August 3, 2008 Sermon

David Takes Jerusalem
II Samuel 5:1-10

During Senator Barak Obama’s international tour, he visited highly symbolic places. Senator Obama’s people made the most of the opportunity it gave them to “brand” him. They posted real-time video on the Internet as he met with American military commanders, with heads of state, and as he gave his speech (itself a postmodern exercise in symbolism without coherence) at the Victory Tower in Berlin. No symbolic moment packed more punch, however, than his visit to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

The Wailing Wall is all that’s left of the second Jewish Temple. The prophets predicted that the Temple must be rebuilt on that exact spot either before the Messiah finally comes (for the Jews still await their Messiah), or as part of his coming. But looming immediately over the Wall is the Dome of the Rock mosque, built on the spot Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven to meet Allah. And it all lies within the city limits of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem. Holy City to the three great monotheistic world religions. The city that welcomed Jesus of Nazareth like a king and then executed him a scant five days later. Capital of the only unified Jewish monarchy in history. Flashpoint in the grinding battle between the Palestinians and Jews. For a man such as Barak Obama, who seeks to gain credibility as a potential world leader, a man looking for symbolic moments and places to add gravity to his image, Jerusalem had to appear on his itinerary. Jerusalem has to appear on the world’s itinerary. We cannot escape it. But when David took Jerusalem, it was just another overgrown small town.

Jerusalem played only a minor role in the early history of the region. The name does not appear until Joshua, the sixth book of the Bible. There, a small-time local “king” (more of a warlord) conspired with four other warlords to ambush the Israelites as they fought to clean out the Promised Land. Some seven hundred years passed between Joshua and David. From time to time Jerusalem pops up in the biblical narrative of those centuries. But it never seems all that important. Why did David suddenly decide to capture it and make it his capital? He did it because he needed a new symbol.

David’s triumphant capture of Jerusalem comes at the climax of a complex, tragic story, the story of I Samuel. In summary, the Lord commanded the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul to become the first king of Israel. Saul proved unworthy of the job. The Lord commanded Samuel to anoint David to become king—but left Saul on the throne. Saul could not tolerate this, and tried to kill his rival. David survived. The Philistines defeated Saul’s army. He committed suicide rather than permitting them to capture and torture him.

During these sermons based on the books of Samuel, I have called David the second king of Israel. I have been wrong. Upon Saul’s death one of his sons, Ishbosheth was propped up on the throne of Israel. David became king of Judah, the southern half of the Jewish nation. For two years these men ruled from the cities of Shechem and Hebron, both in the present-day West Bank. Their armies battled; assassinations occurred. David eventually gained the upper hand. Ishbosheth was killed. All the Israelites came together and swore their fealty to David. In a classic move meant to unify his people, he found a common enemy: the Jebusites, a Canaanite tribe who lived between Shechem and Hebron. The Jebusites lived, as a matter of fact, at Jerusalem.

Jerusalem gave David a city with no Israelite history, no skeletons in the Jewish closet. It was neither north nor south, Israel nor Judah, Saul nor David. Plus, Jerusalem gave David a spot he could defend, with its two high hills and excellent water supply. So David declared Jerusalem his capital. This might seem like an ending. It was in fact just one more episode in the ancient death match between the Jews and the Palestinians.

The Palestinians claim to have owned Jerusalem before the Jews became a people. They claim descent from the Canaanite tribes that the Bible admits were there before recorded time. The Palestinians do have a better historical claim on Jerusalem than the Jews. David lived some 2,700 years ago. The Palestinians trace Jerusalem’s Canaanite identity back another 500-plus years before then. The inexorable, fierce, enraged conflict between them and the Jews over Jerusalem therefore has roots over 3,000 years old.

That conflict forced Senator Obama to schedule his visit to the Wailing Wall for the wee hours of the morning. The security threats he would have faced later in the day were too great. That conflict recently moved two Palestinian men a few yards from the Wall to convert bulldozers into Killing-of-Jews machines. That conflict plays a profound role in U.S. policy. It helped motivate Osama bin Laden to plot the 9/11 attacks. Given the ancient, intractable, fierce nature of this conflict, what are we Christians in Northern Michigan supposed to do about it? What lesson can this passage possibly teach us here and now?

The fight over Jerusalem shows us that symbols matter. “Whoever wins the symbols, wins,” according to a marketing firm once hired to consult with churches in southern Indiana. Last August Johnson and Johnson, the drug company, sued the American Red Cross over the use of the red cross symbol. (The red cross also appears on J&J packaging.) “For a multibillion dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute ... simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene,” said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president. But J&J was willing to look mean if it meant raking in more dough through the exclusive use of its brand, its symbol.

Let us take a lesson from the conflict over Jerusalem. In their determination to defeat each other, the Jews and Palestinians have won few friends outside the boundaries of their tribes. They have used the symbol of their holy city more as a weapon than as a call to holiness. They have abused their symbol’s connection to the transcendent God, giver of peace, twisting it instead into a grim symbol of death. The world has grown weary, cynical and even angry with them for their sins.

In the same way, the world out there behind our property lines has grown weary, cynical and even angry over our use of the greatest symbol given us, the cross. We hate to admit it, but our brand suffers from an image problem. We see our churches feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, discipling children, telling the world the Good News. Our culture out there believes it sees us hating gays and lesbians, threatening people with hell unless they say they believe in Jesus, and refusing to behave as they think we demand they behave.

I have become convinced this symbol problem facing American Christianity is—if anything—even worse than the bleak picture I just painted. I have also become convinced that there is only one path to restoring our symbol: being as Christlike as we can. By Christlike, I mean unconditionally loving and dedicated to serving the deepest physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people. From birth we have all been hit by endless branding. We have developed keen hypocrisy detectors. When Miller claims that drinking their light beer will make us skinny, we know better. When Prudential claims that using their financial services will give us inner peace, we know better. We come to doubt every claim. Why would we think that people would trust the Christian brand any more? Pastors, members and churches have misused it far too often.

Let the people in this church become people of the cross. Let us love like Jesus loved. Let us give like Jesus gave. He said nobody could follow him unless they took up their crosses. He did not mean, “Wield their crosses like swords”, but “Carry the burden of the cross.” The cross stands for victory, but victory through sacrificial love. If ever we forget that, we depart from the way of Christ, and we endanger our ability to point others to him. Live the brand. Love like Jesus loved. Give like Jesus gave. Let the cross speak—speak to you, and speak to the world out there that desperately needs its true power.