But the old one was better!

Rev. Jonathan Roach

Haggai 2:1-9

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening my friends, whenever and wherever you are watching this sermon, I pray that you feel the love of God surrounding you, the love of Jesus encouraging you, and the strength of the Holy Spirit empowering you. I am coming to you today from the Sanctuary of Christ Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Palmetto Bay, Florida in the third week of Advent. God is with us here on this day in this place and God is with you wherever you are today. God is good. Please join me in prayer as we begin this time today.

Please join me in prayer. Gracious God of prophets and teachers, maker of all that is seen and unseen, today empower us as we live out your words from your prophet Haggai. They are old words. They are your words for us your people here today. Let us hear them with open ears; let us understand their message for us here on this day and in this place. Let us live these words with love and hope; with faith and understanding; with grace and with the knowledge that they are for the building of your reign and glory. Amen.

Today we are exploring the words of the Prophet Haggai. Haggai is one of the most minor prophets of the 12 Minor Prophets. Any one of us might go to church every Sunday for a lifetime of sermons and maybe only hear one or two lessons from the short book of Haggai. The entire book of Haggai is only two chapters long and contains parts of four or five sermons that Haggai preached during a three and half month period in the summer and fall of 520 BC.

I want to begin by placing this short book in its historical framework. Last week we were exploring the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Remember last week, God called the prophet Jeremiah to the potter’s house to watch the throwing of clay and the shaping of vessels. And in the next few years, Jeremiah would watch as in 587 BC the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, tore down Solomon’s Temple, and carried the rulers, priests, and leaders into exile. Over the next 60 years, leaders such as Daniel, who was thrown into the lion’s den, and Queen Esther, who would stand before the King of Babylonia and beg for the lives of her people, and political leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah, who would lead groups of exiles back to the homes of their grandparents in Jerusalem, would be God’s leaders and prophets to a people in exile. Men and women like these would keep the exiled community together and bring them back home again. And now in our reading today, the exiles have come home, but it is a broken city. The city isn’t like it used to be.

I want us to picture Haggai. Most likely he is an older man well over seventy, he remembers the Jerusalem of his childhood; he remembers the glories of Solomon’s Temple. He is a peasant farmer, he probably came from a family that was so unimportant that they had not been even carried off into exile. Haggai has been farming in this war torn land for decades and now the priests and rulers and scholars are being allowed to return from exile. He is just a tough old bird who is going tell it like he sees it and not going to put up with any belly aching, complaining, cynicism, or whining.

Today’s reading are ancient words from a sermon by the prophet Haggai given on October 17th 520 BC. He is preaching to the High Priest, to the Governor, and to the people on a high, holy feast day. He is preaching on the seventh day of the Feast of the Booths. The Feast of the Booths is an eight-day fall festival. It celebrates the 40 years that the Israelites spent living in tents and booths they lived in while they were waiting to enter the Promised Land. It celebrates their release from slavery. It celebrates their freedom from Egypt. It celebrates the goodness of God; the promises kept; the deliverance given; the hope realized.

God has given Haggai a hard day to preach. It is like preaching on Christmas or Easter or Mother’s Day. Everyone is there but no one’s mind is focusing on the word of God. God has given Haggai a hard day to preach. It has been twenty years since the first exiles had been allowed to return to Jerusalem. They returned to their homeland with such high hopes and dreams. They returned to rebuild a way of life. They returned to rebuild a land for their children and their grandchildren. They returned to preserve their culture and celebrate their uniqueness. They returned to rediscover their heritage and history. They returned to rebuild the Temple. They returned with such high hopes and dreams, but now it is twenty years later.

Twenty years of hard work

Twenty years of poverty

Twenty years of toil in barren fields

Twenty years of rebuilding a destroyed city, rock-by-rock.

Twenty years of rebuilding homes without resources

Twenty years of hard work and it is not done yet.

On day that Haggai was preaching, the people gathered were celebrating the care and love of God for God’s people in a land of tears, and poverty, and hunger in a former war zone. Haggai is preaching to an audience of critics. They see the new Temple being built and in their eyes it is not as great as the old Temple. The oldest members of the community remember Solomon’s Temple and this new building just isn’t going to cut it. And for the children and grandchildren who had been born in exile and who were raised on the stories of their parents and grandparents, this new building sure doesn’t measure up to the stories in their head. They are comparing the stories and legends of the glories of the past to the present realities and they are not happy. Apparently some of the members of the community did not have many good things to say about the new structure they saw being built. Although sixty years had passed, they could still remember what the Temple looked like before it was destroyed in 587 BC. This new temple is not as good as the old one. Where are the beautiful gold and silver decorations? Where is the grandeur? Where is the grandeur? Where is the majesty? Haggai is addressing their cynicism and disappointment directly: “Is it in your sight as nothing?” He is admitting that the new Temple does not look like much yet, and by so doing he is silencing the complainers and challenging them, along with everyone else, to have confidence in what God is about to do.

The prophet Haggai is preaching on a hard topic to a difficult audience. But the prophet brings the people a message of hope and healing. The prophet of the Lord of Hosts might have well been standing in the middle of the construction site. He is preaching to the high priest Joshua and to Governor Zerubbual, to the saints and to the sinners, and he is challenging them to stop complaining and put their backs into the hard work that needs to be done.

How does it look to you now? He asks them.

I want us to take three lessons home today from Haggai’s sermon. The first lesson is to have the courage to keep the faith. The prophet reminds them to take courage to keep the faith to see the big picture, to see what they have accomplished with the help of the Lord, and not to focus on what remains to be done. He yells out to them “Yet now take courage, Oh Zerbubbabel, take courage Oh Joshua, take courage all you people of the land says the Lord of Hosts; work for I am with you says the Lord of Hosts…my spirit abides among you; do not fear.” When the world seems to keep beating you down, it takes courage to get out of bed every morning. It takes courage to keep working when it seems that no one is appreciating your effort. It takes courage to keep coming to work every day when it seems that the task seems undoable.

Haggai prophet of the Lord God Almighty is reminding everyone that God is good. God keeps God’s promises. God will give us the courage we need to get out of bed and back to work. The spirit of God is with the people of God. God will shake up the nations, God will shake up the institutions, God will shake up the economies, God will shake up the rich and the poor, and God will give peace and prosperity, God will keep God’s promise to his people to God’s creation. The future is bright. God is with us so who can be against us. This is the message that the prophet Haggai brought to the people on that day so long ago. This is the message that God gave for the people of God on that feast day. This is the message that God has given us today my friends. This is the word of God for the people of God here in this place at this time. God is with us. There is hope for tomorrow. Keep the faith. Be courageous.

That is the first lesson that Haggai brings us today: have the courage to keep the faith. The second lesson for today is to empower our memories to build upon tradition and not become mired within traditionalism. Haggai is calling upon the people to build up the Reign of God and not become stuck as Dr. Martin Luther King called in the paralysis of analysis. We can’t become trapped in the past. We can celebrate our past, but we can’t become prisoners of it. Haggai brought a message of hope in the midst of destruction to the people of God on that day in that place so long ago, and the message that he preached is still valid and good today. God is in our midst, and God is acting. This is God’s kingdom, and we are the workers. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is doable. The best is yet to come. God’s vision is not our vision, and we have to trust God to empower us to build upon the best of what and who we are as a people of God today in this time and place. We must mine tradition for what has been the best and not become imprisoned by the memories of our past.

Let us take the dire warnings and horrible news of our world today

And face it with the reality of God’s love.

Let us challenge the present

For the sake of the future.

Let us take on the facts of sexism,

Let us face the reality of racism,

Let us tackle the problems of violence,

Let us challenge the present

For the sake of the future.

Let us take action on poverty

Let us dialogue on political and economic injustices

Let us work on the crisis in health care

Let us challenge the present

For the sake of the future.

Let us find new ways of doing ministry

Let us discover different models of being church

Let us live in beloved community.

Let us challenge the present

For the sake of the future.

Take courage do not fear God abides with us.

Work for I am with you says the Lord of Hosts.

The third and final lesson that the prophet Haggai brings us today is a call to solidarity. Haggai is calling upon the priests, the political leaders, the people in the pews, the old generation who remembers from before the destruction of Jerusalem, and the youth who are trying to build better lives for their families. He is calling upon everyone; the “us” and the “them”; our people and those people; those on the left and those on the right; the liberals and the conservatives; the traditionalists and the post-modernists. The prophet is calling everyone to solidarity. He is calling upon the people to hold together; to support one another; to keep building the new Temple; to trust in God to make something wonderful and good in the midst of this suffering and pain.

So let us carry these three lessons of courage, memory, and solidarity into this week ahead of us. Let us remember that no matter what the world throws at us; God is with us.

Amen, amen, and amen.