Haggai Sermon 4-29-12

The Minor Writing Prophets IX: Haggai – a motivator

April 29, 2012

BMC- Haggai

Introduction: Motivators

            I want to begin this morning by inviting you to think of what or whom motivates you.  What are things in your life that motivate you, that spur you on to action?  Who are people in your life that motivate you to act, to dream big, or just to keep on going when things are tough? {Responses}

            At Thursday night’s Bible Study, the group named motivational people from family members including spouses, parents and children to bosses.  They also suggested things like the will to succeed, seeing a need to fill, and new ideas.  Others mentioned music, food, money and the Holy Spirit as motivators.

            We all have motivators in our lives.  For some they are inanimate objects like food or money.  Our children are often motivated by the promise of a snack for doing a difficult chore or by the threat of losing their allowance for not doing what is regularly expected of them.

            Others are motivated by people they know of whether it be a famous person whose example we want to follow or those close to us who care for us deeply.  Many people are motivated by watching shows like The Biggest Loser to make changes in their lives.  I personally am not motivated by that, though I do find it difficult to eat a snack while watching the show.  Instead, Rick serves as my motivator when it comes to working out every week.

            I am also motivated by people like Eleanor Swartz, a member of our congregation who’s nearly 94 years old and knows that she is nearing the end of her life.  Her example has motivated me to speak out for forgiveness even when it is tough.  And her example of not only living well, but also dying well with trust in God’s care is a tremendous testimony to a culture that fears death.

            In any case, we each have things which motivate us for better or worse. It seems to me that our prophet for today, Haggai, was also a motivator.  His prophecies are focused on the work of motivating the returning exiles to include rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem as a primary part of their work.

The Motivator

While we don’t know a whole lot about Haggai, we do know a fair amount about the context in which he was writing.  Judah was defeated and the temple in Jerusalem destroyed around 587BC.  Many Jews were taken into exile by the Babylonians. 

Then in 539BC the Persian king, Cyrus, defeated Babylon.  King Cyrus had a different approach than the Assyrians or the Babylonians to how he treated those that he conquered.  Before long, he granted permission for the Jews in exile to return home and rebuild the wall around Jerusalem as well as the temple.

In returning home, the Jews found everything still in shambles now nearly 50 years later.  Unlike most of the prophets, we have very specific dates for the words of Haggai.  His prophecies were given between August and December of 520BC under the Persian King Darius and local governor, Zerubbabel. 

We can learn more about the context of this prophecy by reading in the book of Ezra.  Ezra 5:1-2 & 6:13-14 both mention the work of Haggai and our prophet for next week, Zechariah.  Ezra makes a passing reference to each of them.

Clearly, the focus of Haggai’s words were to motivate the people to get about the work of rebuilding the temple.  And yet within his words, it seems that there are some lessons for us today.

Lesson 1: Avoid selfishness

            First, we receive a message to avoid selfishness.  In Haggai 1:9-11 in the Message, we read "… 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.”  The people came back from exile and found everything still in ruins.  They worked on building the wall and they worked on their own houses, but they weren’t working on rebuilding the temple.

            At first, these claims of selfishness might seem a little odd to us.  When we read Ezra, we get a sense that there was more going on here than the people’s stinginess or selfishness.  There were local political realities that the people were dealing with related to rebuilding the temple as well.  The other people living in Judah were trying to undermine the rebuilding efforts of the Jews. 

Yet ultimately Haggai’s clear. The people were selfish.  They were focused on their own needs and wants rather than God’s place in their midst which is symbolized by the temple.  

            Now selfishness is one of those things that we all know is wrong.  We hear “Don’t be selfish” and we say, “yeah, yeah I know that.  I’m not selfish.”  And hopefully within the context of our society in which we are encouraged to focus on our own needs above that of others, we aren’t selfish by comparison.

            And yet I wonder if this isn’t one of those things that most of us have to deal with at some level throughout our whole lives.  We could always give a little more.  We could always share more of our resources.  We could always be more willing to share what we have knowing that ultimately it is God’s anyway, right?

            I don’t like to think of myself as a selfish person, and yet I sometimes feel a tension within myself when someone wants to borrow something of mine.  I try to take good care of what I have and I sometimes worry that it will not come back to me in as good of shape as it left me if at all.

            I can try to rationalize this and say that it is good stewardship.  Or come up with excuses for why now is not a good time to loan something out; but when I am honest with myself it is really a bit of selfishness within me that I must continue to battle.  It is really about me believing that what I have is mine, rather than God’s and releasing it to His service.

            But it seems to me that Haggai is suggesting a selfishness that goes far beyond our personal possessions.  Haggai is talking about the need to build the temple.  He is talking about building a structure that is for the purpose of honoring God.  It will be God’s house for God’s purposes.

            We come together every week to worship God in this space.  I think most of us would agree that while we use this space that ultimately it is God’s and it is used for God’s purposes.  We do after all call ourselves, Bethel, which means “House of God.”  Yet I wonder if we sometimes find ourselves clinging just a little too tightly to the building as our own.

            We have been spending time discerning how our facility can empower our vision.  The Discernment Implementation Team has been meeting and prayerfully considering how we can be intentional about using our gifts and inviting people to join us.  Some of that may lead us to consider making changes to the facility, God’s building.  I wonder how often we find our ideas about what should or should not be done are based more on our own personal preferences than on discerning how God might desire for God’s house to be used?

            Please don’t misunderstand me.  We are not at a point of saying that God wants this or that done.  We are discerning God’s direction and while this building is ours in a temporal way and we are to be good stewards of it, ultimately it is God’s building not ours.  If we really believe that it is God’s building, does that affect the ways that we choose to use it?  Does that affect the choices that we make about how we change it? 

            In Haggai 1:7, he tells the people to give careful thought to their ways.  Perhaps we too need to pause from time to time to give careful thought to our ways as well.

Lesson 2: Worship God

            Haggai teaches us to avoid selfishness, but he also teaches us to worship God.  The whole purpose of rebuilding the temple is to build community and a place to worship God. In Haggai 2:11-14 we read of the need for sacrifice & worship before the Lord.  The people were defiled and so all that they touched became defiled as well.  They needed to present sacrifices to be purified and they needed to offer themselves before God. 

We might wonder about what seems to be a reversal of direction in Haggai’s instructions to rebuild the temple.  When David first suggested that the temple be built, God reminded the prophet Nathan in I Chronicles 17 that God had never asked for a house.  God was content to dwell in the tent of the tabernacle.  And David was not allowed to build the temple.  All he could do was gather the supplies for his son, Solomon, to build the temple.

And yet, while God remains the same, the times had changed.  The people were beaten down and scattered.  They needed a central place to offer their sacrifices in worship.  They needed a focal point for the dispersed Jews.

We don’t offer sacrifices in the same way that the returning exiles did.  Jesus has taken care of that for us, but we are still called to offer ourselves in worship of God.

            How often is coming to worship more about us than about God?  How often do we really come because we want to socialize with friends?  How often is it that we really come to fulfill our own emotional needs?  How often is it that we come because we like the image that this presents to others that we are Godly people?

            Now each of these things is not inherently bad in and of itself.  I hope that when we come to worship, we do enjoy spending time with one another.  I hope that when we come to worship, we are uplifted and encouraged.  I hope that when we come to worship, we do witness to our unbelieving friends about faithfulness to God.  And yet while these may be byproducts of coming together in worship, we must keep in mind that they are not ultimately the primary reason that we gather together.  We gather together to worship our Lord and Savior, our creator.

            This was an important lesson for me growing up.  Many of my most meaningful memories of worship came while I was at church camp.  Beginning in fourth grade, I started going to camp every summer.  And in so doing, I encountered God in powerful ways.   I made new friends.  I learned Bible stories.  We talked about how to apply our faith.  And we worshipped together multiple times a day with songs that I connected with.

            It was always a challenge then to leave camp and come home.  Not because home was a bad place.  But it wasn’t the spiritual mountain that I experienced at camp.  And worship in my home congregation wasn’t nearly as moving for me, especially the music.  It was difficult to go from upbeat guitar led camp songs to organ based droning hymns.

            Since then, I have grown in my understanding of worship.  While I hope to be touched or moved by times of worship, I also realize that ultimately it is not about me.  It is about God.  It is about offering ourselves before God in worship.  And in making that mental shift, I have learned to appreciate how a variety songs from upbeat camp songs to rich hymns can assist us in offering ourselves to the God of the universe.  It’s not so much about what we get out of it as what we give to God through it.       

Lesson 3: A Hopeful Future

            Haggai discourages selfishness and encourages worship of God.  I believe that he also gives hope for the future. In Haggai 1:13, God declares that God is with them.  Later in 2:5 God reminds them of God’s covenant with the people and tells them not to fear.  He then goes on to say that God will provide what they need to make the temple what it needs to be.

            The people of God had been beat down.  They had been defeated, watched the temple of God be destroyed, and been relocated.  When they returned, they did so to a land that was in shambles.  They were certainly discouraged and fractured.  And even though Haggai challenged their selfishness, he did so with a gentleness that we don’t see in the other prophets.  And he did so while mixing in words of hope for the future to come.

            Though we live as sinful people in need of grace, we believe in a God of hope.  God grants us hope for reconciliation with God and our neighbor.  God grants us hope in the midst of difficult circumstances.  God grants us hope for a future in which God is ultimately victorious over the powers of sin and death.

            The building of the temple was important for the people of the time and I’m sure that 2:9 was directed to those people.  And yet when we read this through our Christian lense and we read of a temple far greater through which there will be peace, it seems to me that it also serves as a symbol of what was to come in Christ. 

In John 2 Christ himself said to tear down this temple and I will raise it again in three days.  But scripture is clear that he was not referring to the building in Jerusalem.  He was referring to himself.  He was referring to himself as the temple of God and the victory that he would achieve through the resurrection.

            It is in that hope that Beth and I will be dedicating Silas to God later in the service.  God has entrusted Beth and I with Silas to care for him and to raise him to know God.  But ultimately as with our other 3 kids, we entrust him to God.  We offer him to God with hope for a future in which God will care for him and use him for God’s kingdom purposes.  Ultimately they are God’s.

            Friday night, I dropped Elam off at a friend’s house to play for a few hours.  Before letting him out of the van, I said two things to him.  “You know what?” which he knows the answer to is “I love you.” And “Remember whose you are” which he knows the answer to is God’s.

            We also dedicate him knowing that we alone cannot raise these children.  While Beth and I are their primary caregivers and teachers, we need the support and assistance of a community of faith to come along side us, support us, and aid us in raising these children.  An important part of this dedication service is the commitment of the congregation to join with us in raising these children.  That is significant, especially in this day and age, and we take hope in it.  As some say, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Conclusion

            We know little of Haggai himself, but we know much about the context into which he was speaking.  His central message to the people returning from exile was to rebuild the temple of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit he motivated them to action.  Within that message, we are encouraged to avoid selfishness, to worship God, and to have hope.  May we take these lessons to heart and may we share them with those that we encounter as we go from here.

Amen