2 Samuel 7:1-14
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
I’d like to begin by sharing “A Tale of Two Adirondack Mornings”:
Two weeks ago, I woke up as the morning was breaking before 6am, crept downstairs, started a pot of coffee, and carried my mug out to the boathouse. The water was mirror still, and a band of mist hovered over its surface. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the curl of coffee aroma just a fully mature bald eagle that had been perched in a white pine over my head dropped out of the tree with a ruffle, opened it’s 6’ wingspan, and glided about 15’ feet in front of me across the lake. It was a moment of beauty and grace.
The next morning, I was eager to recreate the experience: I woke up early, crept downstairs, and started a pot of coffee. I hoped that a pair of cries from our 1-year-old was momentary as I started towards the door trying to catch a glimpse of the eagle. Before I got outside, I heard from behind me: “Dadda?” Our three-year-old was awake, and she was staring at me through the railings of the stairwell. Not to be deterred, I scooped her up and carried her out to the boathouse. No eagle, and the overnight rain had soaked the chairs. My bottom got wet, and I spilled my coffee on my pants just as it became clear that our one-year-old was not bluffing inside the house, so I returned to the kitchen to prepare a bottle of milk.
I suspect that all of us can relate to both morning experiences. There are moments in our lives that resonate with beauty and transcendence, when eagles appear and we appreciate a moment of peace. And there are moments in our lives when we are caught up in our commitments and diverted from where we intended to be.
It is clear what kind of morning Jesus was having in our second lesson. Desiring to rest, Jesus and his disciples travelled to a deserted place by boat; however, the crowds followed him. We might imagine what Jesus was thinking as he looked to the shore, hoping to find some respite, only to see another crowd – desperate for hope and healing – waiting for him. I imagine that he might have been thinking something like what I was thinking when I spilled my coffee, soaked my pants, and heard the baby crying. My internal monologue at that moment is not entirely fit for a sermon! I suspect that Jesus’s thinking might have been slightly more righteous than mine; nonetheless, we do know that it was Jesus’s idea to find a deserted place to rest and that his plans were foiled, just like mine had been. What Jesus may have been feeling and thinking is not as clear as how he responded to the situation. Mark tells us, “As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them […] and he began to teach them many things.”
From a Christian perspective, Jesus’s movement towards the crowd of desperate people offers us a profound lesson in God’s nature. It is common for us to think that our “eagle moments” are “God moments” and fail to see that our “spilled-coffee-wet-pants-crying-baby moments” might be equally considered “God moments.” Jesus shows us that God sees us in our mess, and he has compassion on us. He comes to live with us in our “spilled-coffee-wet-pants-crying-baby moments.”
Hartmut Rosa, a German sociologist, wrote a book titled The Uncontrollability of the World.[1] He observes that the predominant project of modern humans is to exert a maximum degree of control on our environment to engineer a context in which health and happiness are most likely to occur. Some examples of our successes in this venture would include:
Extreme cold and heat are uncomfortable, so we control the temperature with central air.
Darkness impedes our ability to function, so we curate light with electricity.
Bacterial infections are devastating, so we conquer them with penicillin.
The tragedy of the modern condition, Rosa observes, is that they very success that have discovered controlling our environment is what most often prevents us from experiencing a life that is defined by God’s grace. Rosa posits that modern humans experience the world as a series of “points of aggression.” Life, from this perspective, is a series of battles, and the world is a constant antagonist that we must conquer and control.
Following this logic, a modern solution to Jesus’s problem might be a super yacht large enough to avoid having to dock. After all, if every conceivable need can be met onboard, then Jesus wouldn’t have to deal with the smelly, needy crowds on shore. And yet, by moving towards the crowd, Jesus is telling us that a meaningful, true life is not defined by avoiding or controlling life’s adversity; rather, a meaningful, true life is achieved by submitting to life’s adversity with compassion. Remember today’s lesson: “[Jesus] saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them.”
Hartmut Rosa posits that our proverbial "yacht owner" may indeed be more likely than Jesus to be healthy and experience things that produce good feelings; however, so long as that person receives life as a series of “points of aggression,” then he will be incapable of experiencing the resonance and grace that make human life most meaningful and beautiful. A life defined by constant, unending conquest is a life that is ultimately defined by fear and bitterness.
Jesus is showing us a different way. Jesus shows us that true life is discovered on shore with the crowd. It should be observed that Jesus would have been pleased with the solitude if it had been available to him; he was looking for solitude, after all. Jesus takes rest, enjoys good things, and hangs out with the resource-rich throughout the Gospels. By choosing to come to shore, Jesus shows us that God is present both in our “eagle moments” and our “spilled-coffee-wet-pants-crying-baby moments."
In our first lesson, we hear King David’s desire to build a temple for God that resembles a King’s palace. David, like us modern human beings, seems to believe that he can curate a holy space for God by throwing resources at it. God’s response to David is haunting. God asks David, “Are you the one to build me a house to live in?” and then God continues, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”
If you know the story, you will know that David’s son, Solomon, does build a magnificent temple in Jerusalem; however, that temple is destroyed by the Babylonians. The temple built by Solomon, not unlike our proverbial yacht owner, provides only an illusion of control. In Jesus, we see God’s Word come to fulfillment. Jesus, not Solomon, is the “offspring of David” referred to in this lesson. Jesus’s body and blood, not the stones and mortar in Jerusalem, is the “temple” in which God’s presence is made real. The “kingdom that will be established” forever is not constructed with human resources; rather, the kingdom of God is located on shore with the crowds, right where we find the person of Jesus. "I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me." This is God's promise to David, and it points us to Jesus.
Two weeks ago, I genuinely wanted to enjoy a moment of peace and quiet with a hot cup of coffee. I genuinely wanted to see if that eagle might be perched along the shoreline again. And yet, that is not where Jesus called me. Sometimes (most of the time, for me) it takes more than two weeks to realize how God might be working through difficulty, but, in this instance, I can see with clarity that there is a whole lot more life in the vision of my daughter calling for me between the railings of the stairway than there would have been if the eagle had been just where I wanted it to be. Instead of bitterness for what was a genuine inconvenience, I am left with gratitude for the life I have been given, eagle or no eagle. When we submit to life’s adversity, when we follow Jesus into the crowd with compassion, when we embrace our “spilled-coffee-wet-pants-crying-baby moments,” we discover that our lives are both uncontrollable and beautiful.
“Are you the one to build me a house to live in?” God asks us. This morning, we are invited to hold the blueprints that we have drafted for our lives with a very loose grip, and we are invited to follow Jesus towards the shore, not because that is what we "want," but because that is where we will find God. God’s kingdom is not some place “out there,” at the end of a road paved by our ambition; rather God’s kingdom is right here, with us: spilled coffee, wet pants, and all. God doesn’t need us to build a life for ourselves because he has already given us our lives in Christ.
Amen.
[1] Rosa, Hartmut. The Uncontrollability of the World. Polity Books: 2020.
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