There’s been a lot of moaning and wailing among the clergy this Advent about the Fourth Sunday of Advent also being Christmas Eve. Whose idea was this? Advent is problem enough — all the John the Baptist weeks — and now this. This year people will come to church on the morning of Christmas Eve, and its still fricking Advent.
Well, if you’re a preacher who is already on the skids, here’s a chance to seal your fate. Preach on the Old Testament text for Advent IV this Sunday (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16). It has nothing to do with the birth in Bethlehem — not even close. So you can start by saying, “By now, you’ve had enough of singing chipmunks, manger scenes, awful Christmas movies and even, ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’”
“So for a palate cleanser, our reading this morning, this Christmas Eve, comes from II Samuel 7, wherein King David, now settled into majesty and comfort, feels a little twinge of conscience about God’s humble abode — a tent — and decides to end God’s housing crisis by bringing the Almighty a suitable house, a Temple made of cedar.”
Why does this sound like a tech billionaire who shows up at your church the week before Christmas with a check for $50,000. Oh, and he would be so appreciative if news of this generous gift were shared with the congregation on Christmas Eve — in addition, of course, to the good news about the birth of the Savior!
God declines David’s gift. Yahweh instructs the prophet Nathan to tell David, “You think you’re going to build me a house? Did I ever say I wanted a new house for Christmas?”
David has a grammar problem. He thinks he is the subject of the sentence, of the verbs. “I will build God a house.” No, no, no, saith the Lord. You are not the subject of the verbs, however much kingly power you’ve accumulated. If anyone is building anyone a house, I will be doing the building here. I, the Lord, am the subject of the sentence, the active one. You, David, may be settling down. But I am still on the move.”
Earlier this fall I wrote an article in response to a pastor’s letter-of-resignation gone viral. Ministry being what it is, the Presbyterian pastor, Alexander Lang, found a pretty sizeable Amen Corner, for his lament about the relentless demands of the pastorate. I get it, ministry is tough.
I’ve since followed up on Lang and discovered he was creating something called “Restorative Faith,” an enterprise which he describes as follows at the RF website: “Restorative Faith is a progressive Christian movement” designed to “rescue the Christian faith from antiquated doctrine and recast Christianity in a new light”:
If you’re the type of person who questions and doubts; if you’ve strayed from the Christian faith because there are certain things that don’t seem to add up, then this movement is for you.
This is not traditional Christianity repackaged or rebranded. We are here to break down the Christian faith one piece at a time so we can rebuild it into something that is actually worth believing.
Lang is hardly the first to set out to “rebuild” Christian faith “into something that is actually worth believing.” That seemed to be the enterprise of the so-called “Jesus Seminar” in the 80s. It was the enterprise of much of “liberal theology” in the early 20th century, fashioning a faith for the world of science and reason. It is the enterprise of a fair number of “constructive theologians” who see Christianity as the wellspring of almost everything that is wrong in the world, from climate change to white supremacy.
All of which reminds one of David’s long-ago construction project.
Making a faith that is rich, complex and takes a variety of forms, something “we” regard as “worth believing”! But wait … who put us in charge? Who made us the deciders? What makes us think we are the ones capable of determining what is “actually worth believing”?
At the heart of the experience of faith is an element of surrender. We are not the subject of the verbs. Or as they say in AA, “There is a God, (enter your name here); and it’s not you.” We are de-throned. We moderns don’t much care for that.
Am I calling for “blind faith”? Or for accepting distortions of the faith without objection? Of course not. Maybe it’s just a bit of humility that is called for.
Which we may find in the companion text from the Gospel of Luke for this Sunday, wherein a young woman at the far opposite end of the socio-economic scale from King David says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)
Well, who knows, maybe you will preach or hear a sermon on II Samuel 7 this Sunday; just be sure you also remember the gospel reading, Luke 1, in which Mary gets the grammar of the gospel just right. “Let it be with me according to your word.” Mary is not the subject of her own action, but the faithful recipient of God’s. It’s not her kingdom to build.
If you stay with the II Samuel text long enough, you’ll find that it really is a Christmas story of sorts. It is a story about the strange ways of our God, who declines the world’s ways, but who makes his home and temple in the most unlikely of places, a cattle shed, with the most unlikely people, a teen mother and her dream-struck fiancé. Grace comes, as always, to those and where we least expect it.
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2 responses to “You Are Not the Subject of the Verbs”
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Sigh.
Look, I’m subject to self-sabotage and the death drive too, but listen: a faith that’s easier to believe will save precisely no one because it leaves us right in that cage of alienation. Thank you for this, Anthony.
This is the perfect line. “Maybe it’s just a bit of humility that is called for.” Beautiful.