Dr. Charles J.
Tomlin, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion
Baptist Partnership
October 21th,
2012, Disciple Series #9 of 17
This is a moment
of high tension in U.S. politics. We are
just a couple of weeks away from a very big election; some say a most historic
election. Many people believe the
differences and divisions in this election are greater than ever before. Both candidates and their parties say they
have the only right answer for our nation’s future. As we all know, making big, big promises is
how politics work in this country---or should I dare say, doesn't always work.
Several weeks
ago, I got a letter from the IRS warning me as a pastor that I had better not
endorse any political candidate in the pulpit or I could be endanger this
church of losing its privilege non-profit tax status. Right after that, I got another letter of protest
inviting me to stand with other pastor’s across the nation for freedom of the
pulpit so I could preach whatever I wanted to preach, say whatever I wanted to
say, endorse whomever I wanted to enforce.
That was October 7th.
Instead of preaching on politics, I preached on Job. Preaching on Job, pain and God forsakenness
was probably closer to real-life politics than one might think.
Today, more than
ever, I am hesitant about mixing politics and religion. Tony Campolo says that mixing church and
state, or religion and politics, is like ‘mixing ice cream with cow
manure’. The manure does fine, but it’s
the ice cream that always gets messed up (As quoted from Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne
and Chris Haw, p 20). We need both, politics
and religious faith, but when we start mixing them together, the worst
characteristic gains the most influence and messes up the best.
In spite of that
danger, today I want to talk about politics and religion. But I’m not talking about just any kind of politic
or any kind of religion, I’m going to talk about God’s politic. This text from 2 Samuel, chapter seven,
contains one of the most crucial statements in the entire Old Testament. It also brings up very relevant issues about what
politics should mean for the people of God.
At the very center are questions about kingdom, rule, and the politics
of God which should take us beyond how things seem to be to show us, to teach
us, and remind us of how things really are---always are—and will always be,
until God finally and fully sets on throne of the human affairs of this earth.
WE WANT TO BUILD A “HOUSE FOR GOD”
This passage
starts out with good human intentions. David’s
conscience is bothering him for the right reasons. Now that he has established his kingdom’ in
Jerusalem, David is feeling a little guilty.
He calls in his pastor-prophet counselor in for a heart-to-heart
talk. Something doesn’t feel right, he
confesses to Nathan. Growing up Jewish,
under the high ideals of the Law, meant that people should sacrifice their best
to God first, and then and only then, did they start to use the rest to take
care of themselves. In other words, God
comes first. This was the proper order
of things. This kept life right side
up. This made sure God was “for us” and
“not against us”. Because David fought
the battle, not just for himself, but for the Lord, David was not only, as the
Bible says, a man after God’s own heart, but David was a man who had a heart
for God. He was trying to keep his
priorities right. This, he believed, is
what enabled him to rise to the top and achieve so much. Because he did not forget God, God has not
forsaken him.
Now, David wants
these good intentions to serve God, and to become even greater. He reveals his
troubled heart to Nathan, saying: “The
Lord has given him rest from his enemies all around” (7:1) and “I am
living in a (nice) house of cedar,
but the ark of God (still) stays in
a tent” (7.2). His intentions to
build a kingdom for God have been honorable, decent, and obedient, but he
hasn’t done enough. He believes that if
he has a nice house, God needs an even nicer house.
Doesn’t David’s
dilemma reflect the starting point for all valid, honorable, politics in our
nation today? Like David, people with very
good and honorable intentions want to do the ‘right thing’. We want our nation to be great. We want what our Declaration of Independence declares,
the opportunity for ‘life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness’. We want what
our Pledge of Allegiance pledges as “liberty
and justice for all”. We want what
our constitution intends to establish: “We
the People” want “a more perfect
Union”. We want “to establish Justice”, to “insure domestic Tranquility” (or homeland
security), and to “provide for the common
defense”. We want to “promote the general welfare” of everyone
around us, and we want “to secure the
Blessings of liberty” for both for ourselves, and for our children. These are the kinds of things all honorable,
honest, caring, compassionate, and concerned people want. These are the good intentions of good
politics in this country.
The problem comes
in, when we start to discuss, or argue exactly how to we can best “secure these Blessings of liberty”,
doesn’t it? The devil is in the
details. Do we best secure them with
“liberal democratic politics” or do we secure them with “conservative
republican politics”? Or do we even dare
try to secure them with a new kind of “Independent” style of politics? The question put before us in every election
cycle is which “politic” is best to help us achieve this goal in our own
historical moment. Would Jesus vote
republican, or would Jesus vote democrat?
When entering voting
booths across this nation, some people will say God can only live in one kind
of house. Others will say that God had
better be in both kinds of houses or either of them, and all of us are
sunk—both politically and spiritually.
Remember the incident that happened this summer in the political
conventions? There was a little
controversy going on as one party openly addressed God on its convention floor,
while the other, at least at first, intentionally tried not to invoke God.
In defense of the
convention which intended not to invoke God, some defended the decision by
saying they were intentionally not using “God as a pet”. Using God only for political
advantage, greed and gain could be more dangerous than keeping a neutral face. Remember, Ananias
and Sappharia did get immediately struck down for trying to use God for
personal gain (Acts 5:1ff)? This is a good
reason not to invoke God in our political opinions. But the other party also rightly understood
that if people and politics fail to consult God in shaping our human values and
platforms, especially for the sake of the righteousness, we are in danger of
forgetting and forsaking very faith and values that have gotten us this
far. As Scripture says, when there is no “knowledge of God in the land” (Hos 4.1)
everything morals decline. The people of
a nation can be “destroyed for a lack of
knowledge” of God (Hosea 4.6). Either using God or forgetting God can be
very precarious positions for political discourse.
No matter which
position we take, which party we espouse, the question of God and politics can
become difficult to decipher. It is not
because of who God is that things become muddled and messy, but it because of
who people are and what we might become.
When we begin to think that God only resides in a certain house we have
built we may have very good intentions, but those intentions can get lost in
the realities of life and God.
Respecting God enough not make God a “pet” for political gain can
be respectful position to take. Remembering
to pray for God’s help and to keep God’s truth ever before our hearts and minds is also a good position to take. But even good "positions” can go dreadfully
wrong when we say that God can only live in our own kind of house. Such narrow-mindedness leads to the
very kind of political quagmire and gridlock we are now experiencing in our complicated and convoluted political world.
GOD DOES NOT NEED A HOUSE WE BUILD
This is exactly
why here in this church, especially during a hot, highly debated, political
season, we need to remind ourselves of what God specifically tells David
next. It is more than a little bit
shocking that when David contemplates building a “house for God”, God interrupts him through the prophet Nathan to ask:
“Are you going to build me a house to
live in?” (7:4) “I have not lived in
a house….” (7:6). “I have been moving about in a tent” since
the beginning (7.6b)”. “Did I ever speak a word with any (one)
about a house (7.7)? In every way possible, God is telling David,
thanks, but no thanks; I don’t want to live in your “house”.
What is this all
about? Didn't God command the people
to build an ark and a tabernacle to represent his presence? Hasn't God been moving around in this tent like
tabernacle? This is true, but God is not ready to settle down. It appears that God does not want to be restricted
to any human structure or assembly. God wants to be always beyond us and always
bigger than we can fully understand or comprehend? Since we do know that, I think we all can
understand somewhat, where this is all going.
Isn’t it almost silly to think that God who created both the “heavens and the earth” needs a
particular house to live in? We may need
a particular place to focus our mind on God, but God does not need a particular
house or place to focus on us.
Probably, most of
us can understand this concept of God’s greatness theologically, but can we
dare understand what this means politically?
Can we dare understand this when we walk into that election booth in a
couple of weeks? What does it mean to
say that God is bigger than any of the earthly houses, platforms, positions or
political viewpoints we can build for him, whether they be sacred or secular? What does this mean in the partisan and
divided politics of today’s world?
I started this
message talking about the danger of mixing church and state; politics and
religion. But let me tell you what one
church in Texas told its members a couple of weeks back on October 7th,
that day when many pastors were going to stand up and protest for “freedom of
the pulpit”; the freedom to stand up in their own pulpits and say whatever they
felt God was leading them to say---whether it was to support a certain
candidate or not---they were crying out for freedom. The church was Oak Hills Church in San
Antonio, Texas. It is one of those great
big mega churches, where the Christian author, Max Lacado is pastor, but now
shares the pulpit with a younger, co-pastor named Randy Frazee. It was pastor Frazee who stood up to preach
on this particular Sunday. He said that
he was not going to avoid the “elephant that was in the room.” Both pastors had decided that the coming
election on November 6th, 2012 was too important to avoid speaking
about any longer. They said that this
election is, “a big one” and that “with the state of the economy, the state of
world affairs, with the state of ongoing wars, there just seems to be a lot at
stake right now.” Whether this election
unites or further divides America, things seem to be more “polarized” than ever
before.
So, how did those
pastors tell their congregation to vote?
They did not tell them which of the presidential candidates would make
the better president, nor did they tell them to vote Obama or Romney for
president. What they did tell their
congregations was to “cast their vote for Jesus.” They did not tell them to write Jesus’ name
on the ballot, nor to vote for Jesus as the U.S. president, but they told them
to make Jesus the “president” and Lord of their lives, and then go into those
ballot boxes and vote according to the values and vision of Jesus that they
understood in their own heart.”
(See: www.christianpost.com/
news/texas-pastor-tells-church-to-vote-for-jesus-but-not-as-us-president-79612).
Now, I know this
maybe sounds sillier to some than trying to build a house for God to live
in. How can you go to the polls and vote
for Jesus to be your president when we have too other candidates? I first want to try to answer this in
biblical terms---to address what is exactly going on in this most important
political text of the Bible. When God
tells David that he does not want him to build a house for him, God is not
rejecting David’s desire to build God’s house, but God wants to do something even
greater, bigger, and even more glorious than to live in a certain house or
temple in Jerusalem. God shocks the
socks off of David by saying, “I don’t want you to build a house for
me, but I’m going to build a house for you (v. 11). “When
your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up
you offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body and I will
establish his kingdom (12)…he shall
build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom
forever….(13) “Your house and your kingdom shall be
made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever. (2Sa 7:16 NRS). Of course, when
we read this we immediately think about David’s son, Solomon, who did build the
first temple. But this not about
Solomon, whose kingdom also came and went, but it’s about God’s son--the Son of
David, whose kingdom is still coming. This
text is one of the first hints that through Jesus, God is going to build a house
that only God can build, on built not by law, but built upon unconditional
grace. It is both a “house” and a “kingdom”
that is “made sure” forever” because God stands behind it.
There is a more
here, which we can’t unpack in a single sermon, but I will tell you this much:
Long before the people wanted a King like David, God wanted to be the King of
the people. As 1 Samuel 8 tells us, it
was when the people of God “rejected God” as their king that they wanted to get
involved in the work and ways of dirty, earthly politics. “Give
us a king to govern us”, they cried out to Samuel (1 Sam. 8.6). The people wanted to be like other nations,
but to get this they had to reject, or at least partly reject the LORD from
being their king. They wanted to enjoy the promises of worldly politics, but
they forgot what it would cost. To achieve
political wins in this world, they had to take spiritual loses in the next.
Here is the
danger of building a particular political house and saying God lives it: Part
of what makes politics happen in this world, is the rejection of God. There is just no way around this. “You can’t give yourself God and mammon”,
said Jesus. “You can’t serve two
masters---you will serve one or the other, but you can’t serve both”. When you give yourself completely to a
certain party or platform, it will take away some of your allegiance from
God. I remember how my Dad used to deal
with living in two worlds, both secular and sacred. He used to tell me, when I
asked him which party he belonged to, “I don’t vote the party, but I vote for
the person.” It was his way of
reminding himself that all political systems of this world are limited and
broken. He knew he had to rise above and
live beyond making earthly politics the ultimate truth. But how do we, who still live in an
increasingly politicized and divided world, involve ourselves in one kingdom, without
rejecting the very presence of God in the kingdom that is still coming? How can we vote for Jesus in this upcoming
election?
III. GOD WANTS TO BUILD A HOUSE THROUGH US
When I read this
story of how God decided to build an everlasting kingdom for David, for me the
contrast is clear: David could only build a ‘temporary’ house for God, but if God
built the house, it could be “established”
and “made sure” forever (vs. 13 7
16). This does not mean God is against
David’s idea or his good intentions to build him a house. Neither is God against political parties,
political viewpoints and platforms, just as God isn’t against tabernacles,
temples or churches. But God won’t allow
himself to be “closed in”, “locked up”, or hemmed in certain positions, places
or points of view. Because God is God,
he will not stay in one place, but he is in every place and still very much a
God who is on the move. While God may be
with one party on one issue, he will be with another party on another, or he
will be with both parties when they are in tune with his will and he is with
neither when they go against his holy purpose.
God will be God, even when we end up liars.
For you see, it
is toward his eternal, heavenly kingdom, toward which God is moving. God wants to move us all toward the the
coming Kingdom where God is big enough to be the God of everyone, or he can’t
be the God for anyone; where God is all in all, or it he is not God at
all. Isn’t that the point Abraham
Lincoln made when someone approached him before one of the last major battles
of the Civil War asking Lincoln to come and pray that God would be on the side
of the north so they could win the war. At
this point that Lincoln sounded like a humble, but determined president of all
the people when he answered, “No, let us
not pray that God is on our side, but let us rather pray that we are on God’s
side.” This is also where God wants
to take David’s kingdom. God wants to
start his kingdom in Jerusalem, but he also wants to be King in Judea, in
Samaria and in the “uttermost parts of the earth.” To cover the whole world with God’s justice and
good news means that we must get bigger in our viewpoints, not smaller. When we vote for God’s Kingdom to come a closer,
we must vote for the needs that line up with God’s point of view for all, not
just for one political house.
Recently I
visited the university campus where I graduated years ago. Once it was a small Baptist college with only
a 5 or 6 major buildings standing in a circle complex. How that campus has grown. There are better buildings, remodeled
buildings, many new buildings and most recently, a new student center where I
was seated in preaching conference. As I
look around at the beautiful design of the building and all its amenities, I had
to wonder to myself: Do you think the students
who attend this school with all these wonderful facilities will have a better
education than I had some 30 years ago?
I hope they will, but then it hit me: They won’t have a better education
because of the buildings. Buildings
don’t educate. They can aid in
education, but the education still has to come from dedicated teachers,
professors and from real flesh and blood people and from a desire to learn.
I can say the
same thing about where God is going with David and us. The kingdom God wants to build is not some
general politic or earthly reality, but God wants to bring about a particular kingdom
of redeemed, transformed people, who are so sold out to a peculiar holy God they
are ready to challenge every earthly kingdom, every personal persuasion and
every particular person from the inside out.
We may come with to God with different opinions, parties or approaches,
but in the end, God’s people will want the same thing. We want God, and we know that people need God
more than anything. But to have God, we all
must change how we see and do everything just as radically as David had to do.
In the book, Jesus for President, Shane Claiborne and
Chris Haw write about how God’s kingdom comes into this world in radical, challenging,
life-changing, but also life-saving ways, they many call “the third way”. They speak doing Jesus deeds along with saying
Jesus creeds. Chris tells about leading
a college mission team to Belize in Central America, where his group of
students went to work among the poor. The people there were mostly farmers, who
worked hard, had very little, but with humility and faith were ready to practice
the kingdom as fully revealed in Jesus Christ.
One day, Chris tells about riding a horse that was given to him by the
farmers. The horse was stubborn,
spirited, and very difficult to ride.
Chris asked the farmers why they gave him this horse. Realizing it was on purpose, they all laugh
together as they told Chris their other horse had been stolen. This new horse was young, new and not yet
fully broken.
Then Chris
wondered and asked: “Who was it that stole the horse”? “Well, actually we found the horse,” and we
also discovered who the thieves were, but we then we did the Christian
thing?” What do you mean, you did the
Christian thing? “Oh, don’t you remember”,
they answered, “how David once caught King Saul and could have killed him, but
he let him go. We’ll we found the horse,
realized who the thieves were, but we only cut off the hair from the horse’s
tale and mane to let them know we caught them.
Then, of course, we did the Christian thing again? What do you mean you did the Christians thing
again? You keep telling me, as a
Christian from America, about these Christian things are doing, but we know so little
about them. You mean you still don’t
know? O.K., we’ll tell you. We gave them the horse, just like Jesus said
to give your shirt, your coat, and to walk with them a second mile. We overcame the evil by doing the good. Now we no longer know them as enemies and
thieves, because they have become our friends (Jesus for President, Zondervan
Press, 2008, p. 267).
God help us, in a
nation that claims to still have so many Christians, but knows less and less how
to love a brother or sister, let alone how to make an enemy into a friend. Can we dare even remember, as we vote in this
upcoming election, how to do “the Christian thing?” Amen.
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