URC Daily Devotions Sunday Worship for 18th July 2021 – The Revd. Sarah Moore

United Reformed Church Daily Devotions
Service for Sunday 18th July 2021

The Rev’d Sarah Moore

 
Words of Welcome and Introduction
 
Good morning.  My name is Sarah Moore, and I am a United Reformed Church Minister currently serving as Transition Champion for the National Synod of Scotland.  I also support the work of the General Assembly as its Assistant Clerk.   I live in Dunblane in central Scotland, and my work base is the Synod Office in Glasgow.  As I came into post just before the start of the pandemic, my ministry in this place has been bound to my home rather than out and about across the country.  As our service today, in part, is about the building of a home for the Lord, this is an interesting juxtaposition of circumstance.  It is a privilege to lead worship with you today. 
 
Call to Worship
 

We meet in the name of God, the Holy Trinity of Love who knows our needs, hears our cries, feels our pain,  and heals our wounds. God is our light and our salvation.  In God’s name we light this candle and are reminded of Jesus, the Light of the World, God’s own Voice who came to live with us. May our hearts be open to you, O God, now and always. Amen.

 
Hymn       Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
after Joachim Neander, Catherine Winkworth and others. BBC Songs of Praise

Praise to the Lord, the almighty,
the king of creation!
O my soul, praise Him,
for He is your health and salvation!
All you who hear
now to His Temple draw near,
join in the world’s adoration!
 
2 Praise to the Lord, above all things so mightily reigning;
keeping us safe at His side
and so gently sustaining.
Have you not seen
all you have needed has been
met by His gracious ordaining?
 
3 Praise to the Lord, who shall prosper our work and defend us;
surely His goodness and
mercy shall daily attend us.
Ponder anew
what the almighty can do,
who with His love will befriend us.
 
4 Praise to the Lord –
O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that has life and breath,
come now with praises before Him!
Let the “Amen!”
sound from His people again;
gladly with praise we adore Him!

Prayers of Approach and Confession
 
Jesus said to the apostles, “Come away to a deserted place
all by yourselves and rest awhile.
Mark 6.31
Holy One, we gather today to offer our praises and our worship.  Risen One, we gather today to remember that we are a people of a story; your story.  Spirit One, we gather today to feel and notice your movement among us, calling us onwards to live out your mission in the world.  We ask that you may hurry our feet and awaken our minds and hearts to your call. 
 
Holy One, we praise and worship you even though we fall short of
your hopes and dreams for us.  Risen One,  we remember your story  recognising that sometimes we lose sight of the truth that your story is our story.  Spirit One, sometimes we deaden ourselves to your call, enliven and heal us. 
 
Three-in-One, strengthen us for a life of sharing your love; through this time build us up, ready to go and do your work. 
 
The Lord’s Prayer
 
Hymn       Amazing Grace
John Newton, sung by the group Celtic Women

Amazing grace!
how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost,
but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.
 
2 ’Twas grace that taught
my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did
that grace appear
the hour I first believed!

3: Through many dangers, toils, and snares
we have already come.
‘twas grace that brought us safe thus far
and grace will lead us on.
 
Reading   2 Samuel 7.1-14a
 
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 for ever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.
 
Hymn:      Here to the House We Come
Shirley Erena Murray (b.1931) (alt.) Words: (c) 1992, Hope Publishing Company,
Carol Stream, IL 60188, USA. sung by Paul Robinson

Here to the house of God we come,
home of the people of the Way,
here to give thanks for all we have,
naming our needs for every day,
we who have roof & rent & bread,
sure of a place to rest our head.
 
 
2 There is a knocking at our door,
sound of the homeless of the world,
voice of the frightened refugee,
cry of the children in the cold,
asking the least that is their right,
safety and shelter for the night.
 
3 God who is shelter, who is home,
in borrowed rooms
you came to live,
pleaded to save the dispossessed,
crucified, lay in borrowed grave:
these are no strangers in your eyes,
this is your family which cries.
 
4 We are all tenants of your love;
gather us round a common fire,
warm us in company with Christ,
give us the heart to feel, to share
table and lodging with free hand,
space in our living, in our land.

Sermon
 
Those property programmes that are a regular feature of both daytime and primetime TV schedules fascinate me.  To name but a few, there is, Homes under the hammer, which is about people buying a wreck of a house at auction, doing it up with a view to renting out or selling on and making a profit.  Or, for those after a holiday home, A Place in the Sun which has both home and international options.  The genre has shifted slightly in recent years, perhaps reflecting people’s financial situations and the broader economic climate with more programming about renovating or revamping the homes the participants currently have with Love it or List it and Your Home Made Perfect. 
 
Particularly interesting perhaps are the people who sign up to appear on these shows.  Some have huge expectations about what sort of house that they can afford or where they can live.  Sometimes people are looking for something that doesn’t exist and part of the task of the presenters is to find a way to show people so, usually by starting kindly and becoming more blatant if they don’t get the point.  However unreasonable it might seem that someone is being, what perhaps is most important to remember is that often a person or a couple or a family are buying a home.  A place to rest and to play.  A place that can serve as the centre of their life and this is perhaps particularly the case for those intending to settle in a place for the long term. 
 
In the passage that we have just heard from the second book of Samuel, we encounter one of the most famous kings of Israel, David, in a reflective mood.  David has finally made it to the top, he has become king, and he lives in the place was promised to him.  He has come a long way since the day when the prophet Samuel had his older brothers call him down from his father’s fields, away from looking after the sheep to tell him that one day he would be king.  He has come a long way from his life playing music in the court of king Saul, from fighting countless battles on the side of his own guerrilla army and having to hide out in the open countryside.  Now, David is king.  Now, David is living in a house made of cedar.  Cedar was one of the most expensive building materials available in the ancient near east so it was right and proper for a king to build his palace out of this wood.  Elsewhere we read in the Bible about the cedars of Lebanon and how much the wood from those trees was demand. 
 
Much to David’s embarrassment, the ark of God continues to be kept in a tent.  In the society and culture that David was part of, gods had to be treated seriously and with due reverence.  One needed to keep one’s god on one’s side as one never knew when their blessing was next going to be needed.  Building a house, building a place of residence for God was for David, in some ways, an act of worship.  What more could David offer?  David had his dream house, now he wanted to give his God his. 
 
Before we jump to criticise David too harshly, it is worth our remembering some of the history of church, chapel and place of worship building in our culture.  We live in a country and continent that is littered with grand cathedrals.  These were built to be places of worship but they were too built to reflect well on the person who had given the money for their building.  There was a sense of ‘look at me, look how much I love God and see how much money I have’ buried in the architecture of some of these truly grand buildings.  Even among our own non-conformist forebears there was often an element of competition in terms who could build the biggest chapel either or both in terms of largest number of seats and tallest tower. 
 
Enter the prophet Nathan.  Initially, Nathan’s response to David is “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”  And it is not difficult to understand why Nathan advised David in this way.  David had become king of Israel against all the odds.  He started out as a shepherd boy.  The previous, usurped king, Saul had put a price on David’s head for a long time so you can be fairly sure that there were mercenaries out there who would have been only too pleased to deliver David to Saul, either dead or alive.  According to human understandings of blessing, it is not difficult to believe that David must surely have God’s blessing and favour.  If he did not, he would be dead.  Period.  And was it right that the king of Israel should live in a posh house built of cedar when the creator of all things, the life-giver, the energy behind all that is should be seen to reside in a tent?  And why should not the ways of mortals match the ways of God? 
 
That very same night, Nathan has a dream.  Dreams are significant in the faith and spirituality of the Hebrew Bible, it is not unusual for God to communicate with his people in this way.  The word of the Lord comes to Nathan.  Nathan is directed to communicate a message to David.  The word can be summarised as follows.  This is God speaking.  “I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel.  I have been moving about in a tent and tabernacle.  Did I ever ask why I had not been built at house of cedar.  David, I called you from being a shepherd to being a prince over my people.  I have been with you everywhere you’ve been and fought your battles for you.  In the future I will make you a great name with all the great ones of the earth.  I will provide my people with a place to live and they too will not need to worry about their enemies.  After you are gone, your offspring will build a house for my name.  I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. 
 
The onward story is fairly straightforward.  David was not allowed to build a house to house the name of God but his son, Solomon, when he became king built the first Jerusalem temple.  It was promised to David that he would be the beginning of a great dynasty.  David’s son, grandson and various degrees of great grandsons apparently did rule the land for several generations although how successful this was is open to question.
 
We can read passages like these and find them interesting but most significant question  we can ask here and of any passage from the Bible is what we can learn from this story about our faith and our relationship with God today.  The person who I think is most worth having a second look at today is the prophet Nathan.
 
At the beginning of the story, Nathan it would seem pretty much had matters sown up – or he thought that he did.  David wanted to build a house of cedar to house the name of God.  Fair enough.  A house for God would offer a focal point, a place where worship could be offered and the community could gather.  It would be a place for people to go and do their religious and spiritual stuff, even if, as would most likely have been the case, all they could do would be to stand at the gate and look. 
 
Nathan has his dream and what he dreams is not what he was expecting.  The message that he must give to his king is detailed, and, it is the complete opposite of what Nathan had thought.  What we learn from this dream of Nathan’s is, like Nathan did, is to realise that our God is not quite the God we thought we had. 
 
We realise that we have a God that we encounter on God’s terms and not on ours.  David had fallen into the trap of believing that perhaps because he had become king, he might be able to approach God as a fellow king in his land and show hospitality.  David had attempted to relate to God on human terms.  He wanted to build his God a house.  Only problem was that God was going to build David a house, but not one made of wood, rather one of people that would stretch down through the generations creating a truly lasting legacy. 
 
Many denominations and the local congregations that form them in 2021 have a complicated relationship with our buildings.  On one hand they can be a legacy of our past containing many memories that provide a focus for mission and witness in our localities.  On the other they can be a black hole that continually demands time, energy, and money to the exclusion of other concerns.  Further to all of this our fellowships have spent much of 2020 and a significant slice of 2021 unable to physically gather for worship or to do other work of the Lord together.  In my own ministry I have encountered a number of congregations who for a variety of reasons find themselves with no fixed abode realising that this situation itself can very much be a mixed blessing. 
 
Whether the building of a Temple by the Israelites to provide a home for the Lord, the construction of the buildings of the past, or church building in our time is a good thing brings a wide variety of views.  It is fair to say that in the traditions that make up the URC we build, buy or renovate our buildings to provide a place for people to meet and as a base for mission rather than as a place for the Lord to live. 
 
But perhaps a deeper takeaway from this passage is a simpler one?  I notice that David wanted to build a house for the Lord because he thought that he should.  Some interpretations of this passage chide David for putting God in a permanent box.  I wonder how it would go if we recognise the warning here as being about the danger of reducing God to human terms; to human ‘shoulds’, to what we believe to be right and proper? 
 
We follow a travelling Lord for whom the way is always onwards, for whom a tent is more convenient than a house.  Our buildings are useful treasures but as with some other matters we must take care that they stay helpful tools for mission rather than morphing into masters of our destiny. 
 
Hymn:      Let us Build A House
                  Marty Haugen  Ma (b. 1950) Words and Music:
© 1994, GIA Publications Inc. Sung at BBC Songs of Praise

One more step
along the world I go,
one more step
along the world I go;
from the old things to the new,
keep me travelling
along with you:
 
And it’s from the old
I travel to the new;
Keep me travelling
along with you.
 
2: Round the corners
of the world I turn,
more and more
about the world I learn;
and the new things that I see
You’ll be looking at
along with me.
 
3: As I travel
through the bad and good,
keep me travelling
the way I should.
Where I see no way to go,
You’ll be telling me
the way, I know.

 
Sending Words & Blessing
 
Go into the world
as people of compassion and good courage,
equipped by the Word
to be Christ’s disciples
walking his way. 
 
May the blessing of God,
who we know as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit
be and remain with you,
with the people who you love,
and with the people you are called to love.  Amen.
 
 
 
Sources and Thanks
 
Call to Worship from the Church of England’s New Patterns for Worship.  Affirmation of Faith from the Reformed Church of France, translated by Andy Braunston.  All other liturgical material written by Sarah Moore.
 

Organ Voluntaries played by Brian Cotterill http://briancotterill.webs.com
Ach Gott Von Himmel Sieh Darein (“O God from heaven see this”) by Johann Pachelbel (organ of The Spire Church, Farnham – 2020)  Toccata from Suite Gothique by Leon Boëllman (organ of St Thomas-on-The Bourne, Farnham – 2016)
 
Thanks to Sue Cresswell, Chris Watson, Mandy Hibbert, Esther Watson and the choir of Barrhead URC for leading the spoken parts of the service.