A God Who Lives in Tents
Text: 2 Samuel 7:1-17
It was when I lived in Jordan as a teenager (see image above) that I was first introduced to communities who were nomadic. These were folks who follow their herds of sheep or goats from place to place in the vast deserts and wadis in the south and east of the country. These days, actually the Bedouin live a kind of hybrid life-style with small settled villages but following the animals (and also the tourists) seasonally. Traditionally these folks used camels or donkeys to haul things from place to place; now they have pickup trucks and other modern conveniences.
At least when I was in Jordan there was a sort of ambivalence about the Bedouin. While on the one hand Jordanians recognize that they are central to their identity, they’re also seen as backward, ignorant, uncultured. Around the world, settlement is synonymous with civilization. Romany people in Europe face the same discrimination.
In North America, indigenous people whose lives followed bison or who moved seasonally to harvest rice or maple sugar, who made homes from birch bark or animal hides saw their nomadic way of life become smaller and smaller as European colonizers claimed swaths of land for settlement. I recommend Louise Erdrich’s book series The Birchbark House that chronicles this shift over the course of a couple of generations of one Anishnabe family.
King David has made the shift from a pastoral life in his youth – following his herds – to living not just in a house but in a palace. He is extremely house proud. And he seems to have also had this mental shift: the people of Israel are becoming civilized. They are no longer a loose affiliation of tribes, led by judges and with no central leadership. They are a unified kingdom with David as their king. David figures that since he likes living in a palace, God too must want to settle down and be civilized.
God too must want a house. David suggests as much to his prophet Nathan and Nathan gives him the stamp of approval: Seems alright to me. Go for it!
But oops! Nathan and David forgot to ask God about this big move. Turns out God likes to be on the move. God is mobile. God cannot and will not be contained. God seems almost indignant that David should suggest such a thing: “I haven’t lived in a temple from the day I brought Israel out of Egypt until now. Instead, I have been traveling around in a tent.” (Gen. 7:6)
Think about the stories you hear now about who lives in tents. About the reasons that people live in tents and not in houses. A caption under a photo about tent-dwelling migrants in New York reads:
Young men from Venezuela, who are living in a tent, sit with their luggage after reaching their time limits at city-run shelters for migrants and their families on August 12, 2024, in New York City. Dozens of people are estimated to be living along the fringes of the city’s mass shelter on the island, which houses thousands of adult migrants. In an effort to try and drive down the number of migrants in city shelters, Mayor Eric Adams is setting a strict 30-day rule for single men at the facilities. These men, many from Latin America and Africa, are forced to cook over open fires, bathe, and retrieve water from the nearby East River. (NewsNationNow.com)
There are similar stories from here in the Seattle area. The encampment of migrants at Riverton Park United Methodist in Tukwila – those people moving from place to place looking for shelter and services. Or the battle in Burien over whether unhoused people can camp within city limits. People in tents are there because they are desperate. Often they have lost almost everything.
Here is a story from this week:
At least four people have been killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli air attack on a hospital complex in central Gaza where displaced Palestinians sought shelter from Israel’s assault on the besieged territory.
The attack in the early hours of Monday struck the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital complex in Deir el-Balah and sent flames sweeping through a packed tent camp.
Videos shared on social media showed rescuers scrambling to save people as they struggled to contain the fire. (Al Jazeera)
That is the kind of story that fueled the frustration and anger that carried a number of us into Adam Smith’s office this week. Asking him to do something to use his considerable influence as the chair of the Armed Services Committee to cut off arms aid and sales to Israel.
The anger and grief that I feel and that we channeled into that meeting is also accompanied with the certainty that God was present in those burning tent. That a God who lives in a tent is there with those who are pushed from place to place. With those who are swept from one encampment to the next. With those who have been rent-evicted and are living in church parking lots like the one outside.
Our congregation – a renter ourselves – we know more than many that God isn’t contained in a building. But David didn’t know that. God needed to offer a reminder. After God refused David’s offer for a temple, God went on to say, actually I’m going to build you something instead.
This whole section is one big play on the word house. Any time you see/hear the words palace or temple or dynasty, all of those are the same Hebrew word beyit, house. So David lives in a cedar house. He want’s to build God a house. But God will instead build him into a house and his son (we know that will be Solomon) will build a house where God will dwell.
We do know that Solomon will build God a temple. And the temple will become a center for worship for generations. But because beyit has so many facets of meaning. And because we know how moveable God is, it can also mean that with Solomon and as the generations progress, God will dwell in Solomon. Will dwell with the family of David. Will dwell in and with people who worship God.
We know that this building that we are worshiping in doesn’t contain God. We trust that as we go from here God will go with us. We trust that God was with David in the pasture and in the palace. That God is with Gazans and Venezuelans forced from their homes. God is with Tent City and the people camped under I-5. God is in and with people where they are. May we know it to be so. Amen.
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