Sermons

• Making a Womb for Christ – The Rev. Michelle Meech

  December 24, 2023

  As we read through this passage today from the second book of Samuel, we see David settling in as the second king of Israel and having a conversation with Nathan, a prophet of David’s court. As a prophet, it was Nathan’s job to advise David so that he might rule Israel as God would want him to. I suppose, to our worldview, it would be like a political leader having a personal pastor. But remember also, at that time, God was seen as a nation’s god. So there was no need to separate church and state. It was not only expected but considered to be necessary for a leader, a king, to have a prophet at his side.

  And in this passage, we witness a special conversation between David and Nathan as David proposes building a house, or a temple, for God – or, more specifically, for the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was a structure designed to be the seat of God – the mercy seat – where God would make themselves known on earth. Allow me to highlight that: How God made themselves known on earth was through mercy. Through grace. Through the love given as they sat upon the mercy seat.

  And this Ark traveled with the people of Israel for centuries, as Israel was a nomadic nation for all this time. So God’s mercy, God’s blessing, was always upon them. Always with them.

  As the kingdom was established under Saul, the first king of Israel, the nation of Israel became… domesticated. Building houses and other permanent structures. The people no longer moved with the herds, living in tents. They built with cedar and stone. So this conversation between David and Nathan is a reflection on this shift that is taking place. In which a scrappy new nation, if you will, created under Saul’s leadership, starts to take up residence in a place, becoming land owners with a desire to protect and defend and a need to develop the worldly power to do so.

  David is suggesting that, if he has a such a strong house, then they must build one for God too. But Nathan says, God has been with us all this time, traveling with us under tents and through the wilderness. God has brought us all this far. And has God ever asked for a house made of cedar? No. God wants us to live free of this burden. God wants us to live in this place and create a city – a strong city made of cedar – the City of David.

  We know, of course, that the Temple that would house the Ark of the Covenant and, therefore, be God’s place on earth, would indeed be built by the next king – Solomon. And that Solomon’s temple would be destroyed and rebuilt. And then destroyed again by Rome about 40 years after Jesus’ death.

  But for David, at least, God’s home remained unbounded by cedar and stone. God’s mercy, God’s blessing did as well. And Israel thrived as a nation, if one could call it thriving, obtaining power and influence in the region. Gaining wealth and status along the way.

  Eventually, however, as the world works in its efforts to exert power, people were sent into exile after Solomon’s rule ended and the nation split over jealousy and power mongering. So, as a nation in exile, Israel yearned for a return to this kind of kingship – influence, power, wealth. This is why, when we read the prophecies that come after David’s time, the prophets always refer to David as the great king. It’s nothing more than nostalgia for a time when things seemed greater. But we know this wasn’t to be because after the Second Temple was destroyed, the great Jewish diaspora began.

  Today, because we have Israel in the news with a war that is raging and a genocide that is taking place, it’s such a complicated situation that, if I went down that road in this sermon, we would be here for a long, long time trying to unpack it all. But what we do know is that in conjunction with the Jewish diaspora after the destruction of the second temple, there began another branch – those who came to understand Jesus as their messiah.

  For these people – these followers of Jesus – the Temple itself wasn’t important. For these people, the building of places that housed God, was not their concern. You see, for these people, who told stories about Mary the Godbearer… These people understood the need to make a home for God within us. Becoming pregnant with God, if you will. Not just women, but all people making a home for God inside of us. If it were possible, for all of us to have a womb so that we all might give birth to God’s love in our world.

  This portrayed a different kind of power than a nostalgic desire for bygone eras and dreams of wealth and influence where God needed, in their eyes, some kind of fantastic showy home made of cedar and stone.

  This theme of making a home for God within us remains, for Christians, one of the most important concerns in our spiritual journey, if not the most important. Christmas, you see, is so much more than a passive desire for peace. Because the home we are beckoned to create is not a home made of cedar or stone. It’s not a home made of beams or plaster or glass windows or pews.

  It’s a home made of flesh. We are the mansion in which Christ takes up residence. Not for a visit once a year during the turning of the world, but for a whole lifetime. This cannot be a passive wish for peace. This requires our full participation.

  And here during Advent, as we prepare for Christmas, we are preparing… not for feasts or presents or parties or travel. I mean… yes… all that is happening. But what we are really preparing for is to make a home for God. Our collect today asks God to purify our conscience so that Christ may find IN US a mansion prepared for them. A mansion prepared for God in us. What does that look like?

  If we read the story that those early Christians told to one another about Mary and if we really take in the song that Mary sings, I think we can begin to understand what it looks like to prepare a mansion for Christ in our hearts:

  God has mercy on those who have come to know God in every generation. Not just our ancestors, but us. God will always be with us. By choosing a human being to be the home of God, God has shown such power that God has scattered the proud who think they have God on a leash through worldly influence. God has cast down the mighty and powerful from their so-called thrones where they clutch their power with tightly gripped hands and has, instead, lifted up the lowly – the ones with no influence, the ones with no wealth and has given them a power that the world cannot understand.

  Those who are outcast by the world, are given nourishment by God for their journey, while God removes from power those who have taken too much from others. God remembers the promise of mercy, the covenant that God has made with those who came long before us. This is God’s way. This has always been God’s way.

  For these early Christians, through Jesus, they came to understand that kingship meant something different than what it had meant for David and for those who pined for a king like David. It had to mean something different because the power of empire, as the nation of Israel had come to experience under the oppression of Rome… the power that crushes many, keeping them in poverty and oppression… this power could not be the power of a loving God.

  They learned that it could not be. Because how could anyone be truly liberated if others were in need of healing, in need of food, in need of community?

  The power of God, then, had to be one in which this devastating and crushing oppression, in which some live well at the expense of so so many others… the power of God had to be one that sought to overturn this worldly nightmare. The power of God, then, had to be found in Christ, that which we, ourselves, are called to give birth to in our world, in our generation, in our places and homes.

  So what does it look like to be the mansion, prepared for Christ?

  To be carriers of God’s light and love. To refuse worldly power, knowing that it is not and never will be what God desires for us. Being a mansion for Christ, means to be Mary. Each one of us, in our own way, singing our own Magnificat, learning to carry Christ within us and give birth to God, by loving our neighbor as ourselves.