A Holy Place, A Holy People, A Holy God

July 22, 2012 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 7:1-14 Mark 6:30-34; 53-56 A Holy Place, a Holy People, a Holy God Year B There is something going on in the world I know that I have said this before, but with the events within the last days, I feel that I need to say it again. There is something going on in the world today. There is a very strange spirit at work in the world. It just seems that people are anxious and doing some strange things out of desperation. I have just never seen so many people doing so many things that don’t make no sense. Thing that seem to have no regard for a sense of humanity in others. It seems that they are in pain, so they just don’t care what they do to others, or how others are affected by their actions. We are definitely a world at war on a lot of different fronts. People only care about what they care about. And as long as they win, they don’t care who has to lose, or what they have to lose, even if it is their own life. You know there was a time a few years ago, when I would have thought that we were living in peace times, where everything was going fairly well, people were fairly happy, situations were fairly manageable, but that was a long time ago. And this is just not peace time. King David at rest This is nothing like King David must have been experiencing in the Hebrew bible lesson for today. Scripture says that this was a time of rest and stability for David. He was settled in his house, he was not being attacked by his enemies, and it seemed that this kingdom was well taken care of. Now David had been a warrior most of his adult life. He spent most of his life at war. As a matter of fact, back on those days, people worshipped God because they believed that God was what made them conquer all of their enemies. Yahweh was believed to be the God of victory in war. The Israelites believed that if we united together under one God, then no one could defeat us. David was a war hero, he knew battle very well. As a matter of fact, the word rest means someone who is able to take a break from all of their hard work. David was someone who had been at war, and now he was finally able in his life to take a break. You can only rest from hard work. Someone who takes a rest from rest is just plain lazy. David was settled down in his life, so he sent a message to God that it was time for God to do the same. To take a rest from the war. Scripture says that David told his plans to the prophet Nathan, who told talked with God. God has to remind David, that he was not the God of rest, but the God of work. He had always been on the move with his people, and that if his people were on the battlefield of life, then God needed to be present among them. Rest for God was not in a place. Isaiah 66:1 says – heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. Where then is a house that you can build for me, where is a place that I can rest. God is always working As long as there are people in need, God’s work is never done. There is no rest of God. And yet we live in a notion that the church is the place that we come to meet God, and that we should be able to come here and find rest. God is not a God of rest. And there is no rest in the church. There is always work to be done. Mother goes to jail to rest There was a family, two parents and five children. The husband did not work, and the mother had to do everything to support her young family. The husband did not work, but he still drove the car. He managed to accumulate over $5000 in parking tickets. He didn’t car, the car was not in his name, but his wife’s. So the city came after her for the money to pay the tickets. She told them she did not create the tickets, and that she just didn’t have the money to pay. The city told her that they would have to put her in jail for three months to settle her debt. The city thought that would make her pay, but the wife was happy. She said that as long as she had a bed, three meals a day and she did not have to deal with her family, jail would be a nice vacation. A time for her to get some rest. My point is, jail might be a place of rest, the church, not so much. The world is not at peace, and the church cannot afford to be at peace either. When we get settled, and restful, then we die. And we are not living the presence of God, who is always moving and working. We don’t get to rest in church, we rest in Jesus The good news of a God of no rest, is that we worship a God who always keeps his promises. When David wanted to build a house for the Lord, he told David that it was the other way around. He would build a house for him. He promised that there would always be a son of David on the throne. God fulfilled his promise by keeping a son of David on the throne for 400 years. He surpassed his promise when he bought Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus is known as the son of David. And he reigns on the throne forever. The disciples and Jesus look for rest Interestingly enough, the gospel lesson is also about rest. It seems that once people realized that Jesus was the messiah, they flocked to him constantly. Need never stopped. Not only did the need wear out Jesus, but it wore out the disciples. Jesus realized that he needed to take them all to what scripture calls a deserted place, a lonely place, a place to rest and get away from the crowds. And yet the crowd still followed him. It didn’t take Jesus long to realize that rest is not a place on earth as long as there are people in need. Jesus had compassion on them, as sheep without a shepherd. Feeding of 5000 We don’t hear the story of the feeding of the 5000 in Mark, but we will hear it next week in John. That was the most important story of Christ mission in the bible. But I want to point out that in the Mark version of the story, Jesus tells the disciples to give what they have to feed the people. And the disciples respond that they don’t have enough to help others. Jesus tells them to use that they have and the Holy Spirit will do the rest. This is the one time in the gospel where the 12 followers are called apostles and not disciples. They went from following the son of David, to doing his will. They were being Christ for the world. Christ calls the church to do the same. We have a chance to be called apostles, those who witness to the true good news of Jesus Christ. We have to realize that rest is in Jesus Christ, not in a seat in the world. Jesus has compassion on the people, and we have to do the same. We are called to show compassion to those in need That is what the world so lacks today – is the ability to have compassion on others. To genuinely care how others are being affected by our actions. And for us to realize, that just because the world is cruel, if we love Jesus, we don’t have to be cruel with the world. Zachary restored Wednesday, at the food pantry, I met a veteran named Zachary. As we talked, he said that it was not really food that he needed, but that he was in emotional pain because of a lot of things. He had just moved to Englewood. I invited him to church and he said, he did not know. He found that people were really cruel and heartless in this neighborhood. They seemed to like to beat up older men. He didn’t like to come out. We talked and we prayed. And as he left, he held the door open for a group of women. If I had not shown kindness to him, he would not have shown kindness to them. At that moment, whether Zachary comes to church or not, I felt that he was on the road the healing, wholeness and salvation. That was all Jesus was trying to do – not so much to give us rest, but to give us restoration. Salvation, and wholeness. He wanted to most give the ability to be human, in a very inhumane world. We are the ones to show compassion, when no one else is willing to. If we are to be more than disciples, but apostles, we have to realize that there is not rest here in the walls of this church. Our rest is in Christ Jesus. This is not the box that contains the fullness of God. And no matter how hard you try- you cannot keep God contained. God is always bigger than anything that w can imagine. Lady with dream of becoming a missionary There was a lady who had a dream of one day becoming a missionary and moving far away from home. Just as she was ready to graduate from college and step out on her own, her sister and brother in law were involved in an accident. The left 4 small children, with no one to take care of them. She had compassion on the children and raised them. By the time the children were grown and out of the house, she was too told to be a missionary. It seemed that she never got to fulfill her dream. God must have denied her dream. It turned out that all 4 of her nieces and nephews became missionaries themselves. They had been raised in a Christian household, where they clearly understood what it meant to serve God. It turns out that the woman had been a missionary after all. So there were 5 missionaries produced in that household. You might have plans of what you want to do for God, but God has bigger plans of what he wants to do for you and your household. What healing, wholeness and salvation looks like in your life is up to God, not you. Find your rest, not in the anything in the world – but in the eternal son of David – Jesus Christ. Let us pray.