David Anointed King - 2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5; Psalm 150

 10/22/2023 “David Anointed King” 2 Samuel 5:1-5; 6:1-5; Psalm 150

What is something that you had to wait a long time for? I’m not talking about the waiting in line type of long. But the years type of long? What is something that you deeply desired, maybe even something that you knew that you were called to, but didn’t materialize within your time frame?

Now that you have that type of waiting in mind, I want to ask you, how do you keep hope in the midst of the waiting? How are you patient? How do you praise God in the midst of the waiting?

In today’s scripture passage we find David being anointed King. Only this isn’t the first time that David was anointed. When David was still a young boy, tending sheep for his father Jesse, the prophet Samuel came to his father’s household and told Jesse that one of his sons was to be the ruler of Israel. The King. 

Only there was a problem. There already was a king named Saul. Samuel wasn’t even sure that he wanted to anoint another king at first - telling God that surely Saul would kill him if he ever heard. But God assured Samuel that he was called to anoint David as king and he was faithful to do so. 

Fast forward. David is now the king of Judah. And now the rest of Israel comes to him, asking David to be their king as well. David was powerful at this point, but his rule was contained to the Southern kingdom. Now people are looking to have David as their king. Maybe they recognize that God is doing something through him. Maybe they are just trying to make a political play. Maybe they are craving security. But whatever leads them to ask David to be their King - he agrees.

And David is anointed for the third time as King. 

The third time, friends! It takes three anointing before David becomes the king that God intended him to be. And more importantly than the actual number of anointing themselves, it takes all of the years of time in between each of those anointing for God’s promises to be fulfilled to the fullest extent.

The problem is that you and I - well many of us aren’t patient people. We would start to wonder if we misheard God or we would try to make things happen in our own way in our own timing. 

But not David. David rejoices. David’s first response is to praise God. David gathers together 30,000 men and has them march the ark of the covenant back into the city. The covenant symbolized the presence of God. So what is David saying by taking such an action - you and you alone are going to rule, O God.

And the people are so excited that they are dancing before the Lord has hard has they can, playing instruments and singing songs. 

Friends, when is the last time that we said with our lips and our actions that you, O God, are the one who is going to rule our lives. Not ourselves. Not others. But you?

Now am I saying that our action to seal that type of commitment needs to look like David’s with singing and dancing and shouts of praise? No. But when have we been that committed to letting God be in control, O people of God? When have we been that joyful in the Spirit?

The Psalmist understood that type of joy. In Psalm 150 we find this song and prayer of unbound praise, telling the people to praise God in every place and with all that they have at their disposal. Singing the praises of God.

The Psalmist who penned 150 knew something about pure praise of God. I say pure, because he had no other intention but to lift up God’s name. Think back over the last several weeks as we have unpacked the Psalms together. Even the Psalms of praise often talked about God defeating enemies, bringing vindication, or offering judgment. But here we find a Psalm that praises God for who he is, not what he has done.

David wasn’t praising God because he was now fully king. He was praising God for who God is - knowing that such utter dependance upon God would be central to his kingship!

Praise him because of his mighty deeds and because he is greater than anyone own anything else. Remember, friends, that this is the final of 150 hymns or Psalms that became the songs of ancient Israel. These are the prayers that Jesus would have prayed in the temple and in his home. Because it is the last one it is calling all who declare it to remember God’s mighty deeds testified throughout the rest of the Psalms and scripture. How he brought his people out of captivity and into the promise land. How he sent the prophets to offer guidance. How he made a way through the flames and fire. It’s not just about praising God for what God has done in your life, though that alone is great, but for the magnitude of what God has done throughout scripture. 

God is worthy of incomparable praise because God has shown us love and mercy through incomparable things. Even on your worst of worst days brothers and sisters, you are still loved as a child of God and can offer up a song of praise. 

Every day, I pray through some of the Psalms. Sometimes with other people. Sometimes on my own. But this is one of those Psalms that comes up every single day. Recently, I was talking with another one of these Psalm-prayers and she noted that we lose something if we don’t return to the prayers of Jesus. But we also lose something if we can’t figure out how to speak their truth in language that connects with hearts and lives today.

For the Israelites, this was the language that they were familiar with. The ancient language that defined them and their relationship with a holy God. But what does that look like for us today? What is our language of faith and our daily experience?

Now let me be very clear here - I want you to think about this because it speaks to how you connect with God and possibly God is laying it on your heart in order to invite someone else in to praise through this language. But we do not use our langue of praise to control other people. Rather I want you to think about what language and behavior that we have around praising God that may stand as a testimony to other people.

Take a moment and close your eyes. If I say the word “praise” and “worship” what comes to your mind? What image do you have of praising God? For some it may be shouting for joy or lifting holy hands. Singing praise songs or the hymns of the faith. 

And those are all valid and true, my friends.

Friends, how we praise God isn’t about what other people will think about our praise, its simply about responding to God’s grace and goodness in our lives in whatever way the Spirit moves us. And worship, true worship that comes from the heart, friends that is pleasing to God.

So how is God inviting you to worship through this Psalm and the example of David? And what do you need to let go of our set aside in order to be attentive to praising God alone? Let us be the people of praise, my friends. Amen. 

“Ruth” Ruth 1: 1-17 and 4: 13-17

  One question that I am known for asking people is what their favorite scripture is. Time and again, I have found one of the most common answers to be the Book of Job. In Job, people find comfort in the midst of suffering. They find someone who they can identify with and someone who was able to lay his heart before God. 

Another person in scripture we find in that same vein is Naomi in the book of Ruth. Naomi. Namoi’s life, like so many of ours is ones of ups and down. As we begin the book of Ruth, we find her married to Elimelech and having two sons. We could probably go as far as to say that this scripture starts with a happy family.

Only then circumstances become difficult. A famine starts to sweep through the land. And Bethlehem, the family home, is no longer the bread basket, but is not producing. So the family makes the hard decision to leave behind their home, family, and friends, and set out to a place where they can provide for one another. 

They went out of their own land and became foreigners in the land of Moab. A place where folks weren’t like them, but a place where they were willing to take the risk of settling down for the sake of their family. 

We don’t know how long the family was settled in Moab before things started to turn, but we do know that after a period of time Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi with her two sons. Those men grew up and took Moabite wives. But then both Mahlon and Chilion die as well. 

Now the entire shape of the family has changed. No longer are they one happy family - Naomi and Elimelech and their two sons. Now all that remains is three childless widows. This is Naomi’s Job-like experience. She is in a land that is not her own. Without her family and friends. And now her family unit looks completely different because of death. 

So Naomi does the only thing that she can think to do - head back home. Hope against hope that someone will step up and help provide for her as a widow because she doesn’t have anything that would have been her own in this day and time. 

But Naomi somewhere along the road gets this realization that this is not what she wants for her two daughter-in-laws. They don’t have any children. Their is a slim possibility that they could go back to Moab and start again. Find someone who will marry them and settle down and start a family with them. And she didn’t want to be the reason that such a future would be pulled away from them. So she tries to send them back. Back to hope and possibility, so maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t end up in a future that looks as bleak as Naomi’s.

Eventually one of the daughter-in-laws, Orpah, was willing to turn back. To listen to Naomi’s advice. To go back in hope. But not Ruth. Ruth boldly declares that she was going to stick by Naomi through thick and thin, going as far as to make this vow that is often read at weddings. 

When we read this text, we often rightly focus on Ruth, whose name is that of the book of the Bible which contains this account. But today, I want to change our focus. I want to sit with the story of Naomi. Naomi who found her world entirely changed. Namoi who was caught in the midst of grief. 

I wonder, friends, if you know someone like Naomi in your life? Or maybe there have been seasons when you have felt like Naomi yourself - caught in the midst of suffering and pain. Those Job-like moments that rock our entire world. 

Naomi in this chapter is in deep grief and as such, she blames God. Notice that the narrator, the one telling us this story, is not blaming God. But Naomi is. How do you react when someone is hurting and blames God for what they have experienced?

I think many of us rush in and try to defend God. Try to explain to the Naomi’s in our lives why they are wrong. 

But I got to tell you friends, grief is not the time to try to explain deep theological truths to people. Because in grief all you can do is feel. And survive. 

Maybe the time will come when we can speak of our faith in the God of love and the God who doesn’t cause the pain we are going through, but instead redeems it. But when someone is deeply hurting that isn’t the place I would recommend starting. 

Instead we see in Ruth a completely different way. 

Ruth doesn’t try to argue with Naomi or talk her out of what she is feeling. She doesn’t try to assert her own beliefs. Instead in Ruth we find someone who is willing to be with another in the midst of their deep suffering. 

First, Ruth and Orpah were both willing to cry with Naomi. As Namoi is walking along the road to Bethlehem, stewing in her mind about how she doesn’t want her daughters-in-law to be locked into her faith, tears fell upon the road. When Naomi told Orpah and Ruth to go back, the women wept together, even as Naomi shared her concerns and gentle words. They wept when Orpah listened and Ruth did not. There were so many tears in this story. 

Friends, are we willing to be the people who cry with one another? All too often, I find that in our eagerness to make people feel better, we want to rush past this crucial step. We offer platitudes and words that we mean to be kind, telling people not to cry. But what would it look like, Church, if we were the people who were willing to cry with one another. To hold each other’s burdens in loving-kindness. 

Second, Ruth promised to be with Naomi. To be with her in the midst of it all. This a different type of presence then telling people to reach out to us if they need anything. This is sticking with some one through it all. This is the best version of Job’s friends, who got down in the dirt with them, before they started to blame him for his circumstances. This is fidelity, faithfulness, loving-kindness, with flesh on it. 

Church, this is not being with someone for a week or two. This is being with them for a life-time. 

Naomi believed that her God was big enough to hold her anger and grief and Ruth was willing to make space for Naomi to grieve, and not be alone in the grief, no matter what it may take. 

How about us, Church? How do we create spaces for one another to grieve? How can we cry with one another? Make space to hold each other’s weightiness when life comes at us, hard? Where are we today and where is God calling us to be?

May we be the space where Naomis can come and be held. Amen. 

"Hear O Israel” Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9

 When you think back to learning rules in your life, how did that happen? Or if you have children in your life, how did you teach them rules? 

I don’t remember the details of the story, but I’ve heard that it goes something like this. My brothers were born when I wasn’t yet three years old. I wanted to help my mom when they came home. I had watched her heat their bottles on the stove, so one day I took one of my baby doll’s bottles and tried to put it on the stove as well. Thankfully, I didn’t burn myself, but my parents discovered that I needed to learn a new lesson - not to touch the hot stove - even when I wanted to help. 

Moses knows that the Promise Land is on the horizon. He also knows that he will not be entering with the people of God. So he gathers them together to teach them again the commandments, the laws, that are to guide them in this new place. 

For us all of these generations later, his first set of teachings sound a whole lot like the ten commandments - which they should, because they are. But we need to remember why Moses needs to share the commandments again. This is not the same generation that received the commandments the first time. 

The folks that he is speaking to now represent the second generation of Israelites. They are no longer those who originally left Egypt that night so long ago. No, this is the next generation of Israelites - those born in the wilderness. They may have heard of the Ten Commandments, but now they are theirs to live into. Their’s to embody. So Moses repeats them, one by one. 

The word “Torah” means instructions. And the instructions that Moses is giving to the people is how to remain free. God in his graciousness has recused them from the hand of the Egyptians. Has brought them into this land that he has promised to them. 

The law, these Ten Commandments, were also given to the Children of God, out of graciousness. It was a way to live differently in order to be reminded of God and God’s liberating work in their lives and to be a reminder that their lives should look differently because of God. 

That isn’t often how we think of rules, is it? As a reminder of God’s liberating work in our lives and that which leads us to live differently because of what God has done for us. And maybe that’s because a lot of our rules have very little to do with God. But these Ten Commandments, reiterated on the threshold of the Promise Land serve that purpose. To point people to God!

One of the ways that the people of God’s lives looked differently from those around them was the Sabbath. A literal stopping of work. For everyone associated with the Israelites. Even down to the animals. Why? Because they were used to working all the time under the Egyptians. Worked to the bone. So God was giving them rest as a reminder of what God had provided and as an act of trust - that on this day of rest, this day of stopping, God will take care of the people. Entirely. 

But while this was Moses repeating the commandments for a second time, that didn’t mean that it was once and done. No. God wanted the people to pass them on. From generation to generation. 

To emphasize this - Moses gives what is called the shema - which means hear. “Hear, O Israel”. God is god alone. Love God with all you have and all you are. Keep these words before you by wiring them in your hearts, writing them on your doors, and share them with your children. 

A few months ago, my dad recommended a book to me entitled Seven Things John Wesley Expected Us to Do for Kids. This short book made clear the ways that we can support the children in our lives in their faith journeys. I would call this the Wesleyan way of writing the Word upon our heats and passing it down from generation to generation. I want to lift up just a few for us this morning. 

The first is to teach children intentionally. Our Jewish brothers and sisters understood this. Kids were with them during the day. They had key parts in holy gatherings. They watched the adults in their lives live out they faith. They asked questions and their questions were answered in intentional ways. 

Church, how are we teaching the children in our lives today? Are we simply expecting others to do the teaching? Or are we being intentional about how we are reaching out to the children God has placed in our lives to teach them why faith truly matters?

The second is to know them personally. If we don’t know the children in our lives, we won’t know how to connect with them. Communicate with them. One of the things that I love about the shema is that it calls each person to a personal relationship with God. God knows us personally and reaches out to us in a way that connects to our hearts. Should we not do the same with the children in our lives?

One of the vows we take in ordination is to visit from house to house. We aren’t called to do this simply because it is a nice thing to do or because people would appreciate our company - though both may be true. We are called to visit from house to house in order to get to know people, so we can connect with them. That is also true of our children, church. 

The last of the practices I want to lift up this day is to pray for our children intensely. Charles Wesley penned the following as an introduction to a children’s hymnal - “A lover of your soul has here drawn up a few prayers, in order to assist you in that great duty. Be sure that you do not omit, at least morning and evening, to represent yourself upon your knees before God.”

When we pray for our children intensely we show them how to talk with God who loves them dearly. We show that they matter to us. And that we care for them. 

What I appreciate about the intergenerational nature of what Moses is calling the people to is that it was’t relegated just to private families or parents. Instead, the faith community cared for passing on the faith and being intentional about their relationship to God. The words of the shema are repeated every week. They were not neglected. They were passed on and written upon the heart. 

How about us, Church? What is written on our hearts and how are we passing it on? Amen.