Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Date: 19th July 2009

Preacher: Revd. Carol Wardman

The Travelling People of God

It is not ourselves that we proclaim, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and we are your servants, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

David was nicely settled in his Jerusalem palace; the Ark of God had been restored to Israel's capital; the nation was at peace; and now David – shepherd-boy hero turned soldier turned outlaw turned Head of State – decided that the kingly thing to do was to start investing in the social infrastructure. Israel was still a relatively new country, and despite some reservations expressed by the prophets, they now had an established monarchy, and David decided that it was time they had some impressive public buildings to make a statement about the importance of their religion as well. So with the best of intentions, David – never one to let the grass grow under his feet once he'd thought of something – summoned the prophet Nathan to run the idea past him.

“Here I am, living in a fine house of cedar,” he says, gesturing at the wood-panelling, luxurious fixtures and fittings and state-of-the-art architecture all around him, “But the Ark of God is still living in a tent!” Nathan thinks the proposal to build an impressive Temple for God is a sound one, and encourages David to go away and put some flesh on the bones of his idea. “Do whatever you have in mind,” he says; “The Lord is with you!” So at the end of the meeting, the ever-enthusiastic David trots happily back to his office to start making phone-calls and looking up lists of suitable architects on the internet.

But something at the back of Nathan's mind must have been bothering him, because in the middle of the night he suddenly starts awake with 'the word of God' ringing in his ears. “Why does David want to build me a house?” asks God. “I've never lived in a house before,“ says God, sounding ever such a little bit plaintive, I think. “I like my tent,” says God. “I've travelled in my tent alongside the Israelites ever since I brought them out of Egypt. I've never complained. I never asked the Judges – who were ordinary people I appointed to lk after you Israelites, remember; they weren't kings - and I never demanded that they build me a fine house of cedar.” Then God gets properly into his stride, and starts reminding David of his humble origins, and how despite that, God has brought him to a high position, and God will make his name famous and his descendants successful and his nation great; and in the end God promises David that one day there will be a fine temple, but it will probably be built during the reign of David's as-yet-unconceived son and heir (whom we all know will be Solomon).

So David rather reluctantly goes along with this somewhat longer-term plan, and gets back to doing what he's best at: hammering the Philistines and chatting up women.

Fast-forward about 900 yrs to our Gospel reading, where J and his disciples are desperately trying to snatch and bit of R&R. J had recently sent the disciples out on some work experience, or ministry practice, with instructions to heal the sick, cast out devils, and generally announce the Kingdom of God; and now they've come back to tell him how they've got on. Well, 1 effect of all this activity is that their fame is spreading; and when they try to get away by boat across the Sea of Galilee to somewhere quiet where they can rest for a while, many people spot them, guess where they're going, and by the time they arrive at what they fondly imagine wd be a remote beauty-spot known only to themselves, the crowds have dashed round on land via the short-cuts and got there ahead of them. We can imagine the sinking hearts of the disciples as they arrive at their favourite hillside picnic-site only to see it filling up with folk before their very eyes: people wandering in from all points of the compass, scrambling down the screes, emerging from narrow rocky passes and picking their way across the streams, whole families settling down happily on the grass, waiting expectantly for some new teaching or healing from J. And despite his concern for his tired disciples' welfare, and undoubted desire to have some time to himself as well, J's hrt goes out to the crowds, and 'he began to teach them many things.'

Our lectionary (the extract from the Gospel that I read just now) omits the next 2 episodes that occur with the crowds and the various attempts to evade them; but what actually follows the disciples' dismay at arriving in a lonely place to find that 5 thousand people have got there ahead of them are a couple of miracles: 1st the famous Feeding of the 5000; and then an attempt to slip away after dark by boat, which results in J's walking on the water. But the lectionary sticks with the theme of J and co trying to get some peace and quiet, and we catch up with them again at Gennesaret, further along the lakeside. Where, once again, their attempts at peace and solitude are thwarted, as J is recognised as soon as he sets foot on shore, and people don't just follow him by themselves this time, but deliberately go and bring out the sick and the infirm – on stretchers, if necessary - and present them to him for healing. In the midst of the busy-ness of life, J and his disciples are not given much time to catch their breath and withdraw from the crowds.

Now at this point, it struck me that there are 2 ways we could go with this sermon. I coud either talk about the importance of rest and relaxation, and of making time to be alone with God: whether on a holiday, on a retreat, or simply in times of personal prayer and quietness through the day or the workg wk. I coud mention the importance of Sunday worship as enabling us to make such a place in our busy lives, and maybe talk about the value of having a whole-community approach to times of peace and quiet, worship and reflection – like the tradition of the Jewish sabbath. And linking those ideas with David's plans to build the Temple alongside his palace, I could tell you that in 1 bk I've read about the Jewish tradition, the sabbath is described as 'a palace [or temple] in time.'¹

And I don't – I really don't – want to under-play the importance of all that. But it strikes me also that there is another way to go with the readings we have this morning, and the ideas we can draw out of them. And that is not to run away from the busy-ness of the crowds, and the insatiable demands of our working lives or our lives in the community, but to find God within them; and perhaps even more challengingly, to find God in the changes and confusions of everyday life too, and not confine God to an unchanging, fenced-off place in our hearts or in our prayer-life, which we retreat to when things get on top of us. A fine, splendid place, where we contain all that we think is best, and screen it off from the hurly-burly of the world; but a danger then of confining God to a sort of parallel existence, dwelling in a splendid palace, but not being seen in the humble market-place or jostled by the real concerns of our lives and those of our communities.

David wanted to build God a splendid house; and God's response was to say that he was quite happy in a tent. A tent enabled him to be completely with his people. A tent enabled him to move with his people. A tent was flexible and expandable and easily repaired, and absolutely not fixed or set in stone. A tent is made to be moved and changed and adapted; and God was more than happy to be seen to be in that kind of accommodation. Pinning himself down to walls and foundations and somewhere permanent to live with access controlled by other people and not in the hurly-burly of life wasn't God's scene at all.

And similarly, J didn't avoid the crowds. Much to his disciples' dismay, he didn't tell them to pick up their rucksacks and find somewhere else to take it easy, when he saw the crowds arriving at the grassy place in the hills; and later on, when they were getting hungry, he didn't even send the crowds away to find food for themselves – but provided a miracle of provisions to sustain them right there and then. On arrival at Gennesaret to be faced with yet another rag-tag-and-bobtail welcome party, J didn't put back to sea and sail away, but got on with doing the wrk that was put in front of him.

In our lovely new hymnbook, there is a modern hymn (no 451) which encapsulates what I'm trying to say. (Please feel free to turn to it now if you like – I'll keep talking.) Instead of the example of David offering to build a house for a reluctant God, it uses the example of God calling Moses to lead the people out of Israel, and not grow despondent when the journey seems to be taking a long time. The hymn is all abt how God delights in leading his people from 1 challenge to another, never letting them grow complacent, never letting them settle too long in 1 place, or 1 mindset, or 1 way of imagining God. And the chorus of the song reminds us that 'we're a travelling, wandering race called the People of God'. No wonder God didn't want to leave his tent, and be confined behind the walls of a fixed building: that didn't offer the flexibility and responsiveness of a God who is committed to being with his people in every situation they find themselves in – even when they feel worn out and frazzled by all the demands of the world.

“Don't get too set in your ways”

The Lord said.

“Each step is only a phase”

The Lord said.

“I'll go before you and I shall be a sign

To guide my travelling, wandering race.

You're the people of God.”

“No matter what you may do”

The Lord said

“I will be faithful and true”

The Lord said

“My love will strengthen you as you go along.

For you're my my travelling, wandering race.

You're the people of God.”

So every day, we're on our way,

For we're a travelling, wandering race called the people of God.²

Amen.