Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
July 5, 2009
2 Samuel 5:1-10

The Heart of a Nation

National holidays are difficult times for preachers: Do we emphasize patriotism, laud our history, canonize the founders of the United States? Or do we stay with the Biblical text – and forget it’s the fourth of July? How do we handle the tug between cross and flag, symbols of God and country? Are we confused about what is worthy of our worship? Is the concept of God bigger than our concept of nation? Broader than our national identity?

Ministers and congregations are often at odds about flags in the sanctuary. There’s a story about a church in the south that had the Confederate flag, as well as the American flag, handing in its worship space. It was the subject of much controversy, but, finally, the congregation allowed the flag to be moved to the rear of the room. A few years later the minister who had negotiated that resolution happened to visit – and much to his dismay, the Confederate flag was back up front. “I thought we had resolved this years ago,” he said, confused. “We did,” a trustee told him, “but we moved it back up front last year to give the new minister something to fight with us about while he was here.”

What is the heart of a nation? The Biblical text for this morning is helpful. David the shepherd boy, who grew up to defeat the Philistine Goliath, is the leader of the southern kingdom, Judah. The northern kingdom, Israel, once ruled by Saul, is in ruins, and their leaders have come to David to ask him to rule over them as well. David accepts the challenge, and we read of his incredible journey in just a few verses – from boy to man, from the unpromising eighth son of humble beginnings to the throne, from minor character to religious icon.

With the rise of David, the occupation “shepherd” takes on a new meaning as the model for the responsibility of leadership, and the relationship of ruler and people acquires covenantal expectations. “It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel,” . . . says God, and the text continues, “ . . . and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.”

With the anointing of David, the religious vision for the shape of power is governed by shepherding and covenant-making, images that have governed our imagination for generations. This is why bishops carry a shepherd’s crook, and we talk about servant leadership in which leaders and followers are linked in a mutual community of needs and responsibilities.

In the second half of the text, the lesson takes us further into understanding the importance of “place” in our religious vision. David’s headquarters had been in Judah, but now that he is king over Israel as well, he needs a more central location, neutral territory. Politically wise, David chooses the Jebusite town of
Jerusalem and conquers it easily, making it his own city, the city of David, “the stronghold of Zion.”

Clearly, Jerusalem is more in the religious imagination than a place: Our Jewish friends vow “next year in Jerusalem” at the Passover Seder and we Christian’s cling to the image “I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . .” (Rev. 21:2) in our New Testament Book of Revelation. And when we say, “Washington,” we mean more than our nation’s geographical capitol, and when we say “church,” we mean more than our building.

The passage ends with the verse, “And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.” The current issue of Homiletics magazine points to the book, Washington’s God by Michael and Jana Novak, who note that from an early age, Washington believed:

“. . . in the idea that all people were constantly under
God’s watchful, benevolent eye. This divine attention – at time harsh, probing, testing and sometimes benevolent – he was taught to call “Providence . . .

“That hand [of Providence] became almost physically visible in his life when, at age 22, he escaped from a very hot battle near what is today Pittsburgh. He had four bullet holes in his coat, two horses were shot out from under him and men were falling to his right and left; yet he had emerged intact, without a scratch. Even into old age, George Washington recalled those events and thanked Providence. Similar events befell him all through the War of Independence, much to the wonderment, fear and delight of his fiercely devoted soldiers. Washington’s early trust in a kind Providence was never to fail him, no matter how tested he was by hardship.”1

What is the heart of a nation? Is it “In God we trust?” So we say on our coins and paper money! Patriotism is a good thing, but the Biblical vision is that God trumps country. We even say so in our pledge of allegiance, “one nation under God,” and we take it even further: “One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”
The clue to the kind of leadership God is looking for in a nation is almost lost in the English translation from the Hebrew: David was not to be “king,” melek, as totalitarian ruler, but “king,” nagid, as in shepherd, with a responsibility to care for and protect his people as a shepherd would his flock. The heart of our nation is our faith that God is with us, that God is with us as individuals and as a nation, holding us accountable for how we treat “the least of these” and how we build a covenant of mutuality, balancing our community’s needs and its responsibilities.

Yesterday, we celebrated our nation’s Independence Day. I am as proud of this country as you are, and I love the fireworks and parades and picnics. But I am aware that, when we display the flag in our worship space, we also need to declare our dependence on the God who has given us an ancient vision of community based on liberty and justice for all.

In this spirit, I wish us all a Happy Fourth of July!

1. Homiletics, July / August 2009, p.13.