Sermons

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Sanctuaries and Sinners
November 26, 2000
Pastor Dan Baumgartner     
1 Samuel 21

This morning we pick back up with the story of David for one week, and we’ll return to him after the first of the year for several more months. I want to just remind you of what we have seen in David’s story to this point:

1. The shepherd boy David, a most unlikely candidate, is anointed as King of Israel by the prophet Samuel under God’s direction. This creates an uncomfortable situation, since there already is a king, Saul. Saul, however, has proven himself an unworthy king. 
2. David wins the favor of Saul by single-handedly destroying the Philistine champion Goliath. 
3. David becomes firm friends with Saul’s son, Jonathan. As Saul’s jealousy of David increases, Jonathan eventually warns David that his father’s anger is extreme, and tells David he must flee. And so he does.

Our scripture today is from I Samuel 21:1-9. I want to read you the first part of this story, and then tell you how it ends.

I talked this week to a friend of mine in Arizona who is a pastor. It turns out he just finished a series on David. I related to him that I was really wrestling with this week’s chapters, and he said “Which ones?” I told him, chapters 21 & 22.

 “Oh,” he said, and there was a long pause. “I just skipped those!” 

Maybe that’s a good idea. These chapters might raise more questions than they provide answers for. And I must confess, there is some awkwardness in these for a person like me. I like things sort of neat and finished…and this isn’t a neat and finished story. I like things that have cause and effect relationships…you act this way, and this happens. That’s not the case here. And I like passages that easily give 2 or 3 points to talk about. That’s not these chapters. But I believe in reading the whole of scripture, and I believe God has something for us here this morning.

I said this is not a nice and neat story... and it isn’t, mainly because David is not a nice and neat person. He is complicated and contradictory. He is indeed God’s hand-picked king. But he is definitely a work-in-process.  And always will be. And he is NOT a model of moral behavior for us. This story shows us a less attractive side of David which will become fairly familiar to us as we continue on.

The picture we see today is of David fleeing in fear from Saul, storming into the sanctuary where the priest Ahimelech presides. Ahimelech instantly senses that there is something amiss, and asks him, “Why are you alone? What’s up?” And David, model of integrity…makes something up. He tells the priest NOT that Saul is after him…but that he is on a secret mission FOR Saul. He then rather brazenly demands food from the priest. 

Ahimelech sort of sheepishly gives him what he is actually not entitled to. The consecrated Bread, the Bread of the presence was made fresh every week to remind the Israelites of God’s faithfulness in everyday provision. The old bread is replaced, and only the priests are to eat it. Ahimelech, however, bends the rules. 

But David presses further. He needs a weapon. “The secret mission for Saul is so urgent, I didn’t have time to grab my weapons.” Hmm. And so Ahimelech offers him the sword of Goliath, which had been hanging in the sanctuary as a reminder of God’s faithfulness in defeating the undefeatable foe. With no ceremony or regret, David simply says, “Give it to me.” The opportunistic Doeg is hiding in the wings. Eventually, as I described, David’s actions will cost Ahimelech and many, many others their lives.

What are we to make of this story? Is David just stretching the truth a little bit? Or is he perhaps, as one author suggests, merely not telling Ahimelech the truth in an attempt to protect him? No. I’m afraid not.  David is lying through his teeth.  It’s not the cutesy David story we’re going to tell the children, is it? David is a work-in-progress, and he’s on the run. And he ran right into a sanctuary.

You ran into a sanctuary this morning, in this room. You woke up, showered, combed your hair, put on clean clothes, and came to the church sanctuary. David looks a little different. Afraid, wild-eyed, on the run, disheveled and desperate. Yet…I’m not sure we don’t all come for the same reason, regardless of what we look like. David has just started living what Eugene Peterson calls “a God-attentive” life. He’s enjoyed tremendous success in a short time by listening to God’s voice. But now he’s run into a tough spot, a very tough spot. And he’s scrambling, looking for anything that will get him out of a mess. He enters the sanctuary of God, HIS God…with very mixed motives. ( ) Why did you come in here today?

And what is a sanctuary, anyway? Webster’s definitions wouldn’t surprise you.

What would you think? That a sanctuary a place for paying attention to God? A place where God’s truth is preserved and honored? A place that reminds us that God is active and powerful? All of these are right…but even more, it seems to me that a sanctuary, a spiritual sanctuary, is a place where God is in control…or at least, a place where we realize that we can’t control God.

It’s God’s sanctuary that David runs to, and it seems that God isn’t too concerned with the character of the people who come in. Look at this crew:

• Ahimelech, the priest of God afraid to stand up to the rising star David.
• Doeg, who apparently is hanging out only for his own purposes, looking for a way to further his own career.
• David, who comes desperately lying and deceiving.
• Us. We come with some mixture of motives as well, I suspect.

Why are you here? Habit? A felt obligation? Some sense of desperation?  The idea that God might actually be here? If a sanctuary is a place of refuge, somewhere that reminds you that God is in control…it seems to me that there are many more than just church buildings: 

• I love to hike. This fall, I stood on top of Red Mountain near Snoqualmie Pass. It was a beautiful sunny day, you could see all the peaks of the mountains, the cliffs dropping away to sheer nothingness.  Surely a sanctuary, a place to be reminded that God is powerful and alive.
• I have a sanctuary in a little cemetery in Idaho, next to my grandpa’s grave. I can still remember exactly what it was like to be there the morning of his burial, and how the soft breeze blew across the wheat fields, and how, in a very surprising way, I felt very close to God. It was a place for paying attention to God.
• Our group from Bethany yesterday at the Dominican Reflection Center. Quiet.
• Sanctuaries are not just places…but people, too, I think. You have people in your life who cause you to pay more attention to what God is doing, I imagine. I have a number of folks that I have spent time with, and I came away loving God more than I had before.  People who are safe, who remind you that God is alive, and at work, and in love with you…those people are sanctuaries.
• The community of faith is a sanctuary in the best of circumstances, isn’t it? 

Michael Lindvall tells a marvelous story about a little church in the Midwest. It seems that a girl named Tina, who had once been in the church youth group, turned 18, and discovered that she was pregnant with no father in sight. 

Tina’s mother, Mildred, asked the pastor about having the baby baptized. The church board was a little uncomfortable, feeling that this rather poor family was barely involved in the community. It seems that nobody really knew them. And there were questions as to whether Tina would live up to raising the baby as a Christian. But the baptism was scheduled. 

Now, this church had a tradition at baptisms of the pastor taking the child, and then asking the question, “Who stands with this child?” Then the parents, and normally the whole extended family would stand. In this case, though, only Tina’s mom, Mildred, stood up. But something happened. Around the church, slowly, unsure of themselves, people began to stand. First an elder, then Tina’s sixth grade teacher, then a new young couple…until finally EVERYONE stood with these people who were in such a tough situation.  It strikes me that the community of faith stands as a sanctuary, where God is honored and pointed to and people are wrapped in safety.

The sanctuary that David went into was most likely a tent, a tabernacle there at Nob. Whatever his motives were, whatever he thought he needed, he left as a different person than he entered. David, lying and demanding, entered the sanctuary hungry and received bread to eat. He went in defenseless, and came out with a mighty sword. He went in confused, and came out with two things that reminded him of God: the bread, reminding him that God would provide. And the sword of Goliath, reminding him that God was in control, and able to defeat any enemy. 

And it’s interesting for us, of course, years and years later, that both bread and sword are used in the New Testament to represent God’s word. Jesus, the Living Word of God, the Bread of Life (John 6 ). And the word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), that penetrates and, we are told, judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. It is, after all, God’s business to change hearts, to convict and to heal. We come into the sanctuary, perhaps thinking we need many different things. Yet in the sanctuary, we receive from God what we really need. We receive the things that God gives, we hear and sense His presence, which is what our hearts truly long for.

No one walks into a sanctuary and leaves the same way. Not a real sanctuary. We will be either worse, or better. We will encounter God, and turn and run away or harden our hearts and be even worse off. Or we will be touched by God and be renewed and filled and changed. So often before our services I pray for us…Lord, let us be different people when we leave.

David walked into the sanctuary with an enemy on his mind, King Saul. And his time there did not take away his enemy. In fact, he apparently picked up another one, Doeg. But David had at least resolved one thing.  He would resist the temptation to speed up God’s process.  After all, he was anointed, Saul was on his way out…let’s make it happen now! Conspire, plot and strategize. But David didn’t have to do that. He continued to wait, living on the run, but confident that God was working out His plans. Not even Saul’s insane desire to stamp out David would thwart God’s plans.

A thousand years later, another evil king went searching for a distant ancestor of David’s, a baby named Jesus. Herod’s plans and attempts meant nothing more than Saul’s. In fact, the ugly violence of Herod inaugurated the most glorious of stories, for it was in Jesus that God showed most plainly that no plotting of men, no evil and sin would overcome His purposes. God was out to save the world.

And so we come into God’s sanctuary, and we encounter God, the God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. We ready ourselves for Advent, where we too must wait to see when and how God will come. But He will come. We come into the sanctuary, and we are touched by God, and we leave as different people because of it. Amen.