Whose House?
I have a confession. Right now my house is really, really messy. It’s bad. Cluttered and dusty. My house would not pass any white glove inspection and any inspector is very likely to trip and fall from all of the things scattered about on the floor. The good news is I don’t always live like this. My family is in the midst of a kitchen renovation. The 22 year-old cabinets in our kitchen had recently decided that they not longer wished to hold themselves together with the nails and glue that had faithfully done so for a long time, so at the start of the summer, we began this journey of being completely ousted from our kitchen.
Now, one of the things that I have learned in the four weeks since this journey began is that I do not like being ousted from my kitchen. I am not much of a cook, so it doesn’t have much to do with that. I’ve come to realize that the kitchen is the heart of our home. It’s Grand Central Station in the life of our family. All of the activity in our house, so much of the conversation and connection takes place in our kitchen. It’s where we eat meals and snacks. It’s where my kids sit and do their homework or work on craft projects. Because it is attached to the garage, it’s where we all first greet each other, check in and give updates when we’ve been out in the world. Like so many things in life, I’ve come to realize the importance of something (our kitchen) only after I’m no longer able to access it.
Being exiled from the heart of my home has gotten me thinking a lot about houses – the houses we live in and also our houses of worship. So, of course feels like a God thing that the lectionary text from the Hebrew Bible that showed up for today (2 Samuel 7:1-14a) deals with homes and houses.
Here in 2 Samuel, we find David, and he appears to be getting a little comfortable and perhaps a little bored. God has helped him to ward off and defeat all of his enemies and he is resting comfortably. So what did the Covid pandemic teach us that we all do when we get bored? Home improvement projects. Remember? It was amazing how when we all were stripped of our hobbies, travel and communal activities and forced to spend a lot of time in our homes, so many of us decided to take on projects big and small to help with our boredom and to hopefully make us just a little happier in our homes.
David is looking around at this nice house he has made a home, a house made of cedar, and he thinks, “Well now, how is it fair that I have this lovely home made of cedar, but God, (or the visible presence of God in the form of the tabernacle), is living in a tent?” So David hints to Nathan that he is going to build God a proper house – a temple – which would be a more appropriate home in which the presence of God will dwell. Everything about this story makes sense so far. Once David is no longer on the move and fighting his enemies, both he and God should both have more appropriate houses to call home.
But God appears to Nathan, and encourages him to go to David and challenge this idea of building a home for God. God encourages Nathan to question David and say, “Are you the one who is supposed to build me a temple? When did I ever ask for a temple? Have I ever asked for someone to build me a temple?’” And then God pulls the ultimate power move in flipping the script. God essentially says, “Oh, you think you want to build a house for me? But no, I will make a house for you!” Of course, when God uses this word “house,” God is referring to a line of succession for David and his descendants. One might say that God is providing a proper reminder of the power dynamics in this relationship!
I think it’s easy for any of us to see the good intentions in David’s idea of building a house for the tabernacle. It’s an idea we have long had and still have today – create beautiful buildings as houses of worship. The one I serve in right now is truly a 140 year-old beauty! However, there is a lesson and perhaps even a caution in this text. God is telling David that his energy and his resources don’t need to be used in building God a big, beautiful house. God reminds David that God has always moved among God’s people, traveling with them as they have moved from place to place. And perhaps God is even telling David that while he has a home now, there will be times when David will also need to move again, and God will go with him and not stay in a house of cedar that David has erected.
The message is this – God doesn’t make a home in the houses we may build for God. God’s home is with God’s people. God moves with God’s people. Travels with the people. Relocates with the people. We can build houses to contain God, but God cannot be contained in even the most beautiful of houses. God’s home is with God’s people.
In recent months my church community has studied the projected statistics for the church in the United States of America. In the book Gone for Good, Mark Elsdon notes that up to 100,000 churches are expected to sell their buildings in the next decade. That number represents between a quarter and a third of all churches in this country. These stats are so hard to hear, but they would be utterly terrifying if we were a people who believed that God lives inside of the houses that we have built for God. But thankfully, we know that is not true. God’s home is with God’s people. God’s home is still with those communities who have had to make the hard decision to sell their buildings and move into other spaces.
God’s home is also with the hundreds of thousands of people who have stopped going to church on Sundays in recent years, many because the Covid pandemic enabled them to develop other Sunday routines that we have yet to pull them back from. And they may not come back anytime soon.
One of my favorite children’s books as a kid has become a favorite of my three daughter., It was written in 1969 by Liesel Moak Skorpen and is titled, We Were Tired of Living in a House. It is a whimsical tale of four small children, a dog and a cat who decided they were tired of living in a house so they are going to move. They try a tree, a pond, a cave and the seashore, but in each place something bad happens to force them move on to the next place—and finally, in the end, back to their original house, where they run back into the arms of their family members. Along the way, they name what makes each location special. They make each spot a home – even if only briefly. Then, things change and they move on. But in the end they do come back to the original house as the best home, likely because it’s the one where their family resides together.
If the houses we have made a home for the people of God in the beautiful church buildings that are all over this world make the best homes for the people of God, people will eventually come back. I believe that. But perhaps right now, like the children in the book, the people of God are out in the world looking for alternative homes. The people who aren’t in our pews on Sundays haven’t walked out on God. They are looking for God or whatever language they use to talk about God, outside of the doors of our churches.
God lives with God’s people. And our attachment to our beautiful houses of worship that have served us so well for a long time must be balanced with the reality that God doesn’t live in our church buildings. They are houses that we make a home in the communities we form and the work that we do.
And (and this is a BIG and), we can and must continue to invite people to come back to our homes, or to come for the first time and experience God through the incredible community in the church. Because God’s home is with God’s people, God makes a home in our churches with us with us when we are gathered together and doing the God’s work inside the walls. It is OK to love our houses of worship, and to invite others to love it, as long as we also remember that God lives with us, and not solely in the spaces we create for worship.
God’s home is with God’s people.
Amen.
