Last Sunday, when Rick and I were away on account of my study leave, we worshiped at Lake Grove Presbyterian. They too had a guest preacher, the organizing pastor for a new church being founded in Sherwood. Starting a new church is ambitious and exciting, and it was a privilege for us to listen as this pastor shared the risky call to spread the gospel. Lake Grove is one of the churches sponsoring Sherwood Presbyterian, and Lake Grove took the extraordinary risk of putting in each bulletin a pledge sheet for worshipers to indicate their support of the new church. A person could pledge such things as praying for the new church, stuffing mailers, going door-to-door on behalf of the new church, naming contacts, serving on committees, worshiping on loan for a year at the new church. Incredible! But I thought about Springwater. I wondered, "If we didn't already exist, if we didn't have our wonderful history behind us, would we start a new church here?"

And if we did, what would we want it to be like?

I'll tell you why that question came to mind. I've been seeing articles comparing the relative ease of starting new churches versus that of revitalizing churches. A church in need of revitalizing might be experiencing such things as falling worship attendance, more members dying or moving away than joining, or even a crumbling building. These are often older churches which subtly send the message "we like you if you look like us." Churches that faithfully keep their traditions to the point that new things are too risky to try. There are more gray hairs than wigglers on any Sunday. Rick's presbytery committee is charged with weighing decisions about whether to financially prop up dying "older" congregations versus supporting a new church development. These are not easy decisions. Financial resources are not limitless, and they force questions no one wants to ask. Is God doing a new thing? Can God do a new thing? Are you the one to build me a house to live in?

David might not have been happy to hear that response from God. David makes a generous gesture. All the other gods in the neighborhood have temples. A real king builds a real temple for his god. A god-in-a-tent doesn't look powerful. It was really only politeness that David asked Nathan to check about building a temple. The answer was a no-brainer. How hard was it to hear, "You've been useful, but you're not the right fit for the next step"? Did it soften the blow any to hear, "I've done more for you than you could have imagined, taking you out of the sheep pasture and making you king. I don't want your monuments"? Leave the house puns aside for just a moment and consider whether it was good news to David hearing about his promising future-he just wasn't going to be in it. I've got a great future for you, David! A throne forever. For your descendants.

And not even that. Solomon, David's son, reigned for the Golden Age of Israel. But after Solomon died, the dynasty disappeared in a bloody civil war between his sons, causing a division that lasted until first one kingdom and then the other was defeated and exiled by foreign powers. Some "forever." I've always been troubled by God's "everlasting" covenant with David. Where is the "forever" in two kingdoms and then exile? Scholars say this is "an evolving Biblical understanding of Messiah." The Christian explanation for my problem is Jesus. We believe that the New Testament understanding of Jesus as Messiah is the personification of God's covenant with David for an everlasting dynasty. The immediate Hebrew understanding of the covenant, during the time of David and Solomon, was that God promised David a continuation of the salvation covenant that went back to Abraham and Sarah. When the two kingdoms were established, the Messiah became an ideal hope, celebrated in prophets like Isaiah, looking forward to a Righteous Ruler who would reunite the country in politics and religion. After the capture by Babylon, the Messiah became eschatological-end of time, God's judgment and vindication of Israel kind of stuff. Jesus was proclaimed the Messiah at his birth, by his actions throughout his lifetime, in his death and resurrection. And now, the radical, scary stuff. We are David's Messianic successors--"we" being the Church. This "Church"-not the building, not the steeple but the people, all of us-this "Church" is God's dwelling-in our individual bodies in the Person of the Holy Spirit, in us our corporate body as the work of God's kingdom people. That's Ephesians. It's a long, roundabout way to give you the earth-shaking news: we are the "offspring" God promised as heirs forever to David's throne.

Does that give you the willies? The "good news" to David was, "You've got a future that is glorious and eternal. You just don't get to be in it." And such is our God-that comes across as grace. We are the living out of God's grace to the shepherd-boy-turned-warrior-king. We are the promise being kept now. A long ways from David.

God is always doing this sort of thing-now and not yet. It's one of God's favorite tricks. Choosing someone for a purpose, but they don't get to see the total fulfillment of the purpose. Remember Abraham? The guy who was promised land, yet the only property he ever owned there was his wife's grave. He and Sarah were supposed to be the beginning of a whole people, even though they were barren until the very last minute. Moses, leading the slaves out of Egypt, even though he didn't even touch the Promised Land. David, uniting his nation and bringing it to peace, even though he continued to go to war. Jesus, dying to unite a new humanity, even though we still have denominations and faith wars. And now Springwater-for what?

If Springwater didn't already exist, if we didn't have our wonderful history behind us, giving us so much pride (and maybe our identity), would we start a new church here? Would we believe what Ephesians tells us about the implication of Jesus' work-that we are required to proclaim him? Because Jesus lived and died and rose, do we think that means we MUST get together to work for peace and the reconciliation of all people? Those are easy words. But what if that meant inviting people to worship with me. People I admire and who I want to think I'm cool. Or people who are not very . . . savory. Hungry people who smell bad. Or people who use wheelchairs. Or people who can't control muscle spasms and who talk funny. Or people not as smart as we are-maybe developmentally challenged. Dumb. What if proclaiming the gospel meant admitting that Jesus really did break down the dividing walls between us-even between them and us-and that meant that I was like "those" people? Chronically unemployed people. Or homosexuals. Or cripples. That I, too, am in need of God's grace. Is it hostility that keeps us apart? Or is it the fear that we might "catch what they've got"? The covenant promise to David was that his successor-his offspring-would reign forever, building the house in which God would live. Could Springwater still be a place for the glory of God, to live? Or do we have to start all over again with a new church development?