2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Samuel will be featured next summer in Proper Time. The two books mark a change in the Bible that probably reflects actual change in the culture. Maybe they went from a more nomadic people to settled, or maybe they went from being a client-state of Egypt to independence. They chronicled that change in these very cryptic scriptures that have no archaeological evidence, so we don't really know what happened. With King David, we have one or two fragments, but connecting them to these stories is sketchy. In the stories, we have some battles, some victories that involve brutal slaying, and even some losses. Then we have debates over who should be king and should there even be a king.

"God stays in a tent" indicates a god that moves with the people, not one that has idols or is housed in a permanent temple. It is a god that moves with the community, that doesn't need a king or clergy to connect you to it. That debate still goes on to this day with people saying those mega-churches aren't the real Christians, while the ones doing house churches are called un-affiliated or non-denominational. The discussion going on in this section also reminds me of how the new United States offered George Washington a kingship. Luckily he refused and went back to farming. But the debate over how powerful the President should be continues.

God chimes in on the debate. He says he never asked for a house of cedar. But what he does do here is anoint David and make a covenant with him. This will stick for the rest of the Bible and into Christianity. Two of the four gospels make it a point to connect the lineage of Jesus back to here. The lamentations to come will be about the failure of this covenant. From here, we get the idea of the Messiah.

David sets the tradition of a warrior-politician who gets elevated by God. Prophets and teachers later try to interpret the law and gain power and influence by having their ideas or prophecies prove to be the right ones. There were also rumblings of a more cosmic figure. Jesus brings many of those cosmic elements with him, along with some of the earlier traditions. Revelations tacks on the idea of a destroyer. What has really stuck is that last word in this passage, "forever".

Luke 1:26-38

Believing in a virgin birth is a line that most people don't cross these days. But many will go to church on Christmas and enjoy the story just the same. I guess it's something they just don't think about. Anyway, this is not a place for debate or philosophical arguments about how we know what is true.

I would rather just enjoy it as the pivotal scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas where the stage spotlight hits Linus and he explains the "true meaning of Christmas". It's not so much that it IS about Jesus being born as it is NOT about commercialization, about getting the school play just right, or about your dog winning the lighting contest. It's about hope and possibility and community.

The passage itself is pure theology. It draws from the David story from this week's Old Testament reading, it has a regular person meeting an angel, the angel talks about how everything is possible, and the woman accepts her role as servant. None of this means anything or has any evidence or reason except for reasons and evidence found within the other stories of this culture, i.e. in the Bible.

It's not terribly controversial to say that this story was written for Romans after the Passion narrative was already well known. It added a miracle and some justification to who Jesus was and threw in some angels because they liked those in their stories. It was not written to us or to impress us or with any knowledge of us. As the genie who is freed from his bottle at the end of Disney's Aladdin says, "I'm history, no, I'm mythology."

Romans 16:25-27

In the previous lectionary year, in other words this summer, Romans was covered thoroughly. We will get just a few snippets of it here and there for the next couple years, like this doxology that appears at the very end of that book. Romans is not a discussion of some specific situation like he does in some of his other letters. It is his magnum opus of Christ's plan for the world. This is his send off.