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The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 25)
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The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Haggai 1:1-2:9
A Sermon by
Fr. Austin
on
Haggai 1:1-2:9
✛
Lessons from the Prophet Haggai
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The book of the prophet Haggai is one of the shortest books in the Bible—in the Old Testament, only Obadiah is shorter. We were supposed to memorize the order of the biblical books when we were in seminary; Professor Corney would point out how it is rather disedifying for the priest to be fumbling about at the lectern, trying to find, say, Haggai, and not really knowing where to look. So, we can all learn this together. Haggai is the third-to-last book of the Old Testament. It is one of the twelve “minor prophets”; they’re called “minor” because their books are shorter than those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the like. Yet although minor and short, Haggai has a significant message. He is worth our attention.
Here’s the setting. The year is 520 B.C. We are in Jerusalem, the people having returned from their exile of roughly half a century in Babylonia. They have been back long enough to rebuild their homes and to return to the business of living. But one building project has languished, and that is the temple. We are speaking of the glorious temple built by King Solomon some four centuries earlier, the temple which had cedar from Lebanon, gold from all over, and which was a feast for all the senses. But when the people had been conquered and deported to Babylon, their captors laid waste the temple. The book of Lamentations cries out their grief: “The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; yea, she has seen the nations invade her sanctuary” [1:10]; “The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; . . . a clamor was raised in the house of the Lord” [2:7]; “What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? . . . For vast as the sea is your ruin; who can restore you?” [2:13].
The people have returned, and they have built houses for themselves, and they have gone back to farming and wage labor and so forth, but, Haggai says in his first prophecy, the house of the Lord still lies waste, and because they are neglecting it, their crops are small, their wages inadequate, their food does not satisfy, their clothing does not keep them warm. Rebuild the temple! That is Haggai’s cry.
Haggai’s short book contains five precisely dated oracles. They all occur within less than four months in the latter part of the year 520 B.C. But the year as Haggai gives it to us is the second year of Darius the king, and Darius is the gentile, non-Jewish foreign ruler over them. Haggai has learned realism in exile; he acknowledges the actuality of foreign rule over Israel. He does not pretend there is still a putative Jewish king whose rule could be used as a reference for the dating of events.
Haggai addresses his oracles to two leaders: to Zerubbabel, who is the governor of Judah, and to Joshua, who is the high priest. Their names are mentioned together five times in today’s reading, and never is one mentioned without the other. Prophets of earlier times spoke to the kings of Judah and Israel. But there is no king of Judah, and what Haggai has to say needs to be heard by both the governor and the high priest.
And that message again is: rebuild the temple! In response to Haggai’s first oracle, Zerubbabel and Joshua respond with obedience. And before we are even told what that response was—that is to say, before we are told anything that they actually did—we have another prophecy from Haggai, and it is a word of encouragement: I am with you, saith the Lord [1:13]. And then the book tells us that the Lord stirred up everyone’s spirit and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. This too is dated, and it’s just 23 days after Haggai’s initial prophecy.
About 27 days later (again, it’s dated), Haggai utters his third prophecy. Again, it is a word of encouragement. Be strong, the Lord says, for I am with you. And God promises that in a little while he will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; God promises even that he will shake all nations; and then: the desire of all nations shall come. That’s God’s way of speaking of himself: the desire of all nations. He, whom all the peoples of the world desire (even though they do not know him), he will come to his temple. So he promises: I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. Everything in the world belongs to God. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.
How vast is this encouragement! God promises even that the glory of the temple, as they are rebuilding it, will be greater than the former, and that in this place the Lord will give peace.
+++
There are several things to learn from Haggai.
- History matters; dates matter; what actual people do in actual places matters. On this date in this place under the rule of this (foreign) king, God spoke to his people. Haggai wants us to appreciate the actual historicity of this.
- God’s people often live in difficult circumstances. Father Spurlock last week, in a sermon based on events before this return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple, asked the question, How can we live as Christians in New York City today? Haggai signals to us that he has learned about living as a stranger in a strange land by dating his prophecies to the rule of the foreign king Darius, who had rule over Jerusalem still.
- We need only respond with obedience to God—just to start to move towards God is immediately followed by God stirring within us and strengthening us and moving us to do good. We cannot see the end of our labors; we need only begin, and God takes care of the rest.
- Even when God reproves us, God’s word turns into an encouraging word. The whole book of Haggai has five oracles from God. Only in the first one does God reprove the people for their neglect of the temple. In all the rest, God gives encouragement. Correction is an important piece of what God does for us, but it is only a small piece of the larger picture of what God is doing for us.
- The Lord is the one true king. He is the desire of the nations. He is going to come. In the meantime we may live under Babylonian oppression, or we may be allowed some autonomy and given help to build and have places of worship. But the true king, the true Caesar, the governor of all things, he will come, and when he does, all the world will come to him in obedience, in thanksgiving, in joy.
