Henrietta United Church of Christ

Introduction to the Scripture reading:

The short book of Haggai was written about the prophet Haggai who got a major church renovation project going in the year 520 B.C. Almost seventy years before, Babylon (present-day Iraq) had conquered the Jews and left Jerusalem and its temple in ruins. After almost seventy long years of captivity, Cyrus the Great of Persia (which is now Iran) conquered Babylon, set the Jews free, and encouraged them to return to their homeland in Judah, rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and rebuild their temple. The people quickly built and repaired houses for themselves, but the temple still lay in ruins.

Haggai 1:1-2:9, selections as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message.

God's Message was delivered by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel the governor of Judah and to Joshua the high priest:

"The people procrastinate. They say this isn't the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of God. How is it that it's the 'right time' for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God's Temple, is in ruins?

Take a good, hard look at your life.

Think it over.

You have spent a lot of money,

but you haven't much to show for it.

You keep filling your plates,

but you never get filled up.

You keep drinking and drinking and drinking,

but you're always thirsty.

You put on layer after layer of clothes,

but you can't get warm.

And the people who work for you,

what are they getting out of it?

Not much–

a leaky, rusted-out bucket, that's what.”

And why? Because while you've run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That's why. Because of your stinginess. And so I've given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I've matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing--not man or woman, not animal or crop--is going to thrive.

Is there anyone here who saw the Temple the way it used to be, all glorious? And what do you see now? Not much, right?

So get to work, Zerubbabel!--God is speaking.

Get to work, Joshua the high priest!

Get to work, all you people!

Yes, get to work! For I am with you. The Lord of hosts is speaking! Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt. I'm living and breathing among you right now. Don't be timid. Don't hold back.

This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.” Thus says the Lord of hosts.

(On an historical note, Zerubbabel and Joshua and all the people got to work. Within four years the temple was rebuilt and dedicated.)

Sermon:

On the face of it, God’s orders might strike us rather strange, coming from the One whose presence extends to the farthest stars and the deepest part of the ocean, who lives in the smallest sparrow and in the hearts of humans. Does God need to keep up with the people down the street who have fine new homes?

Back in these early days of human civilization, people saw God as something like a stern punitive parent who had some “anger management issues.” They believed that God had sicced Babylon on them because they had been worshiping idols, acting selfishly and disobeying the commandments. And they believed that God would dry up the rain clouds if they didn’t obey him and rebuild the temple.

Today we know a lot more about the economic, political and military forces that make for war, and about barometric pressure and trade winds and atmospheric humidity that make for rain and for droughts. But our scientific minds are often ignorant of the deeper spiritual truths that these ancient prophesies point to: A people that doesn’t have a cohesive spiritual foundation to guide their thinking, direct their actions and unify their purpose will degenerate into a weak, strife-torn society that is vulnerable to attack from without or collapse from within. A people bent on competing against each other for their own personal prosperity will not create a community of prosperity, but a chasm between haves and have-nots. A people that doesn’t honor and worship a higher power than themselves will have no vision, no inspiration and no wisdom to help them overcome the challenges that come upon them.

It’s not that God thinks up ways to zap us with punishments when we turn our backs on God. It’s that when we shrink into self-centeredness, we cut ourselves off from the dynamic, life-giving, growth-producing divine energy that creates all things and continually gives birth to new levels of order, community, beauty, wisdom, and truth.

Fortunately, there are spiritual attitudes that we can cultivate that do really open us up to that creative divine energy: humble faith in God’s reality, presence, and goodness trust in God’s wisdom, honest acknowledgment of our shortcomings, open-handed generosity towards God and others, a sincere desire to serve God’s purpose, and an undying hope that all things can work together for good. All of these attitudes expand us beyond our small self-contained selves and open up spaces in our lives for God to move and work.

And when we embody those spiritual attitudes together... Wow! We become a dynamic welcoming spiritual community where people can find their way back home to God through our embrace, no matter who they are or where they’ve been on life’s journey. We become a catalyst for people unwrapping their hidden gifts and for developing them by sharing them. We become a place where people awaken to their calling as ministers in their daily lives. We become a place where our children’s identity and values are shaped by faith, hope and love.

This is the kind of temple we have been building together–a place where God’s Spirit and our spirits touch, interact, and become partners in compassion, generosity, service, and mission. And because this is what every child of God is created for, we have grown and grown to the point where we are outgrowing the bricks-and-mortar home some of you helped build 44 years ago for us to worship and meet and learn in.

So, like Haggai, we have heard God’s call to renovate and expand his temple, where we and the people God sends us can be opened, lifted, healed, guided, and empowered. By the pledges and gifts we have dedicated today, we will make this vision a reality.

But these days I see something more to this vision than I used to see. God is calling us to renovate and expand his temple, not just for our sake. God is also calling us to build a temple of hope, that will be a light on a hill for a world whose selfishness and idolatry are weakening it as much as selfishness and idolatry weakened Judah before it fell to Babylon in 587 B.C.

We live in a world where we human beings are defined as “human resources,” are valued by how much work we can put out, and can be let go just because layoffs will help the company’s stock go up. We are fed a soul-numbing diet of inane TV shows, commercials, news-ertainment, celebrity trivia, sex, and violence that keep us immature and addicted to consumerism. And we are offered every electronic communication and entertainment device imaginable to keep us “connected,” preoccupied, and frantically busy, lest we notice how empty and meaningless our lives are.

So today we are pledging to expand this sacred space so more hungry souls can join us as we gather here, not to worship the latest fad or idol but to worship the eternal Source of all Creation, of Life, of Love, of Peace, of Hope. This is where we are reminded week by week who we really are–precious souls created in God’s own image, loved infinitely and for all eternity, and part of a plan that’s bigger than we can imagine. This is where we jump off the treadmill, let the daily grind grind to a halt, and listen deeply for eternal truths that deeply nourish us, guide us, and empower us as no TV show or computer game or e-mail forward can. Here we let our souls be lifted and washed and opened by music that sings to us in a language deeper than words.

Only people whose souls are made new and whole by worship, only people whose wisdom draws deeply from the wells of God’s eternal truths, only people whose actions are guided by God’s vision for the world, can be the leaven in the loaf that will raise the world to a new way of living. When we build space for more people to worship the living God, we are building hope for the world.

And think about the emerging generation that fills our Sunday School classes. In those classes, they are learning to be not takers but givers, not isolated individuals but creators of a caring community, not cut-throat competitors but cooperators and peacemakers, not mindless consumers but stewards of creation. These are the spiritual values our society will need to re-learn if it is to avoid destroying itself. When we build adequate space for all the children God sends us to learn the spiritual values of our faith, we are building hope for the world.

We live in a world polarized by divisions–the left and the right, haves and have-nots, winners and losers, majorities and minorities. But here in this community of faith we experience the all-embracing arms of a God who knows no divisions or boundaries, and who invites us to stretch ourselves to be part of the whole human family that God loves without distinction. And so we here have worked to open our embrace to people who have felt excluded, judged or ignored elsewhere, for whatever reason. And in opening our embrace we have found our hearts growing bigger too. When we serve gluten-free communion bread, provide for children with special needs, create community out of diversity, and design a building that is accessible for people whose disability or age makes stairs a barrier, we are saying, “This is what God’s human family looks like.” We are building hope for the world.

We live in a world that sees Nature as something to be conquered, exploited, and “developed” by denuding it and pouring concrete over it. Someone in NY City said, “The closest I and most of my friends ever get to nature is a salad. How do you expect us to care about it?” The corner cutting that led to the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just one example of the incessant drive to extract oil or coal or food or whatever we want from the earth at almost any cost, as long as someone can turn a short-term profit from it.

In the last few years, this community of faith has begun hearing God’s urgent call to become mindful caretakers of God’s creation, and we have become an example to other congregations to heed this call. When we use washable mugs and dishes, recycle everything we can, use compact fluorescent bulbs, and design additions to our building that minimize energy use, we are saying, “This is what it looks like to sustain God’s creation.” We are building hope for the world.

When most people open their eyes enough to see the huge problems that confront our world, they slam them shut and say, “These problems are too big. There’s nothing I can do.”

To that, God says, “Nonsense!” I can hear God saying to us what he said through Haggai 2530 years ago:

“Get to work, Zerubbabel, and Joe Green, and members of the Capital Campaign Committee, and count up those pledges that have been dedicated today, and encourage people who may have disregarded them--God is speaking!”

Get to work, Joshua, and Dave Meyer, and all the members of the Building Committee, and come up with the best design you can for enlarging and renovating God’s temple!

Get to work, all you people!

Yes, get to work and bring this vision to fruition! For I am with you. The Lord of hosts is speaking! Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt, and stay faithful to the Spirit I have poured into you as a church. I am living and breathing among you right now. Don't be timid. Don't hold back.

This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.”

Yes. HUCC will be a place where God hands out wholeness, and holiness, and hope for the world, by the power of God “at work in us that is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” The Lord of hosts has spoken. Amen.