Dec 12, 2011
These notes have a lot of gaps where i did adlibs. They will make sense if you listen to the podcast. http://stteves10.libsyn.com/webpage/god-lives-in-a-tent-advent-4-b-for-december-18-2011 or Advent_4_B_2011.mp3
Does anyone remember the Orange people? Bagwan Shri Rajniche -
He was like a superstar - massive house, followers struggled to buy him Rolls Royces - John Derrum - "not good enough"....
Or have you ever come to church..... Air conditioning.... Pipe organ.... Grand piano.... Better visibility.... God deserves it..
Or have you ever wanted to buy someone a special gift - trouble... time... quality.... This person deserves it
Well this is the sort of thing that David wants to do. David wants to build a house for God to live in - God was living in a tent!!!....
David was living in a house of cedar... Surely God deserved better than that!!
Well the God did deserve it, God certainly deserved far more than David could ever do - But God didn't want it!!!
2 Samuel 7:5-7 (GNB)
‘You are not the one to build a temple for me to live in.
From the time I rescued the people of Israel from Egypt until now,
I have never lived in a temple; I have travelled round living in a tent.
In all my travelling with the people of Israel I never asked any of the leaders that I appointed why they had not built me a temple made of cedar.’
God was choosing to live in a tent. God was choosing to be with people in a humble way....
About 1000 years later - a young woman named Mary is visited by an angel
- she is to have a child
- God is going to live among the people in a new way...
- Is this Mary a queen?...palace...Rolls Royce...money....
- No - small village... engaged to a tradesman....
- Instead of a bright light... glorious... Mystical force... God is going to live among us as a human being...
This is a central message of both today's readings - God uses mundane things to show us love. God's love is shown in extraordinary ways by ordinary people and things.
At Christmas time we often miss the point. We think that Christmas is about us making things right. About getting the right gifts... food... patching up the family... fixing up the world... We want to make Christmas look and feel and be right...
But Christmas is actually not about us making things right it's about how God does and will make things right.
God doesn't want to make God look good - God wants to make us right & good.
[Repeat]
David wants to build a house for God - GNB 2 Samuel 7:11b (GNB) But instead God says to David...
I promise to keep you safe from all your enemies and to give you descendants.
NRSV 2 Samuel 7:11b (NRSV) Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. House means...
David wants to build a house but it is God...
Mary makes an excuse fear... & genuine confusion - I haven't done anything... And she’s right...
God is the one who makes it possible - using the ordinary, mundane and unlikely.
In Mary God the Father places the entire weight of salvation and the fulness of the Son of God in a single cell and a woman's womb. God uses things that are human and mundane to bring and point to salvation.
In Jesus...Human flesh... ordinary bread & wine... our meagre prayer... Look & Learn missionary's false teeth... the adulterous, murdering shepherd boy David... the boy & his bread & fish... the once shy bullied child who now preaches this sermon a minister of the Gospel.... the Samaritan woman at the well at mid-day....
And I could go on & on.... God uses the ordinary..... and God can does & will use you -
NEVER say .....
As Christmas comes upon us it's time to remember that God not only loves us and forgives us... It's also time to remember that God includes us and through us can do wonderful and amazing things.