November 7, 2010  Hag.1:15-2:9 Lk. 20:27-38

 

We continue looking at books of the twelves, the minor prophets. This is a parade example of why i use the lectionary, as Haggai would not come to mind as a preaching text in my mental file cabinet. Haggai is a great piece for dispirited people. It does stake the reality of feelings seriously but says in spite of them to take heart, to not be afraid, to work. How much should one work when you are colonized? How does being under the thumb of a power affect people? Here Darius is building a fabulous city and they are struggling to rebuild a ruined city that seems to remind them only of their failure.Work has begun on a reconstructed temple. Like all building projects, this one runs into criticism. It is especially poignant as it lacked the real or imagined magnificence of the first temple.Darius the Great ruled from around 522 until 486 BCE, so this is early in his reign. This Darius was called king of kings. This is the builder of some of the glories the great Persepolis that Alexander would later level. In contrast, the exiled have returned to ruins.  I get sad when I see grass growing in the cracks of city sidewalks, of "whitewashed windows and vacant stores" as Springsteen sang in the midst of the recession of the early 80s, just as I am delighted that some new businesses will grace the eternal Lincoln Street project..  

How to fight that sense of failure?  God is with you. God is with you in this project. Notice the spirit of God is among them or within the community already. God is not only presence, the power of God would be felt again. This power was already felt in the rebuilding and in the work. So Haggai says to find courage, to not fear, and to work. Putting hands to work negates the drooping hands of despair and resignation. It is a description of living in the culture of life, not death. it is seeking out new life in the midst of the old ways that have crumbled into dust. 

 

Now it says, just you wait, this will be even better than before. The point of all of this is a move toward shalom=peace/prosperity/well-being. After all, we are temple of the spirit, as Paul said. god will not allow us to fall into decay and ruin forever, but offers whole new way of being. We obviously can't do this on our own, but the revivifying spirit of God can.  We see heaven as a place to help to make up for life's failures and disappointments, the goal toward which we press on.We use heaven to express an ultimate destination of shalom, of well-being in an entirely new and different dimension.  Jesus sees us as children of the resurrection While his religious opponents are assuming the cultural pattern of a family taking responsibility for the widow and family, Jesus is pointing to a whole new way of life. They are trying to show the foolish extent of a belief in an after life that has but  vague hints in the Scripture. Jesus sees it as discontinuity of existence. The need for children is an arrangement about immortality through progeny. The immortal needn't worry about arrangements for having children. more than that, Jesus sees God of the living not the dead. Living or dead, we are alive to God. In this new realm restricted love is  not within resurrection  life. Rev. Eversull  had Albert Outler as a teacher. Once he was discussing the resurrection with a Yale colleague. Outler said that we can't pin down resurrection except at two times, when we are on our deathbeds or when we are at the bedside of a dying person. Jesus would not play mind games abut describing life in heaven, but he did claim it as a reality that will not only restore us but will blow away any of our cherished preconceptions.