2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Luke 1:26-38

Where does God dwell? Does it seem like a trick question? You’ve got a hint built in this morning, since it’s Christmas Eve, and all the classic carols are floating around in your head. The name Immanuel itself means “God with us.” We know God came to dwell, to live, with us, it’s the whole “reason for the season”! But our Scripture lessons this morning wink at us, elbow us, invite us to ponder what it means for God to dwell with us in a different way. Like all Scripture, these passages reveal something to us about who God is and how he chooses to be with us. 

In the Old Testament lesson, David wants to build a temple for God, since God had no dwelling place in the time of David. As the passage from 2nd Samuel tells us this morning, God was living in a tent. And then when we get to the Gospel lesson, we see this striking interaction between Mary and the archangel Gabriel, as  he proclaims to the first human that the time for God to dwell with humanity, truly be one with us, had arrived. 

So they’re both about where God lives, where God chooses to settle his presence. That’s important stuff. But I wonder too about the interaction between God and humanity, or in these cases God and each individual, when it comes down to his choosing where to dwell, where to live.

I see David trying to repay God, to respond to God’s grace and goodness by evening the score, offering to God a great gift – a place to dwell – a grand palace on earth – and it might be a symbol of his gratitude, but it also might be a way to relieve the tension of inequity in the relationship between them. A way for David to have some power, to bring his own strengths to bear to not feel so vulnerable and so indebted to God. 

We know that God graciously receives gifts and thanksgivings, indeed, he does not want sacrifice or to take he-goats out of our pens as the psalms say, but to give our glory and thanksgiving to the Most High God.

Let’s look a bit closer at what God sees in the heart of David, revealed in the lesson we read this morning.  I think what we’ll find is that God doesn’t see sincerity of spirit but instead in this case, God finds David is trying to even the score. It’s just a hunch, but the responses God gives aren’t the ones I’d expect if it was a freely given gift of gratitude and thanksgiving.  It seems like David is grasping for something, as if he wants to make things more equal again between himself and God.

“Are you the one to build me a house”? God says “Did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel saying ‘why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Thus, remind my servant David, “I took you from the pasture. I have cut off your enemies. I will make you a great name. I will appoint a place for my people. I will give you rest. I will make you a house.” God is declaring that he is the actor. The one who does things, builds, things, decides things. There isn’t a parity in this relationship, there never ever will be. There is no delusion that humanity has anything to offer God, not really. It is all out of God’s grace and goodness. Do not be misled, David, you do not hold the keys of this covenant. This is not really a two-sided covenant. I, God, walked through the sacrifices for BOTH SIDES of the covenant with your forefather Abraham. I am the one in charge and don’t forget it. 

So there’s this outpouring of power, this reorientation – and it’s not the only one that happens with David, but this is the one about God’s dwelling and presence with humanity. We see this theme over and over throughout the story of David. It is the burden and fault and sin and problem of humanity to take power and twist it into something that we can use to try to control and manipulate God. 

“Let me build you a place. Let me tell you where to be and let me choose what your house will look like, let me take care of you.” David says.

God reorients David’s desire to place God in a temple box, to determine where God will dwell and where his spirit will reside, and then, paired with that reading, we hear in our Gospel lesson from Luke where it is that God decides to reside, where it is that God chooses to dwell when he comes to be in the midst of his people.

He chooses a young woman, an illiterate, though clearly faithful, girl on the cusp of womanhood. He chooses a country girl, no one accomplished or well-heeled or elegantly outfitted. The message, brothers and sisters, is that God looks at the heart, God knows what your heart is and what my heart is – indeed, to him all hearts are open, all desires known and from him – we pray with trembling – no secrets are hid. 

When God comes to dwell among his creation, he does not choose a palace of stone or a grand building of sumptuous decoration, he does not require elaborate sacrifices or lengthy and learned prayers. He chooses sincerity. He lifts up the humble and lowly. He exalts the poor and hungry and sick and suffering. He comforts those who are afflicted. Mary herself tells us this in her Magnificat, a prayer put on the lips of our blessed virgin, spoken in the tradition of prophetic songs of old. 

How easy it could have been for Mary to exalt herself. How reasonably we can imagine that she could have taken the reins and created a whole movement around herself. Can you imagine how David would have responded to Gabriel’s news? We are all so talented at manipulating power to fit our needs and desires. We can take news and information and permission and we can form it up to become very cushy for ourselves indeed.

But the very point, of course, brothers and sisters, is that Mary doesn’t do this. And that’s why God chose her. He knew her heart before he sent Gabriel to give her this news, and God chose not a building in which to dwell, but in our very hearts. He makes room for himself in each of our lives, and then it is a cooperative adventure, of our cleaning out in companionship with him, making room in our hearts as the christmas carol says, following, we pray, in the example of the blessed virgin Mary, that our hearts would prepare him room. 

God chooses us first, God chooses where to dwell, God places himself where he wants to be. We cannot hope to stand against his plans, or to strong arm him in to whatever machinations we may devise, there is absolutely no outsmarting God. But we also know that God has chosen us and wishes so desperately to be the inhabitant of our hearts, the desire of our days and nights, the consuming fire that lights our lives. 

We are called today as Gabriel brings the good news of great joy for all people, to make room in our hearts for God’s dwelling, to allow our lives to be upset even as much as a country girl from Bethlehem does, to surrender our grasping for control and power and plans, and instead, to rest in the goodness and provision of our Lord who comes to be with us for his love. Amen.