When your days are fulfilled

2nd Samuel 7: 1-17, page 281 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. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 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. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. Sermon Roben Mounger is a longtime member of this church and a frequent contributor to the Daily Herald. Last Thursday a piece of hers was published with a question for the title: “What stands beyond place and time?” The answer to this question, “What stands beyond place and time,” is chicken spaghetti. This dish, one that her mother always cooked, was a comfort when Roben’s mother died suddenly. Chicken spaghetti was the thing that made the whole family, but Roben’s young daughter, especially, feel better. Even when her grandmother died, there was still be chicken spaghetti, and this dish became a symbol of stability for her in a world where tragedy comes fast and even the ones you love can disappear, because chicken spaghetti was still there even if her grandmother was not. That’s an amazing thing about food. The thing that you eat is interconnected often with a person or a place. We eat bread and we drink from the cup and are reminded of our savior Jesus Christ who broke that bread, just as macaroni and cheese with more cheese than macaroni will always make me think of my own grandmother who died last summer. When the process works right we live interconnected. Things are passed from grandmother to mother to daughter – and in so doing the present is connected to the past and the future. Roben learned her mother’s chicken spaghetti recipe and now as her daughter moves away from all that is familiar to go and live in Salt Lake City, Utah she’ll make chicken spaghetti herself for a taste of home. We pass things on like that, but the tricky thing is figuring out how and when. When do you step back and teach your daughter how to make chicken spaghetti for herself? When do you let her become the one who makes it? If you teach her too soon she won’t have to come home to get it and you’ll lose your place as the recipe holder too early, but if you wait you might wait too long, so when is it the right time to pass something so important from one generation to the next? King David wasn’t a cook, but God did call him to pass something down from one generation to the next, only he wasn’t sure it was time to pass it down. He got the idea himself saying to the prophet Nathan: “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” He was ready to build something fitting and permanent, a Temple. What a great symbol this Temple would be too – the sure sign of God’s presence among the people amid all the changes of human life. Generations will rise and fall but this temple would stand as a testament to God’s eternal presence. It wouldn’t be so different from chicken spaghetti – it was to be a comfort to the people, comfort, and order, and the assurance that while life is full of change – disease, heartache, and even death, “God is with you.” However, the privilege of building such a monument would go to his unborn son. While most every father looks forward to his son taking up where he left off by inheriting the family business, taking over the family farm, or finding comfort in the same faith and pledging himself to the same God there is still the question of timing – no one wants to step down before it is absolutely time. In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, returns home from an extremely long trip. Telemachus, his son, has been caring for the family in his father’s absence, but when Telemachus is handed his father’s bow to string he doesn’t do it, leaving generations of readers wondering if it really was too difficult, or if it just wasn’t the right time. While all good parents prepare their children to stand on their own two feet, to be strong and independent, passing the torch from one generation to the next means the end of one era and the beginning of another, and Telemachus knew that the beginning of his time meant the end of his father’s. In the same way, if God turns to Solomon, David’s unborn son, where does that leave David? Surely David was not ready to move aside. He had only just established a time of peace and stability – this wasn’t the time to retire or to even be thinking about it – this was the time to really start thinking about what to do, what great policies to implement, what great monuments to build. This wasn’t the time for David to step down and have his son do the heavy lifting, this wasn’t David’s time to step back, this was the time for David to leave something great for his children to enjoy and was not the time for David to leave something unfinished for his son to do. But these transitions are never easy for the parent or the child. It may seem like a dream to some of you, but at some point the child will reach out to pay for dinner and the parents will have to decide if they’re ready to allow it, having grown used to being the ones who give and not the ones who receive. At some point for many there is the tricky business of car keys: the child may worry about aging parents still on the road, but how strange this role reversal must feel for a parent. How did it happen, and how did it happen so fast? But this is life. We fool ourselves into thinking that our role is established – forever the child, forever the parent, forever the boss – but our roles are not fixed in this ever changing world. And our world is ever changing – so things like chicken spaghetti or stone temples bring comfort and assurance that some things can stay the same. Much has changed over the past 50 years, but the house we live in today has lasted through it all. Because yesterday was my birthday my wife Sara gave me the week off and paid a man to cut our yard. He came to the door, I was a little embarrassed to have someone come over to do the work I felt like I should have been doing, but at the same time I was really relieved to see him there as hot as it was, and he told me he had cut my yard before. “Was it when the man who managed the Wal-Mart lived here,” I asked. “No, this was before that guy from Wal-Mart did all the renovations to your house, I cut the yard back when Mel Duggar, the preacher, lived here,” he said. It’s when someone knows all the previous residents of your house that you realize how small Columbia really is. Knowing who used to live in our house is also a reminder that it’s not really our house. We’re just the ones lucky enough to care for it while we’re here. The truth is that the torch must be passed. That one generation must give way to the next, and the best any of us can hope for isn’t to stand in the spotlight for as long as possible, to stay in charge as long as you possibly can, or to maintain control as long as you still have a heartbeat, but to have faith enough to trust that whatever work God has entrusted to you for your time, God will entrust to those who follow. What David wants is to be the one who gets to build the Temple, but what is far greater is the assurance that God gives: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” Here is something that can bring real comfort – not the lie that you can go on forever, but that when you do step down or step back God will be there to prepare and support whoever must take your place. Have faith then, that God will ensure that those things that so truly matter will continue, that the work that truly counts will get done, and the heritage of faith that you hold dear will never disappear but will be nurtured again in those who follow. Have faith that God will take care of those who follow, just as God has taken care of you. Have faith enough to believe that when your days are fulfilled the work God has set you to will not be forgotten. Amen.