Andrew Boyle

2 Samuel 7. 1-14a       Ephesians 2. 11-22       Mark 6. 30-34, 53-56

Are you the one to build me a house to live in?  It’s a pretty common human practice over millennia – building a house for God to live in.

We get very self-important when we do so. Usually it’s more about us than God.

It’s a funny little interaction between King David and Nathan the prophet and God in the reading from the Book of Samuel. Nathan seems

to feel that he can give agreement to David’s idea that David  provide a permanent abode for God; it’s just God doesn’t seem to concur.

David has just established himself as king, reuniting the twelve tribes of Israel, and bringing together the lands of Judah in the south and

Israel in the north. And he has established the centre of his power on a small group of hills in the south; the hills still known today as Jerusalem,

previously controlled by the Jebusites, and which he names the City of David; the city of our God.

The reading begins with a quiet sense of achievement: Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest

from all his enemies around him. David has all things under his control: he has his armies around him; the land, we are told, is at peace – albeit

a peace achieved by military conquest, and; he has brought all of his wives to Jerusalem, and lots of them there are, but he also brings along an

even greater number of concubines for his stable for regular servicing. He is  a powerful man.

So why not bring God under his sway also. So the political leader goes to the religious leader and seeks divine mandate for what he is about to do

– build a house for God. From the entering into the Promised Land of the slaves from Egypt until this point in time, some 250-300 years,

God was understood to be present to his people in the tent of the tabernacle; circulating around the countryside like some itinerant grandfather

visiting one branch of the family after another – not having any need to settle at any place in particular. This arrangement has gone on well for some

centuries. It’s what is different between the god of Israel and Israel’s neighbours; for them their Gods were always worshipped at some monumental

site in or close to the capital of their empires. It would seem that David thought it was time that Israel became like her neigbours and found a suitable

temple reflecting a sense that God was on the side of this successful warrior. But God has other ideas and so Nathan had to return to David telling him

– in the case of building a house for God that this would not be necessary. God would be no captive God.

I have recently watched a new DVD series of programs along with some ministerial colleagues which comes out of the Living the Questions stable;

the series is called First Light. It’s an exploration of the context in which Jesus lived in Palestine. The presenters ask the question: would we talk

about Nelson Mandela without talking about the context of Apartheid and South Africa? Would we talk about Martin Luther King apart from the

racial-segregation and oppression of blacks in the USA in the period leading up to the 1960s. No! So, why they ask, do we talk about Jesus apart

from the social, and political and economic circumstances in which he lived? In the past decades the picture of what these social, political and economic

circumstances were has become much clearer. The broad picture is that Palestine was a country under occupation by the Empire of the time: Rome.

Empires do pretty much the same thing whatever time in history it is: forcibly subjugate people; occupy their land; put in dummy rulers; imprison or

execute the intelligentsia; take the best of the agriculture; oppress the religious life or enlist it in the causes of the imperial ideology; manipulate

commodity prices; and rape the women, murder the young men or forcibly enlist them in the military program of the Empire. It’s a pretty standard

formula: Rome did it; Babylon did it; Greece did it; Britain did it; the USA is doing it, although that seems to be on the wane, and; China seems to be

shaping itself up for it.

The thrust of this DVD series is that the presenters place the teaching, and sayings and ministry of Jesus into the context of the Roman imperial program.

So when the followers of Jesus proclaim that Jesus is Lord it becomes apparent that they are actually saying: Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. Good reason

for the empire to execute such people.

The challenge put by the presenters of the series is that after portraying the behavior of the Roman empire and how this forms the backdrop for the

gospels they point out that the USA is the contemporary empire and that the viewers – a mostly American church market – need to reflect on the role

of the church within the context of being part of the current empire. It’s a sobering comparison, raising questions about how then is the American church

hand in glove with the current  imperial project; where is the challenge of the gospel compromised when the church tries to curry favour with the ones

with the guns; how then can we see where the teachings of Jesus challenge us in the context of this imperial project.

Last year we got together and had some fun at the Empire Night. Now it was a great bit of silliness but I fund it a bit of a shock. You see Empire Day

was phased out a very short time after I started school. It must have been because the poms stopped buying our butter. What shocked me was the way

in which so many of you – a bit older than me - knew all those empire songs: Land of Hope and Glory; all the war time songs; all those pack up you

troubles sort of songs to keep the troops spirits up as we fought a war to see who’d control the globe. I could see that this cultural diet was something

which you were raised on but which I was not. There felt like a bit of chasm between us – but also I got a picture into the world in which you were formed.

After looking at this First Light series I got to wondering about empire; as I said the series addresses an American church market which is firmly

ensconced in the current world empire. What I realised after reflecting on the Empire night and the DVD series is that Australia is a country which to a

great extent hangs off the tail end of the British Empire – a faded empire. And this post-imperial context is the context of the Australian church. I realised

all of a sudden that we are the fading church of a faded empire. Like the current American empire where religion is a very civic affair so it was for many

churches in Australia as we were part of the British empire. I realised that this has something to do with the crisis that we are in the church – and has

quite a lot to do with the bewilderment and the sometimes paralyzing sense of grief over what we have lost that many still suffer from in the church. Why

can’t we go back to the good old days? Let’s not change too much in case there’s a chance that we might be able to do so.

As we contemplate a different future for the Uniting Church in Manningham the temptation to not change anything is great. No question there is something

rich and good that is shared here at Templestowe. But it will fade. The challenge is: can we move to some different manifestation of church while

preserving what has been so life-sustaining for many. We do have a right to still be able to continue to share what has been so rich but we also

have the responsibility to bequeath something which has the potential for new life in a very different climate. Under empire everyone falls into line in

pretty much more or less military precision. The church we were born into was a church where everyone pretty much fell into line too. In a fragmenting

or fragmented empire there are no rules anymore and it’s neither clear nor easy imagining a new future and then incarnating it. It is the cultural context

that we live in – there are no rules anymore. I suppose one of the challenges for the church is that we feel like it’s our fault; it’s actually not. Every part

of our society is in flux; it’s just difficult to work out what to do next; and to then find some energy for it. If anything is our fault maybe it is that we fell

into line so readily with the imperial prject.

Paul is putting an argument to the church in Ephesus about what a church united in Christ looks like. There has clearly been animosity between the Jews

and the non-Jews in the church community. There have been dividing walls erected between opposing parties. But Paul insists that Christ ahs broken

down those dividing walls.

Part of the rhetoric of empire is a rhetoric of boundaries; dividing walls; loyalties. In our own time we have heard the, until recently, most powerful man

in the world say: You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror. The church is very often a project about boundaries – preoccupied with

personal salvation; about whether someone is in or out of the kingdom; we’ve projected onto God, like king David projected onto God, our desire to

be sure that we had God on our side of the dividing wall; however that might be defined.

The challenge of the good news is that Christ has broken down the dividing walls and calls us, if we want to follow, to embrace the good news and

affirm that dividing walls have no place in our church communities. It’s a pretty normal human tendency to demonize the other; to build a dividing wall

and place ourselves on the side of the good and the condemned over the wall.

One of the repeated characteristics of this God whom we seek is one who will not be pinned down or locked up. The story of this God is of one who

calls us out of the familiar, the conventional, the complacent, the secure into ways which give life, create something new. David is reminded of this in the

word: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went,

We are called to embrace the future boldly, yet lightly, trusting in the presence of God whith us and in us – confident in the affirmation of the church

– we are the body of Christ – his spirit is with us.

Andrew Boyle