The Book of Haggai

The latest polling data indicates that in battleground states, among likely churchgoers, 97.6% of the people surveyed do not have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of the prophet Haggai - because they do not have the foggiest idea who he was.

It should be noted, however, that the results were different among those in one particular demographic group. Among Scotsmen, Haggai’s approval rating was initially thought to be sharply higher – until follow-up questions revealed that Haggai was mistakenly thought to be the plural form of the culinary delicacy, haggis.

OK – so I’m exaggerating a little bit; but let’s be honest: if there were a ranking of the most obscure books of the Bible, I think most people would agree that the book of Haggai would be near the top of the list, alongside Zephaniah, Obadiah, and Nahum. In the entire three-year lectionary cycle – there is only one recommended reading from the book of Haggai; and most preachers normally steer well clear of it; but not today.

Earlier in this service of worship we presented gift Bibles to some of the young people in our congregation. Such occasions invite all of us within the community of faith to remember that God’s Word is found throughout the Bible – and not just within the books that are familiar or the chapters that are popular. In one of his letters to Timothy, the apostle Paul said that “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (II Timothy 4:16) The author of Hebrews said that the word of God is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword (4:12) - and because that is true we are called to be alert to the possibility that on any given Sunday even unlikely portions of Scripture may offer us a word on target.

But why Haggai? And why today? To begin to answer those questions, I will tell you that the book of Haggai consists of just five visions that the prophet experienced during a four-month period in the year 520 B.C.; and one of the distinctive characteristics of Haggai’s writing style is that in each case we are told the specific date on which the revelations were received: the first day of the sixth month; the 24^th day of the 6^th month; the 21^st day of the 7^th month; and two independent revelations on the 24^th day of the ninth month. The Hebrew calendar is different than our modern calendar, but in case you are wondering those dates correspond with August 29, September 21, October 17 (one week ago today) and two on December 18.

As you may have guessed from the sermon title – the first thing that caught my attention was that three of Haggai’s five visions came on the 24^th day of the month. If I believed in coincidences, that would seem to be a particularly odd one; but since I do not believe in coincidences where God is concerned, it stimulated my curiosity.

And that curiosity quickly led to a second observation. Haggai was able to summarize the first of those “24^th day of the month” revelations in one sentence: “I am with you, says the Lord”; and that brief word of assurance; that simple promise of God’s faithfulness; became the catalyst that stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the governor; that stirred up the spirit of Joshua, the high priest; that stirred up the spirits of all the remnant of the people; so that they came together and worked on the reconstruction of the Temple, the house of the Lord.

When I first made those observations several weeks ago, it occurred to me that we would not only be having a service of worship on this 24^th day of this month; but that we would also be having a congregational meeting; a congregational meeting against the backdrop of work that is already being done on the house of the Lord that we call the Presbyterian Church of Llanerch; a congregational meeting during which individual spirits like latter-day Zerubbabel’s and Joshua’s will be stirred up to accept the challenge of serving as elders, deacons, or trustees; a congregational meeting during which our collective spirits may – Godwilling - be stirred up to face the challenge of the 2005 budget; a congregational meeting during which we will most assuredly need to be attentive to the word of God in general – and attentive to God’s promise to be with us in particular.

As all of those things occurred to me, I was suddenly impressed and intrigued by how much we have in common with Haggai - and like Moses before the burning bush, I decided to turn aside, and to take off my sandals, because I had the sneaking suspicion that I was very close to standing on holy ground.

Until now I have been trying to make a case that the story of Haggai is relevant to our own story; and without further ado, let me invite you to listen to the story itself.

As I said earlier, the year was 520 B.C. – but we need to take a running start to put the significance of that year in its proper perspective. Two generations earlier, in 587 B.C. God’s chosen people had been conquered by the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar. Those in positions of leadership among the people of Israel were deported and forced to live in exile in Babylon. The city of Jerusalem was almost completely destroyed, and the Temple that King Solomon had built – and which had stood as the center of Jewish worship for 400 years - was flattened.

It was a time of despair – but prophetic voices – like those of Ezekiel and Isaiah – called the people of Israel to repentance – and they proclaimed a message of hope. They declared that God was still the Lord of history; that God’s covenant with His chosen people really was an everlasting covenant; and that the people of God would one day be restored to the Promised Land. Said Isaiah: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. God does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable; God gives power to the faint, God strengthens the powerless; and those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)

The time of exile would last almost 50 years – and then in 539 B.C. – deliverance took an unlikely form. The Babylonian Empire was conquered by the army of Cyrus of Persia, and Cyrus authorized the Jewish people living in exile to return to Jerusalem. After half a century of life in a new country, many chose to stay right where they were. But some made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem. They returned to a devastated city – and a devastated local economy. They were few in number. Drought and crop failures begat scarcity – scarcity begat spiraling inflation – and for almost 20 years – from 539 until 520 B.C. - virtually no progress was made toward rebuilding the Temple. The conventional wisdom held that when you barely have enough to survive – there is simply no available surplus of time or talent or treasure to allocate toward the rebuilding of a place of worship. When you don’t have enough to make ends meet – a project to rebuild the temple seemed like a luxury they simply could not afford.

And so it was that the stage was set for the word of the Lord to come to the prophet Haggai; the first of those words was a word of corrective judgment; a word intended to suggest to the people of Israel that for the last 20 years they had not had their priorities straight. Before either of today’s readings, Haggai invited the people to consider the empirical circumstances of their lives. He said: “Thus says the Lord of hosts. Consider how you have fared. 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 why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins.”

Through Haggai the Lord told the people, in effect, seek first the kingdom and God’s righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you as well; Haggai called the people to repent; to rebuild the temple; to re-center their lives around the worship of God; to recommit themselves to being a covenant people; and Haggai called the people to do all of those things – not in order to earn God’s approval – not to establish a basis for a quid pro quo – and not because God wants us to be works-righteous.

As Elizabeth Achtemeier has said: “God yearns to return to his people and to dwell in their midst as their God, in fulfillment of the covenant relationship. If the people will begin the work on the temple, that will be the outward sign of their inward renewed devotion, the outward sign of their inward longing to restore their communion with the Lord.” Said Achtemeier: “We are dealing here not with externals, but with the movement of the heart – with the yearning of God’s heart for us – and God’s desire that we will yearn for Him with all of our hearts as well.”

Haggai challenged the people to reconsider their priorities – he challenged them to begin the process of coming home to God by rebuilding God’s house; and as we read in the first of today’s lessons – the people obeyed; and things began to happen. Haggai said the Lord was with them – and the Lord stirred up their spirits to come and work on what was to be the new Temple.

Some people were concerned that the new Temple would not be as impressive as the original – some of us wish that we had unlimited funds so that we could have replaced the old slate roof with a new slate roof – but in words first spoken over 2500 years ago last Sunday – Haggai expressed divine words of reassurance. Not once – but three times God urged the people to take courage – and then he told them why they had reason to be confident. For thus says the Lord: “take courage, all you people of the land; work, for I am with you according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you, do not fear.

And then in words that Tom Patterson sang for us earlier, God committed his own divine resources to the project at hand. For thus says the Lord: “Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

Those words were spoken on the 21^st day of the 7^th month; work on the temple continued in earnest – and just over two months later – on the 24^th day of the month – Haggai invited the people of God to consider their circumstances once again – and to consider whether or not they believed in coincidences. In the second of today’s readings Haggai said: Before a stone was placed upon a stone in the Lord’s temple, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. [In other words, before the reconstruction began, there was scarcity every place you looked.] But consider from this day on, from the 24^th day of the month - since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? From this day on I will bless you.”

Today is the 24^th day of the month; today work on this house of the Lord is well under way; and today – like every other day – is a day when we are invited to take courage from the assurance that God is with us – and from the promise that from this day on the Lord will continue to bless us. Thanks be to God. AMEN