1-14a than the building of a temple for God. People and king are in the process of a transformation. Their entire way of life will be different from their past. Even their relationship with God will be different. These people, who have known little peace, now are blessed with peace. These people, who have had no land they could call their own, now have national, geographical boundaries that will be recognized and respected by neighboring nations. For both king and people there will be time to build homes, codify laws, and organize a government. No longer nomads, they are now in the process of becoming a nation. Thus, they can quit carrying God around the countryside in the Ark as though that was the only way God could be in their midst.
In promising David and his descendants an ongoing history and land in which to make it, God also initiates a time of peace and settled-ness previously unknown by the children of Israel. So, while there will be plenty of battles and wars ahead for Israel, their entire purpose and nature will be different from what has gone before. David's son Absalom will rebel and try to take the kingdom while his father is still alive. Future kings will get embroiled in wars because of foolish alliances they make with neighboring kingdoms and empires. These kings will also get caught up in their own power plays and ambition, leading to a division of the kingdom in two. Over the centuries the Davidic dynasty will lose land, power, and independence due to its inability to obey God's will and heed God's Word. Ironically, what the people will never lose is the loyalty and love of God.
CRAFTING THE MESSAGE
In 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, God refuses David's offer of a temple in which God may dwell. The theological points below clarify the differences between God and humanity. The preacher may choose to preach a sermon in which the human need for shelter and a home are discussed before moving on to examine the co-existing need humans have to set particular buildings aside to be houses of worship. These residences for God, in fact, are nothing of the sort. They exist to focus human life and worship within a set of rules and practices, and among a community in which these customs are shared. As God states clearly in this text, God doesn't need a central location -- because God cannot be confined or contained by human buildings or expectations. We are the ones who need temples, synagogues, and mosques.
If one chooses to preach on the warring nature of Israel and its surrounding enemies, the same theological points may be made, but they should be made with an understanding that in 2 Samuel 7:1-14a God seems to lay down the weapons of war along with David. When there are weapons and wars in Israel and later Judah's future, God (according to the prophets) often seems to be allied against, not for, God's chosen people. In sending his son into the world as the Prince of Peace and King of kings, God rejects the human way of war forever. Peace doesn't start with war -- peace starts with the Prince of Peace.
Theological Points for Sermon
1) Houses are for people, not God. No longer a nomadic people, the children of Israel can build houses, establish roots, and set up vineyards, gardens, and so forth.
2) God doesn't need a house to be God. Being a God who is worshiped in a building is not who God is and does not define God.
3) God doesn't occupy a specific, geographic location defined by a building or country.
4) God is ever-present. Whether we are Babylonia, Beirut, Haifa, or Sheol, God is there.
5) God is known in God's activity in historical events. Both the Old and New Testaments testify to God's ongoing relationship and activity in the lives of God's people.
6) God is known in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
7) God is known in the lives of God's faithful people
8) God's will and God's grace remain consistent in human history.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Stephen McCutchan
Building the House of Faith
In one sense the Kyle MacDonald story is the ultimate example of the capitalist dream -- if you have enough imagination and cunning, you can turn virtually nothing into something of great value. As you follow the story of Kyle's "trading up," it is a celebration of the combination of human ingenuity and the profitable power of imagination that is evoked in others. There is nothing that is described as illegal, or even a "con game." What Kyle is doing is apparently above-board and is based on two factors: one, different people value things differently; and two, people love to play the game. Kyle is building his house on the basis of what Carter refers to as quid pro quo -- everyone gets what they want, but the overall value of things increases. This is sort of the Power of Positive Thinking gone wild.
I would suggest that such an approach is culturally what Christians assume but in stark contrast to the covenant that God actually offers God's people. In a far too simplistic way, many Christians assume that the Christian covenant is based upon an agreement with God that if people live a life that is pleasing to God, then God will reward them with a blessed life. Sadly, they often assume that this is in contrast to a Jewish understanding that is reflected, they falsely assume, in the Hebrew Scriptures; that the original agreement between God and the Jewish people was based on a quid pro quo arrangement that Carter references as "I will be your God if you will be my people."
What many Christians fail to realize is that in Judaism too, the whole covenant relationship with God is based on grace. It began not on the basis of what each could get out of the arrangement but rather on the inexplicable gracious act of God. You see that first reflected in the original covenant with Abram in Genesis 15:1-21. In that symbolic dream of Abram, it was the smoking fire pot and flaming torch that passed between the split animals. These symbolized the presence of God. It is significant that Abram was not asked to pass between the pieces himself. While much was expected of God's covenant people, the responsibility of fulfilling the promise of the covenant that formed them into God's people was God's alone. When God brings the slaves out of Egypt, as recorded in the book of Exodus, it is reinforced that God took the initiative. The beginning of the description of the Ten Commandments captures this in the words: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." It is in response to the experience of the enormous grace of God that people are then asked to respond by obeying the commandments. There is no implied threat that if you don't obey these commandments God will send you back into Egypt. Kyle MacDonald's incredible adventure depends each step of the way on pleasing his next trading partner. The house was the reward for doing so and not some gracious gift offered at the beginning of the deal.
In some ways, we are much more comfortable with MacDonald's experience than we are with God's way of offering us an incredible gracious act before we have done anything to deserve it. Whether we are as clever as Kyle or not, at least we can fantasize that we might be able to pull off a similar act. Yet if grace comes first, there is nothing we can do to manipulate a similar situation for ourselves. We are not in control -- God is.
Since we are not in charge of "building our house of faith," we turn our attention to the possibility of our behaving in such a way that we might lose it. It is intriguing that humans are unwilling to give up the illusion of control. Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament consistently explore that theme. How bad do people have to get before God gives up on them? This is the struggle reflected in our lectionary passage.
Given the human capacity for disobeying God, the lingering insecurity that pervades the spiritual life is whether God will get disgusted with humanity and give up on them. If Kyle MacDonald had made a bad trade, he could have lost his chance to obtain a house. Can we make a bad trade in relation to God and blow our opportunity? Many individuals live in that fear. They believe that their own behavior, not the incredible grace of God, determines their eternal future.
Many non-Jewish religions of the region perceived their God as someone who needed to be continually appeased or mollified. Human sacrifice was based on the understanding that only such a great sacrifice would satisfy the gods and convince them to share their beneficence with humanity. We see Israel's struggle with this question in both the story of Noah and the flood and the sacrifice of Isaac. Even closer to this event, the scriptures describe Saul as having been chosen by God and then rejected. While one could describe Saul as having been disobedient and therefore rejected, the haunting question was when the next human rebellion would result in God's rejection.
The whole heresy of supersessionism is based on the idea that humans can foil God's choices and God will have to start all over again. It is reflected in the prevalent (though I would contend false) assumption that the Jews finally failed God by their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and thus God replaced them with the Christian community. (See Romans 9-11 for Paul's argument against that assumption.) Later, the whole Islamic faith and the Mormon faith began on the assumption that the people of God had failed and God needed to begin with a new people.
Part of the mystery was and is that the behavior of God is never fully predictable. Why did God choose a people in the first place? What causes God to choose one person and not another? God's very freedom to be God was unsettling. The promise to David was an answer to this insecurity. If God was unpredictable, God's promises were sure. What the Israelites, and later the Christians, counted on was that God had made an irrevocable promise to be their God. Once God made a promise, humans could count on it being fulfilled.
A major theme of scripture is the often-surprising yet consistent ways in which God keeps promises. When Jesus promises to be with the disciples even to the end of the world, it is a commitment never to turn the divine spirit away from the church. Of course this promise does not mean that behavior is unimportant: "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" (2 Samuel 7:14). The community of faith is accountable for their acts of unfaithfulness, but through it all, they can count on the fact that God will never abandon them.
This theme is reinforced by the Psalm reading in our lectionary, Psalm 89:20-37: "I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.... I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure" (vv. 27, 29).
In scripture, God uses language in ways that contradict the ordinary meaning of words. Who is the firstborn of God? In Exodus 4:22 God says, "Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son." Now in Psalm 89 God declares of David, "I will make him the firstborn..." Later Christians would say of Jesus that he is the Son of God, and the implication is clearly that Jesus is God's firstborn and only son (John 3:16). Clearly the term is used metaphorically and not literally.
Drawing on the tradition of the favor shown to the firstborn son, we are speaking of those who clearly experience the favor of God. This David is so favored that God makes an eternal promise that his reign, in terms of his family line, will last forever. During the destruction of Israel and the exile of the people, this divine promise was clearly in danger. Of course, as the scriptures continually describe, God fulfills the divine promise, but often not in the manner that mortals expect. This is why, despite the confusion of the birth narratives, it was important for the early church to demonstrate how Jesus was of the house and lineage of David.
The importance of these verses from Psalm 89 is the affirmation that God always keeps the promises he made. As we read the scriptures and recognize the unbelievable birth of Isaac, the remarkable escape from Egypt, the survival of Israel despite political disaster, and the exceptional birth of Jesus, we are constantly confronted with our need to reinterpret our previous understanding as we confront the faithful, yet often unique, fulfillment of the promises of God. Eventually we are humbled by our inability to predict the acts of God and our need to simply trust that God will, in God's own way, be faithful to the promises God has made.
In our journey of faith, it is important to review the promises of God, which enable us to face the future unafraid, but then it is incumbent on us to wait for its fulfillment with a mind open to the unexpected. To draw upon the fairy tale of the three little pigs, the household of faith is a house that can't be blown down, despite the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolves of the shadow side of humanity.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Building
me --
a dwelling place for God?
my roof
leaks with wayward
and wanton thoughts . . .
my windows
look out on a world
lusting for more
and caring for less;
if any dare peek in,
they will see the same hungers . . .
my furnace
is filled with the ashes
of dusty dreams
and hapless hopes . . .
my foundation
cracks under the weight of loneliness,
ravaged by the storms of sadness.
i would build you
a house, my God:
re-build me
instead.
Amen.
-- Thom M. Shuman
***
Granny Sugars believed in bargaining with God. She called Him "that old rug merchant."
Before every poker game, she promised God to spread His holy word or to share her good fortune with orphans in return for a few unbeatable hands. Throughout her life, winnings from card games remained a significant source of income.
Being a hard-drinking woman with numerous interests in addition to poker, Granny Sugars didn't always spend as much time spreading God's word as she promised Him she would. She believed that God expected to be conned more often than not and that He would be a good sport about it.
You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.
He'll also cut you some slack if you are astonishingly stupid in an amusing fashion. Granny claimed that this explains why uncountable millions of breathtakingly stupid people get along just fine in life.
Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for the promises you didn't keep.
-- from Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
***
The Burt Reynolds movie The End is a forgotten classic about a man who, after being told he is dying, decides to "spare" his family by committing suicide. He enables us to laugh at ourselves over the ways we try to bargain with God.
At one point he swims out into the ocean, intending to drown himself. But he discovers that he really wants to live, and turns around and heads back. He realizes that he may have swum too far and begins to bargain with God, initially promising 80% of his income and holdings if God will just help him make it back to shore.
The more he swims and the closer he gets to the shore, the smaller the percentage becomes that he offers to God, until it is a mere fraction of the original 80%.
***
When our son was diagnosed with Stage 4 germ cell cancer three years ago, I discovered the reality of something I have often shared with others, but never had to deal with myself: bargaining with God is indeed one of the stages of grief.
After all that had happened to our son up to that point -- his birth mother drinking during pregnancy, resulting in him being born with alcohol-related birth defects; his birth parents literally giving him away to a couple who proceeded to abuse him (physically and sexually) during his first year of life; born with a multitude of developmental delays as well as moderate mental retardation -- now he had to deal with cancer, with chemo, with uncertainty?
So the bargaining began: whatever I/we/he had done to cause this, we would stop. Whatever I/we needed to do to bring about healing, we would do. Whatever it took to sway God to do what we wanted, needed, desired, we would do.
And all our bargaining did was to get in God's way. Like David, I was convinced that if I did something (anything, everything) for God, then God would do something for my son.
Yet in believing that a bargain was needed to bring about healing, I believed that God's hands were tied until I untied them!
But a bargain was not what was needed -- it was trust, it was belief, it was faith. It was remembering that God had covenanted to be my God, our God, and our son's God... that God had called him "Beloved" at his baptism, and promised the Holy Spirit would always rest upon him... that Jesus had said that he would always be with us, in whatever circumstance, in whatever place we found ourselves, even on the cancer floor at the Children's Hospital.
So I stopped bargaining, and started trusting. I got out of the way, and let God do the work of healing -- using the nurses, the doctors, the medicines, the treatments -- without requiring any quid pro quo on my part.
Just faith.
-- Thom M. Shuman
***
Once upon a time, there was a church that boasted a splendid Gothic stone building. Designed by a world-famous architect, illuminated within by sunlight filtering through lovely stained glass, it was a truly worshipful space. Over the decades, this church was the site of many a baptism, many a wedding, many a funeral -- not to mention glorious, spirit-filled worship on Sunday mornings.
The people of that church loved their building. They loved it so much that when their urban neighborhood began to change and people "like them" began moving out to the suburbs, the congregation made an extraordinary decision. They decided to move.
They meant it: literally. They hired a specialized contractor who dismantled the building stone by stone, labeled each piece, loaded everything onto trucks, and reassembled the building in the suburbs. It was costly, they thought -- but worth it, to preserve their splendid worship space.
The congregation had chosen a fashionable new neighborhood, near a university. Expensive new homes were under construction. Young families were moving in. Compared to the troubled urban neighborhood they were leaving, this location seemed ideal.
The people loved their newly reassembled church. They loved it so much, they didn't want a thing to happen to it. So, when a student group from the university asked for meeting space, they did what churches so often do: they referred the question to a committee, which carefully studied the proposal from every angle -- until the students gave up and went elsewhere. Eventually, policies were drafted for the use of the building that were so stringent, few outside groups even bothered to finish the application form.
The people of the new neighborhood got the message. Few of them joined the relocated church. Most of the old members continued to travel there, but in time their numbers dwindled. Finally, the church was closed and the building and land was sold to a nearby hospital for expansion. A huge crane then appeared in the churchyard and swung a wrecking ball, again and again, into the walls of that lovely Gothic building. It was the second -- and final -- time the stones of that church had been separated one from another.
Sadly, this is no parable. The story is said to be true. Even more sadly yet, there are other stories like it being created every day by churches across our land.
Not many churches would consider physically moving their building as this one did. But it's easy, all the same, for a church to become so preoccupied with maintaining the status quo that it overlooks God's call to mission on its very doorstep.
***
Fred Craddock tells the story of how he took his wife Nettie to visit his first church, located in eastern Tennessee. Fred hadn't been back in years. As he traveled, he remembered a time of controversy in that church. The nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory was expanding, and new families were moving into the area. Craddock urged the people of this beautiful little white-frame church to call on the new people, to invite them to church.
"They wouldn't fit in here," was the reply.
A week later, there was a congregational meeting. "I move," said one of the longtime members, "that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in the county." The motion passed, over the young pastor's objections.
When Fred and Nettie pulled up to the old church building, years later, it looked to be a busy place:
"The parking lot was full -- motorcycles and trucks and cars packed in there. And out front, a great big sign: Barbecue, all you can eat. It's a restaurant, so we went inside. The pews are against a wall. They have electric lights now, and the organ pushed over into the corner. There are all these aluminum and plastic tables, and people sitting there eating barbecued pork and chicken and ribs -- all kinds of people. Parthians and Medes and Edomites and dwellers of Mesopotamia, all kinds of people. I said to Nettie, 'It's a good thing this is not still a church, otherwise these people couldn't be in here.' "
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (Chalice Press, 2001), p. 29
***
Many, many years ago, there lived two brothers. Both were farmers. One lived with his wife and children on one side of the hill, and the other was unmarried and lived in a little hut on the other side of the hill.
One year the brothers had a particularly good harvest. The married brother stood on his side of the hill looking at his tall sheaves and exclaimed: "How good God is! Why does God bless me with more than my brother? I have a wife and children, but my brother is alone. I am so much better off than he. I don't need all these crops. When my brother is asleep tonight, I'll carry some of my sheaves over the hill to his fields. Tomorrow when he awakens he will never notice what I have done."
While the married brother plotted his surprise gift, the unmarried brother on the other side of the hill sat in meditation: "God be praised for the goodness I have received! But I wish God had done less for me and more for my brother, for my brother has greater needs. I have as much fruit and grain as my brother, although my brother must share his harvest with his wife and children. They will share mine too. Tonight, when they are all asleep, I shall place some of my sheaves on my brother's fields. Tomorrow he will never know that he has more or that I have less."
So both brothers waited happily, and toward midnight each went to his own fields, loaded his shoulders high with grain, and turned toward the top of the hill. It was exactly midnight when, on the summit of the hill, the brothers met. Realizing that each had thought only of the other, their hearts overflowed with joy and they warmly embraced one another with tears of happiness in their eyes.
-- Anonymous
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In the familiar story of the three little pigs, Mother Pig sent her three little piglets out into the world to live on their own.
The first pig built himself a house of straw, and one day the big bad wolf came and knocked on his door and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
The little pig answered, "No, no, I won't let you come in, not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin."
"Well," replied the wolf, "then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down and ate the little pig.
The second pig built a house of sticks, had the same conversation with the wolf, and met the same fate.
The third pig built a house of bricks. The wolf could not huff and puff hard enough to blow that house down. He attempted to trick the third little pig out of his house, but the pig outsmarted him at every turn. Finally, the wolf threatened to come down the chimney, whereupon the third little pig boiled a pot of water into which the wolf plunged. The little pig cooked the wolf and ate him.
In recent years this story, like other fairy tales, has often been softened from its original version. In these versions, neither the wolf nor the pigs end up eating each other. For instance, the two less prudent pigs escape to the house of the third pig while the wolf is captured rather than boiled.
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Matthew 7:24-27 is a useful sermon illustration for the 2 Samuel lectionary passage. If we are going to build a household of faith that will not be destroyed, how do we do it? "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock..."
Another illustration is Psalm 127:1-2: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain..."
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Habitat for Humanity has been building houses and creating homes for over 25 years:
"In India, Habitat is building houses with widows who traditionally have had limited property rights. In Florida, Habitat has helped create a stable community for migrant farm workers. In El Salvador, after the ravages of recent earthquakes, Habitat's homes are intact and plans are being made to build more homes designed to withstand natural disasters common to the region. In Northern Ireland, Habitat has brought Catholics and Protestants together in a spirit of reconciliation to provide shelter for one another. And in areas where poverty has a more subtle face -- in Portugal, New Zealand, and Canada, for example -- Habitat for Humanity has helped family after family build a stable life in an affordable home."
-- from the front flap of One Family at a Time: 25 Years of Building Houses and Hope (Habitat for Humanity, 2000)
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When Jimmy Carter was asked why he has participated in building Habitat houses every year since 1984, he said: "Have you ever viewed hurt replaced by hope? Have you seen fear replaced by joy? Have you had the privilege of working side-by-side with someone to build a better life?"
-- from the introduction to One Family at a Time
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Whether we are strangers or old friends,
God is joining us together in this place.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Leader: Whether we are "natives" or immigrants,
God is building us together spiritually.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Leader: Whatever walls we try to build between us,
in Christ, God tears them down to build a household for all of God's people.
People: God's steadfast love is our foundation;
God's faithfulness is with us forever.
Prayer Of The Day
God of aliens and strangers:
make the doors of this church wide enough so that all
find a welcome, a home, a haven, a heart.
Christ of the near and those who are far-off:
make our hearts wide enough so that all
might find a place in this household of faith.
Welcoming Spirit of saints and sinners:
open our arms wide enough so that all --
the guest, the neighbor,
the child, the widow,
the politician, the homeless,
the brother, the sister --
may be embraced by your love and grace.
God in Community, Holy in One,
open your arms wide enough to enfold us in your heart,
as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .
Call To Reconciliation
Do we really want God to dwell within us,
or are we only willing to "rent out" space for a brief visit?
Our actions, our words, our silence, our fears all show the presence, or absence,
of God in our lives.
Let us empty ourselves of all which burdens us,
and welcome the One who lives with us forever.
Please join me as we pray . . .
(Unison) Prayer Of Confession
Steadfast God,
we confess that we are so busy putting up walls between ourselves and others
that we cannot see the home you are building for all of us.
We spend so much time noting the differences between us and others,
while you are embracing everyone as your child.
We run to welcome those who look, talk, and act like us,
and you throw open your doors to the stranger, the alien, in our midst.
Forgive us, Faithful Heart.
By your grace, help us to see the household your are building for all people:
there are no plastic protectors on the furniture;
there are no rooms that are off-limits;
and even the smallest child is welcome to sit at the big people's Table
and be fed by your grace.
We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our peace, our hope, our Lord, our Savior.
(silent prayers may be offered)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: Do you remember? At one time, you were without Christ;
you were the stranger, the outsider, the alien.
But now, in Christ, you have been brought home,
living in God's household of hope and peace.
People: God's covenant with us is everlasting;
God's steadfast love is forever;
God's forgiveness makes us new and whole.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
The cornerstone
Object: some building blocks (one labeled Jesus)
Good morning! I thought it would be fun to build a tower today with these blocks. Let's build it together. (Build the tower allowing them to add blocks. Make sure you use the block labeled "Jesus" as the key block on the bottom of the structure.) That's a very good tower. Let me ask you a question. What will happen to this tower if we take this block out? (indicate the block labeled "Jesus" and let them answer) Yes, you are right. If we remove that block, the whole tower will fall down. Let's do it and see what happens. (let them remove the block so that the structure falls)
Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith. If we take Jesus away, what will happen to our faith? (let them answer) Yes, that's right. Just like this tower fell down when the cornerstone that we labeled "Jesus" was removed, so our faith would fall apart if we were to remove Jesus. Everything we believe about God comes to us through the Bible, and Jesus is the most important part of the Bible. A lot of people believe in God, but they don't believe in Jesus. Will that kind of faith save them? (let them answer) No, it won't. In order to be saved, we must believe in Jesus. He is the cornerstone of our faith. Let's thank Jesus for all that he has done for us.
Dear Jesus: We thank you so much for being our Savior, and for dying on the cross to pay for our sins. We know you are the cornerstone of our faith. Please keep us ever mindful of this truth. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, July 23, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
