For many celebrities, one of the first things they do when they become famous is to buy a new house for their parents.[1] It’s a way to say “thank you” for the support they’ve received over the years, especially if they struggled for a while before making it big. Some, like Chris Hemsworth and Margot Robbie, pay off the mortgage for the house that their parents already own, while others, like Pete Davidson and Justin Bieber, gift their parents an entirely new home.
Others, however, don’t just buy houses for their parents; they buy mansions. Celebrities like Beyonce, Rihanna, and Leonardo DiCaprio each spent multiple millions of dollars to buy new living spaces for their parents. Obviously, these celebs can afford such lavish gifts, and there’s no reason to begrudge them their success, but it certainly puts their prosperity on obvious display, doesn’t it? And regardless of their actual intentions, it makes it absolutely clear to everyone who the family breadwinner is.
In a way, the same thing is happening in today’s scripture reading. King David has finally made it big. After years and years of war to defend his rightful place as Israel’s king, there’s finally peace throughout the kingdom. He even has the time and resources to build himself a house fit for a king! But that’s not enough for David; he wants to do more. He wants to build God a house, and not just any house, but one just as magnificent as his. Yet unlike most celebrities’ parents, God objects to David’s plan.
Now, God could have just told David, “No,” and maintained a sense of divine mystique – the Lord works in mysterious ways, after all. Or God could have given a simple explanation: “I don’t need a temple. Focus your energy elsewhere.” But instead, God spends 13 verses responding to David’s proposal in detail. There’s nothing outwardly objectionable to David’s suggestion; gifts have always been a way to show respect and admiration for someone. Given that, I suspect that the reason God gives such a protracted negative response is because God can see behind the idea itself to David’s inward motives – and they aren’t quite as pure as David is trying to pretend that they are.
God’s tone here is – there’s just no other word for it – salty. God is annoyed. The CEB translates God’s first words to David as a statement, but the Hebrew actually has God posing a rhetorical question, in which the second person pronoun is included for emphasis: “Are YOU the one to build a house for ME?” God is astounded at David’s chutzpah. “I haven’t ever had a house. I haven’t ever asked for a house. I don’t NEED a house. But YOU think highly enough of yourself that you believe YOU should build me one?”
God continues: “Listen, you little punk. You haven’t gotten where you are by pulling on your own bootstraps. You were nothing more than a lowly shepherd – the least of all your brothers – and *I* made you into a king. I’ve been looking out for you from day one, and I’m going to keep doing it until your name is great throughout the whole world. But don’t start thinking that I’m doing all this just for you. No, this is for ALL of my people! I love you the same as I love everyone else. You’re just the means through which I plan to bring peace and prosperity to ALL. As the prophet and rapper Ice Cube said, ‘you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.’”
Now, listen, I know I’m putting a lot of words into God’s mouth here (and for the record, I do know that Ice Cube isn’t a prophet; traditionally speaking, anyway). But I don’t think it’s an entirely unreasonable reading of the situation. Remember that David was first anointed by Samuel when he was 14 or 15 years old, at which point God began to protect David and give him success in all of his endeavors. And what happens when someone has everything handed to them from a young age? That’s right; they become spoiled! This phenomenon – the psychological and social effects of personal prosperity – has been known for over 100 years as “affluenza” (a portmanteau of “affluence” and “influenza”).[2]
David was about 30 years old at the time of this reading, but he’d never really had to fend for himself, ever. So it’s not unreasonable to assume that David would have had a bad case of affluenza – one of literally biblical proportions. If we imagine David as having the inflated ego, sense of entitlement, and obliviousness to consequences that are the hallmarks of affluenza (instead of the pedestal that we usually put him on) then it’s no wonder God reacts so strongly to David’s desire to build a house for the Lord. On the surface, it SOUNDS like a harmless way for him to show respect and honor…but maybe God recognizes that more of his ego at play than we – or even he! – realizes.
It’s reasonable to want to provide for your mom or dad when you become successful, but it’s also a pretty ostentatious display of wealth: not just anyone can buy a whole house without any sort of financial help. It’s also a pretty significant role reversal – the child is caring for the parent, instead of the other way around. It’s one thing for a human child to do this for a human parent (after all, there are plenty of situations in which the child is better equipped to care for the parent than vice versa) but can you IMAGINE the arrogance it would take to try and provide for GOD in this way? Honestly, it’s kind of surprising that David isn’t rejected out of hand, like Saul had been. After all, just four chapters later, the story of David and Bathsheba demonstrates that a tiger stricken by affluenza doesn’t change his self-centered stripes.
If there’s any hope for an affluenza-stricken youth to become a functional adult, they need to be held accountable for their misconceptions – which is exactly what God is doing in this passage. We’ve already heard verses 4 through the first part of verse 11 demonstrate exactly how mistaken David’s thinking is. The second half of verse 11 through verse 16, then, prescribes the consequences of his hubris. But it’s difficult to fully appreciate this last section without a better understanding of the original Hebrew text.
Up until now, I’ve been using the word “house” to describe things that the CEB translates as “palace” or “temple”. Although these seem like very different concepts to our English-speaking minds, the word used in the Hebrew is the same: בית (“BUY-ith”). It’s certainly accurate to translate this word as palace, temple, or even (as in verse 11) dynasty, but the word’s literal meaning in each of these instances is “house”. I’ve intentionally used THIS translation contrary to the CEB, and here’s why:
When verse 11 is translated as, “the Lord will make a dynasty for you,” it sounds like a reward, doesn’t it? But once you realize that the Hebrew word used here is the exact same word that David uses to describe what he wants to build for God, both the meaning and tone of the sentence shifts. God starts out by saying, “Are YOU the one to build a house for ME?” and now God is answering that question: “No, I will build YOU a house!” God is reasserting who’s in charge here by flipping David’s expectation on its head (a theme which, of course, gets repeated again and again throughout scripture). What’s more, God drives the point home by rubbing a little bit of salt into David’s wounded ego. Even though God doesn’t have any need for a temple-slash-house, God decides that David’s SON will build one after all – yet another role reversal.
All of God’s words in this passage are chosen carefully to remind David that, as important a role as he has to play, he is not the be all and end all of God’s people. He’s not more important than his subjects, nor is he ultimately the one in charge – God is. David very much needs to hear this message in order to gain some perspective about himself. This new perspective didn’t ultimately “fix” him, in that it didn’t stop him from making more poor choices over the course of his reign, but it helped him combat his affluenza with a more realistic view of his place in God’s plan.
The reason that David had to be brought down a few pegs was because he’d gotten into the habit of thinking too highly of himself. But sometimes, it’s not our ego that’s too large – it’s the expectations that we hold for ourselves that become unwieldy. And in both cases, the message we need to hear is exactly the same as the one given to David: “You are NOT the one.” Whether it sounds like a slap in the face or an enormous relief depends entirely on your current attitude.
On occasion, we, like David, may need to be held accountable for our misconceptions about ourselves: “You are NOT the one.” You are NOT the one who will convince that person online to see reason. You are NOT the one whose opinions will single-handedly “save” the Church. You are NOT the one who will revitalize that ministry that’s been gone for years. You are NOT the one whose sermons will go viral and make you famous (yeah, okay, that last one was specifically for me). You are NOT God. Get over yourself. Let it go.
But in other circumstances, this exact same message can be heard as good news – it doesn’t JUST have to be heard as a reprimand: it’s NOT your job to change everyone’s mind. It’s NOT your responsibility to “fix” the Church by yourself. It’s NOT within your power to recreate the Church of the 1950s. It’s NOT necessary for your sermons to break the internet. You aren’t God, and that’s okay. So let it go.
God doesn’t want us to think too highly OR expect too much from ourselves. At the end of the day, David’s perspective about himself wasn’t so much WRONG as it was out of balance. There’s plenty of work to be done, but we can’t – and shouldn’t – try to go it alone. Most of us won’t ever achieve the level of affluenza that David had to contend with, even with all of the blessings we’ve been given, but we will ALL need the same reminder David did every once in a while, whether it’s to take us down a few pegs or to lift us up out of disappointment with ourselves: “You are NOT the one.” You shouldn’t be the one. You don’t need to be the one. You can neither enable nor ruin God’s plan all by yourself. Regardless of whether that disappoints or comforts you, it’s the God’s honest truth – and thanks be to God for that. Amen.
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[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/michelelbird/celebs-who-brought-their-parents-homes, https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrities-bought-homes-parents-houses-2020-6.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza.
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