Village Shepherd

The man's mother had died recently and he wanted to bring her back to her childhood for burial. The local church was very accommodating. The vicar agreed to lead the service and the PCC agreed that the lady could be buried in the churchyard, even though she hadn't lived in the village for a number of years.

The funeral went well and the man was deeply grateful. A few months later, he turned up at the church again, this time bearing a two foot high crucifix. He wanted to give it to the church in memory of his mother.

The church didn't want a crucifix. It was plain inside the church building with just one cross on the altar, and that's how the people liked it. They didn't want candles, let alone a crucifix. They accepted the gift from the man because they wanted to be sensitive to his need to give, but they refused point blank to have the crucifix on display. In the end, the priest offered to have the crucifix in the vestry so that he could say his prayers quietly there as he was preparing for services, and everyone was happy.

The giving of gifts is fraught with hazard. A gift that the giver thinks is just wonderful may be detested by the recipient, but someone else might love it. Church jumble sales are wonderful places to pick up bargains and Ebay is now a huge empire which has been built on the principle that people differ so much in their likes and dislikes that there is always a market for any unwanted gift.

Sometimes, though, the gift is exactly right. This is usually when the giver knows the recipient very well and knows just the sort of thing that will please the recipient. But that sort of giver is quite rare. Many of us buy what we like and assume that our recipients will like it just as much.

This was the problem for David, King of the united tribes of Israel and Judah. He had had a long time leading his troops in war and had enjoyed many victories. Now, during a time of relative peace, he had time to stop and take stock of his surroundings. Having become wealthy through the spoils of war he lived in a spacious house built from cedar, but it felt wrong to him that he should live in such luxurious surroundings while God, who had enable his victories, should dwell in just a tent.

David explained his thinking to the prophet Nathan, who agreed with him. During the time of the monarchy in Israel every king was accompanied by a prophet, whose job was to be a "critical friend" to the king, making sure that the king kept to God's ways and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

We don't know why Nathan initially agreed with David, for that night God spoke to Nathan and gave him a completely different message. God told Nathan that he didn't want a house made of cedar since he had always been quite content to dwell in a tent and to travel with the people. Moreover, God told Nathan to relay the message to David that it was he, God, who made those sort of decisions, not David. If God wanted a house, God would ask for it. In fact, it was completely the reverse. God would make a house for David which would last forever.

God had made such a promise before. From the time of Abraham onwards, God had promised to make a great nation of Israel. But here, God adds to his promise that his steadfast love will never be removed from David as it was removed from Saul and that David's house, kingdom and throne will be established forever.

Perhaps God didn't want the gift of a house because he knew that once he dwelt in a fine house he would be forever associated with just that place instead of being known to be everywhere. Indeed, this was a major problem during the exile. David's son, Solomon eventually built the Jerusalem temple as a house for God and Jerusalem became a pilgrimage site. People were then expected to visit the temple to worship God. By the time of the exile some 300 years later, the temple had become so firmly established as the place where God dwelt that the exiles were terrified that they were beyond God's reach way out in Babylon.

In fact, God later accepted the building of the temple, which seems like a contradiction on God's part but which may simply point out that although a gift from one person at one time might be unacceptable, that same gift might be quite acceptable in a different context at a different time from a different person.

Or perhaps David merely needed to be reminded that he didn't know God as well as he thought. God was in charge, was leading his people through David and could see the big picture. As we plan our next moves within our church context, maybe we too need to remember to rely on God's guidance, rather than simply assuming that God's ideas and our ideas are always identical. If we do that, then like the Israelites under David, we too - our church - will go from strength to strength.