Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 11/10/13
 |
| Image Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library |
The good ole days. Don’t we always seem to
pine for the good ole days. Those days when the air was cleaner, the sun seemed
to shine brighter, people were friendly the world was safer, we always love to
remember the good ole days. Even in church we reminisce about the good old
days. Remember those days when this place was packed, remember those days when
children ran all around, remember those days when people felt a responsibility
to come each Sunday; those were the good old days. Nowadays it is easy to want to go back to the
good old days. We see reports of
declining churches all around the nation, we see that there are less and less
children in churches, and that the average age of most congregations keeps
getting older. It makes us get a little nervous, what is going to happen to our
churches in the future, what is going to happen in our churches, right now,
what happened? Why can’t things just be like the good old days.
If you think that this type of thinking is new, if you
believe that this generation is the first to pine for the days of plenty, those
good old days; then well, think again. In fact in our scripture for today, the prophet Haggai responding to many
faithful Israelites who raise that same question, why can’t it be like the good
old days? Before we jump into our
passage for this morning we need to understand what is going on in this book.
As we have discussed so much already as we’ve been looking at the prophets, one
of the most pivotal events in the life of the Israelites was the Babylonian
captivity. Prophets for the most part can be characterized as speaking to the
Israelites before, during, or after this tragic event, (though there are some
exceptions.) Haggai is firmly after the captivity, and after many of the exiles
had returned. The book of Haggai is interesting in that it is actually a
collection of sayings from the prophet, but unlike many other prophets, this
book is recorded in very succinct, chronological events. To understand our
passage, which come later in the timeline, we need to look at some of the prior
issues that the prophet had to address.
The first issue that
the prophet Haggai had to deal with is the quite obvious question, now that the
Babylonian captivity is over, now that many of the exiles have returned home,
what do we do now? While the question to
ask may be obvious the response is anything but. There were some very complex issues that had
to be addressed. For instance, As the
Israelites returned from Babylon, the began to claim the land that had belonged
to their families, and yet with the exile many of those records were not really
taken, many family lines had become blurred and there became disputes about
land. Not only were those returning disputing, but there were also some who
were not exiled, who had been living on the land, and now disputed with those
who were returning on who had the right of the land.
In the midst of these and many other difficulties however
remained one very large, unaddressed issue. What do we do with the temple that
has been destroyed? In chapter one, we
see that Haggai becomes a voice for the rebuilding of the Temple. He even calls
out the Israelites and says, “Then the word of
the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 4 Is
it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house
lies in ruins? 5 Now therefore thus says
the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 6 You
have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you
drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says
the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 8 Go
up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure
in it and be honored, says the Lord. 9 You
have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home,
I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in
ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses.” Haggai calls out the people of Israel for
their selfishness. He tells them that they have neglected their religious
responsibility, they are not gathering for worship; instead they are too
interested in their own personal problems; that they have neglected the
community. Just like a good prophet, or maybe just like Dr. Phil, Haggai asks,
How is that working for you? Has your worry decreased? Now that you have done
that one thing you needed to get done, do you feel any better? The answer is of
course, no.
When we reflect about the good old days, Isn’t this so
often one of our biggest gripes, one of our biggest concerns. That today it
just seems as though the community is not valued as much; it just seems as
though people are too concerned about themselves and their own worries, and not
the worries of the community, and especially not the worries of the church. It
seems as those with the decline of the churches that we keep hearing about
there has also been a rise in apathy. People just don’t seem to care anymore,
that people don’t feel the same sort of responsibility. We want to be like the prophet Haggai, we
want to say, how is that working for you? Have all of your other worries gone
away? Has everything that has kept you from coming and being a part of this
community of believers really paid off for you? We like Haggai want to be the
voices calling for the rebuilding of the temple, or in this case the Church. It
is after all why the United Methodist church has implemented Vital
Congregations, so that we can once again rebuild the church through our
attendance, our professions of faith, our involvement in mission, our giving to
mission, and our discipleship through small groups. We all want to strive for a revitalized and
rebuilt church, but if our passage for today tells us anything, it should tell
us to be careful what we wish for.
Fast-forward to our passage for this morning and we may
begin to see what we mean. Our passage for this moves forward in time about a
month or so, in with it people have begun to respond to the words of Haggai and
there seems to be more of a rebuilding effort going on at the Temple. What a
major step taken by the Israelites, to hear the words of the prophet and to
respond in just over a month! The good news of the temple being rebuilt should
have put to ease many of the fears and troubles that Haggai faced, but yet with
the building of the new Temple, new problems and conflicts arose. Namely there
were many dissenters who protested how the Temple was being rebuilt. Many of
these dissenters were people who had actually been alive to see the previous
Temple, they had fond memories of the Temple, the remembered the good old days
when they would go with their families, they remember looking on and seeing the
nobility and the chief priests go to and fro, because in all truth the first
Temple was primarily visited by those of noble family origins or of high
religious order; but that was the way it was, and the memories were still held
and their hearts. And yet here a new Temple was being built, and it was nothing
like the first one. Early indications seemed as though it would not be as
splendid (though latter accounts refute this)
and things were not being conducted in the same way in which they were
used to. In fact the Temple was starting to become more of a central location
than it had even been at the first place, it was becoming the a religious and economic center of the city.
This change upset many people, and they cried out in
protest of the way the Temple was being rebuilt. It is to these dissenters that
Haggai responds in our passage today. He says,
“Who is left among you that saw this house in
its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as
nothing? Haggai response to those Israelites is sort of
a double edge sword of both challenge and comfort. On the one hand Haggai is
saying to the Israelites, Do you remember the Temple in its former glory? You
remember how things were, and you remember how bad things were when the
Babylonians destroyed it? Look at the
Temple and what do you see, you see nothing, the Temple is gone, why then is we
have being built now, worse than the destruction we had before us.
The complaints of the Israelites centuries before us, are
still many of the complaints that we have today. While like Haggai in Chapter one, many of us
lament the decline of the Church, while many of us call for a greater
commitment and response, many of us at the same time are also afraid of what
that response might look like. What if
things change? What if we have to do things differently, what if it is not like
the good old days. I do not mean to
belittle this sentiment, these are legitimate fears, and yet Haggai’s response
to the Israelites rings true for us today.
Why is a church that is trying build itself back up, maybe by trying new
things, worse than declining churches that do it the way it has always been
done. It is almost like Albert
Einstein’s definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.” Are we going to looked at the crumbling
Temple and lament about the way it used to be, or are we going to begin working
stone by stone to rebuild a new and vibrant Temple. This is the challenged
posed to us today by the prophet Haggai.
While the words of Haggai are a challenge to the
Israelites, they are also words of comfort. Haggai is saying to the Israelites, I know
that this is not what you remember when you think about the Temple you knew, I
know that things are changing, I know that what we have now does not look like
much, but have faith, God is at work. It is why he says, “ Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take
courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you
people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of
hosts, according to the promise that I
made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. Take courage, all you people of the
land, work, for I am with you. The Lord
understood the fears of the Israelites, the Lord knew how difficult this
transition would be, but the Lord is telling them, work, for I am with you. I
am in the midst of this change. This Temple that you once loved, this Temple
that lay in ruins and now despite rebuilding efforts does not look like much
now; this Temple will once again be great, for I am in the midst of this work.
These words from Haggai that earlier seemed to challenge
us, to possible even rattle us a little, now at the same time seem to be also
words of comfort. We so often see things changing and it makes us so nervous,
we see ourselves changing, not being able to do some of things that we used to
be able to do, and because of that it is not uncommon to think, “what is going
to happen when I’m gone.” What will become of the church I loved so much after
I die.” With the decline of the churches
around the nation this is a legitimate fear, and yet the words of the Lord
spoken by Haggai ring out to us, “take courage, all you
people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you. My spirit abides
among you; do not fear.” In the
midst of all the change that seems to be going, some of which we may be
skeptical about, in the midst of all of our fears about the direction of the
church, God reminds us, do not fear I am with you. When we live in this trust it truly can push
many of our fears aside and give us hope that God is doing something special in
the life of the church. It also challenges us, to recognize that the spirit is
at work, and that can cause some unpredictable outcomes. That the new Temple
being built may not look too much like the Old temple that we loved so
dear. But have courage and work, says
the Lord for I am with you. Join in and embrace the work of the Lord in this
place, do not be like the Israelites Haggai speaks to, letting our skepticism
get in the way. Let us remember the good
old days, let us hold on fondly to those times, celebrate those times and the
joy that it brought us but don’t hold on so tight that we fail to see the
marvelous work of the spirit before us. Instead, let us remember the joy that
those times brought us, and work with the spirit so that we can build something
special, something that long after we are gone, that our children, and our
children’s children can look back on and say, “Those were the good old days.
No comments:
Post a Comment