November 8, 2010 - Proper 27, Year C (RCL)
It’s getting near the end of the year,
and getting near the end of our Old Testament readings
from the words of the prophets.
We began back in June with Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, and then his follower Elisha;
we’ve read through the major prophets of Isaiah and Jeremiah,
and sampled the minor ones, Joel and Amos and Habakkuk.
We’ve covered 500 years of the history of Israel,
from the age of the great kings through the fall of Jerusalem and the exile.
And today we get to Haggai,
and we know almost nothing about him.
All we know
is that he lived a little over 500 years before Christ,
in what we now call Israel,
and was one of the last great prophets.
The exile was over;
the people had returned from Babylon.
and were trying to rebuild their lives.
They began by rebuilding their houses,
trying to reclaim the glory that once belonged to their capital city,
and so they have been busy with architects and stone masons and carpenters and wood carvers,
and the streets are noisy with the sounds of hammers and dusty with the debris of construction.
But there is one place that is quiet,
one place where the air is clear.
It’s a hill in Jerusalem,
the place
where for generations
the people have worshipped God.
The temple.
Except the temple was destroyed when the Babylonians invaded,
and now there is just rubble.
And that
is the prophet Haggai’s
lament.
The people have returned;
in fact, they’ve been back
for 17 years.
And in that time
Jerusalem has been transformed
from a pile of rubble
into a glorious city once again.
They’ve had time to replace their first temporary shelters
with much more elaborate homes.
But one thing
has not been rebuilt.
The temple.
Which is kind of strange when you think about it,
if you remember back to Jeremiah
and the lamenting that went on
as the city of Jerusalem was under siege.
They knew that the destruction of the city was inevitable,
and with it their homes.
But it was the fall of the temple
that really disturbed them,
the place that symbolized the presence of God
among them,
and without it, they weren’t sure
that God would be with them any more.
And when they were in exile
they continued their laments,
dreaming of the time
when they would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
Though they did discover
that God was with them still
even without the temple.
But you might have expected
that when they finally made it back to their homeland,
once they had some basic shelter from the weather,
that the first thing they would have built
would be the temple.
And so it’s now seventeen years later,
and not even the foundations
have been dug.
And God decides
it’s about time.
And has Haggai speak
on his behalf.
“It’s time,” God says. “Build the temple.”
Three weeks later
they get building.
But after a month of work
they begin to panic.
“What if we don’t have enough wood? Or silver, or gold?
And even if we do, we’ll never be able to build a temple as good as the last one. And life will never be what it was
back before the exile.”
And so God has Haggai
speak on his behalf again,
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t you remember, that I am in charge here?
The whole earth is mine. Including the silver and the gold. there will be enough.
And quit obsessing about the past.
I have plans for you,
great plans. And it will be better than ever before,
And you will be fine,
in fact, you’ll be better than fine. You will prosper.
Just do what I say. Build the temple. Put worship back
at the heart of this city. And all will be well.”
And God was right.
The temple was rebuilt, and it was one of the great buildings of its time. Part of it still remains, the western wall in Jerusalem. And as it became the center of the city,
with worship of God at its heart,
so God became the heart of the people
and God blessed them.
Today,
the stewardship committee charged me with preaching a stewardship sermon.
And as I looked at the readings, I groaned. If only I had last week’s gospel about Zacchaeus giving half of everything he has to the poor.
Of course, not that any of us would probably follow Zacchaeus’ example. Half just sounds a little much to ask.
But the more I thought about the words of Haggai,
the more I realized that this has a lot to say to us.
Not necessarily about the details of annual pledging,
but the whole way we think about the resources we have
and the God we worship.
You see, we’re not so different from the people of God back in the time of Haggai.
The external details are different - obviously two and a half thousand years have passed,
and we’re not living in Israel.
And we’re not trying to rebuild a city’s infrastructure after a war.
But we are going through hard times right now as a country,
with the effects of the recession continuing to dominate our lives,
and we look around us and see that the institutions that we relied on seem to be failing,
and as Christians
our beliefs and practices seem to be ever more marginalized.
It’s so easy to spend our time looking back at the way things once were, and wishing we could recreate them;
it’s so easy to be concerned about needing to ensure our own financial security before anything else.
We’re a lot like the people
that Haggai was speaking to.
And I think that God has a couple of things to say to us through the prophet Haggai.
First of all, God has great things in store for us.
In a historic church like this one,
we take great pride in our past. Our history has, in many ways, made us who we are.
We’re thankful for the people who have worshipped here over the last 150 years, and for the gifts we have given us.
There have been many high points in that history, and many of us here remember some of them.
It’s important for our identity as a church, a community,
to know where we’ve come from.
But it can also become dangerous, if we get too bogged down in the past.
Yes, wonderful things have happened in this place.
But we can’t simply replicate the successes of the past.
Even if we did everything as our predecessors did,
and even if we had exactly the same resources,
we wouldn’t get the same results.
Because times have changed,
and we have to change with them, whether we like it or not!
And of course, it’s not change for change’s sake,
but change for the same of the gospel.
God is constantly calling us forward, calling us to step out in faith for the sake of Christ.
That’s why, in our planning, the vestry has moved our focus from thinking about “what do we need to do” to “where is God calling us?”
God is calling us; God has great things in store for us. And we’re beginning to see it. Sunday attendance is up. People keep commenting to me
about how great it feels
when the church
is so full. Some of the increase is newcomers; some is just that we who are members are coming to worship more regularly.
We have three bible studies running, and we’re enjoying not just learning about our faith, but getting to know one another in deeper ways than is possible when we only meet at coffee hour.
And we’ve significantly expanded our outreach work. It’s most visible with the food pantry, thanks to the leadership of Pat Westlake, where we serve ever increasing numbers of people who without our help would go hungry, and where we see a huge increase in the support we are getting from other organizations. But we also see it in the Protestant Campus Ministry at Stony Brook, where we have a superb chaplain and thanks to the hard work of Sue Krall and the support of the vestry, we’ve just been awarded a ten thousand dollar grant by Episcopal Charities, which will enable us to increase the chaplain’s hours.
God is good, and has great plans for us. It’s exciting to be part of God’s work in the world.
Second, God is in charge of everything. Everything.
The whole earth belongs to God;
God created it; God sustains it.
And that means
that we ourselves belong to God.
God created us;
God sustains us.
And everything around us is the same.
God created it;
God sustains it.
There is nothing that falls
outside of God’s attention.
And what that means
when it comes to stewardship
is that everything we have
comes from God.
It is God’s good gift to us.
Yes, we may work for it,
but in the end,
the reason we can work
is that God created us,
and God continues to sustain us.
And when it comes
to carrying out God’s plans,
God knows
exactly how many resources are available - just as God knew
how much wood and silver and gold would be needed for Haggai’s temple. There would be enough.
God knows
exactly how many resources are available for us to do the work
that God is calling us to do.
In time, in energy, and in money.
The work of God
that we are called to do
is to worship God, week by week.
To make disciples, make disciples out of ourselves
by studying God’s word in scripture, by praying, by making the often hard decisions to devote our time and our talents to following God,
and to make disciples of others by sharing the good news of God in Christ.
To love one another, here, in person, and to love those who are in need.
And God will provide the resources we need to do that.
God has provided them. We just need to be willing to give them,
give them
for God’s sake.
And I can tell you from my own life,
it works.
Sadly, I’m not a trust fund baby. When I finished high school
I was on my own.
I worked my way through college, and have worked ever since.
And I’ve found
that when I have been generous with the things God has given me,
I have been well provided for - through work, through gifts, through my own desire to live more simply.
When I have been stingy,
life has been much tougher. There has never been
quite enough.
So I invite you, this stewardship season, as you consider your giving for God’s work,
to remember
that God has great plans for us.
And God will provide - indeed has provided - for those plans to be fulfilled.
So join in. Be part of God’s plans for this church community.
And give generously
from what God has been so generous
to give
to you.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010