December 20, 2020: Those Who Dream Are Not Alone
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 & Luke 1:26-45
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.” But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, 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?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house . . . Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.
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In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
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The best laid plans of Mice and Men
Leave us naught but grief and pain.[1]
Has anyone here had their plans foiled in 2020?
At the beginning of 2020 I was meeting with an ad-hoc group from the church called the “Size Transition Team.” We were addressing the wonderful problem of overcrowding at church services during “season,” namely February and March. While it was a wonderful problem, it was a problem, nonetheless. We heard stories that would-be worshippers would come, drive around several minutes looking for parking, give up, and go home. Or on occasion, we would notice people who came in a little late, or perhaps right before the worship service began, poke their head in, look around, and leave after seeing there was no comfortable seating available.
The “Size Transition Team” had studied the problem, explored several options, and landed on creating a second service during “season”—an early service—that would hopefully expand our reach and help us accommodate all who would choose to worship with us at Chapel by the Sea. We were busy making our plans when COVID hit.
The best laid plans of Mice and Men
Leave us naught but grief and pain.
Suddenly, the question shifted from, “How can we accommodate more worshippers in our space?” to “How can we accommodate ZERO worshippers in our space?” In other words, when the shutdown happened and churches and businesses closed, we had to quickly shift our focus to accommodating worshippers in virtual space. How can church be church when “Jesus has left the building?”
This year has been a wonderful reminder that God is always on the move, never contained by four walls and far too nimble to squeeze into any fixed ideology.
And God has a sense of humor.
Just ask King David. There he is, finally settled in as monarch of Israel after years of war—civil war, war with surrounding nations—and now, for the first time ever, he’s not fighting any wars. He’s comfortable in his “house of cedar.” But he is bothered that the ark of the covenant, where God is believed to dwell, is still in a tent. David wants to build a temple for God. He begins making plans. But then God says through the prophet Nathan, “You want to build me a house? Ha! I’m going to build YOU a house!”
The best laid plans of Mice and Men
Leave us naught but grief and pain.
David didn’t get to build God a glorious temple. His son, Solomon, would have that honor, not David. But something more glorious would take place . . .
Fast forward roughly 1,000 years. David is long gone. Solomon built a glorious Temple. The Babylonians destroyed the glorious temple. The Roman King Herod built another glorious temple. (Spoiler alert: it gets torn down too.) Throughout all of this building and tearing down, God was building an eternal house for David. One thousand years after God promised to build David a house: “The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” You see what God did there, right? As it turns out, houses that God builds aren’t brick and mortar, but something far more durable.
This nature of eternity is difficult for us to comprehend as finite creatures.
Last week I was talking to my mom on the phone and my seven-year-old son, Rhys, was overhearing us talk. He calls her “Mimi.” When I got off the phone, my son asked me, “Mommy, when you were a little girl, was Mimi your mother?” “Yes,” I said, “Mimi is still my mother.” Rhys looked confused. “Honey, even when you grow up and move out of my house (Lord, let it be!), I’ll still be your mother. I’ll always be your mother.”
Just as my son had trouble understanding the lasting nature of the parenthood, we have trouble comprehending the eternal nature of God. God is always.
God is always, but God’s plans do not always come as “good news” in the moment. David wanted to build that glorious temple. God relayed to him through Nathan, that wasn’t going to happen. Mary was confused and frightened when Gabriel told her she would become an unwed teenage mother. What seemed like bad news to both of them was good news in disguise. “David, I’ll build the house. Mary, you will bear a son, and he will be great, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
When has bad news been good news in disguise for you?
Here at the Chapel, when we shut down for quarantine and put the “Size Transition Team” on hold, it seemed like really bad news. And for 300,000 American families grieving the loss of someone they loved to COVID, it is really bad news. But what we know about God is that God works in and through bad news, ashes to garland as we discovered last Sunday. The bad news of suspending corporate worship for us, of foiling our plans to launch a second service, resulted instead in the launch of a second campus—a virtual campus—with a global reach. The number of worshippers online has more than doubled. We have remained connected, for the first time ever, with many of our snowbirds through virtual programming. Through the grace of God, our church is brimming with new life in unexpected ways that have nothing to do with a building. “And you thought you were building me a house?” God is asking with a sly grin. “I’m building a house through you!” God is good.
God is always. God is good. And finally, and perhaps this is the best news of the day, God is present.
In the same way that fish may not realize they’re swimming in water because it’s all they’ve ever known, we too often fail to realize that it is in God that we live and move and have our very being.
In our Theology on Tap gathering a couple of weeks ago I invited participants to think about and respond to the question, “What has COVID-19 done to or for your spiritual life.” I was fascinated and encouraged by the responses. Some indicated that their spiritual life had deepened, that they had discovered or rediscovered a turning to faith as a source of strength and hope. Maybe it was in that meeting or somewhere else recently, someone told me that before COVID they maintained an illusion of control, but that illusion had been shattered reminding them of God’s ubiquitous presence.
The Psalmist was similarly reminded of this truth as we read in Psalm 139:7-10:
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
One of the greatest blessings of being a person of faith is that we have a constant companion—those who dream are never alone. “Greetings, favored one,” the angel says to Mary, showing up unexpectedly in the most mundane of places, her home. “The Lord is with you.”
And I’m convinced that if an angel showed up here, with us, the message would be quite similar: “Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.” God is always. God is good. God is present.
And our task, like Mary’s is to be the vehicle through which God comes to the world in this place and time. This idea—that God is present—that God comes to the world through ordinary people like Mary, like you like me, is what inspired songwriter Malcomb Gordon and his 5-year-old son to write a song entitled “Hey, Mary.” I close with it:
Hey, Mary, there’s an angel in your house.
Said, “Mary, have I got some news for you.
You seem to think you’re nothing much but
Heaven’s coming close enough to touch, yeah.
Hey, Mary, God is coming here through you.”
There is no such thing as ordinary now, God is here.
Every life and breath is blessed, you never know when God might appear.[2]
[1] Adapted from Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse.”
[2] Sam and Malcomb Gordon, https://www.onevoice.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Hey-Mary-LS-Final.pdf