I recently finished reading the book, Gilead written by Marilynne Robinson. When I
began this book I wasn’t really sure if I liked it, it was one of those books I randomly picked up at the bookstore,
not knowing much about it and not really thinking much about it. But I am very
glad that I picked this book up, it has been a wonderful tale of a dying minister, the third in the line of his family, and
how they all spent their days, grandfather, father and son, preaching in a small town on the plane. The tales of the grandfather helping with abolition, and the fathers search for understanding, but the
tale is mainly about the son, for the son is writing this journal for his son. The
entire book is a journal for his young son, who he will never see grow up.
I mention this book now, because when thinking about our text from Haggai today, there
is a depiction of a church that I couldn’t get out of my mind. Every time
I tried to move on from it, I was brought back, so here it is for you:
“I was speaking of visions. I remember
once when I was a young child my father helped to pull down a church that had burned.
Lightning struck the steeple, and then the steeple fell into the building. It
rained the day we came to pull it down. The pulpit was left intact, standing
there in the rain, but the pews were mostly kindling. There was a lot of praising
the Lord that happened at midnight on a Tuesday. It was a warm day, a warm
rain, and there was no real shelter, so everybody ignored it, more or less. All
kinds of people came to help. It was like a camp meeting and a picnic. They unhitched the horses, and we younger children lay on an old quilt under the wagon out of the way and
talked and played marbles, and watched the older boys and the men clamber over the ruins, searching out Bibles and hymnals. They would sing the Old Rugged Cross and the wind would blow the rain in gusts and
the spray would reach us where we were. It was cooler than the rain was. The rain falling on the wagon bed sounded the way it does in an attic eave. It never rains, but I remember that day. And when they had
gathered up all the books that were ruined, they made two graves for them, and put the Bibles in one and the hymnals in the
other, and then the minister whose church it was, said a prayer over them…”
This entry continues on, and is brought back in later, when the father brings the son
a piece of bread and describes a moment for him that was like receiving communion from his father. I share this excerpt with you because it brings an image to my mind, of a beloved church, a place where
God was the central focus point, and even though the church had burned down, the people still gathered on that spot. They gathered from congregations all over town to help a people clean up their church,
it didn’t matter what faith they were or which denomination they preferred, they saw a need and came together in the
rain to clean up the ruins of a church that had been their home. They sang songs
and worshiped together, and a young boy who is now an old man recalls a moment when he was in communion with God through his
father.
What is church? What is Haggai talking
about when calling for the rebuilding of a temple? To enter this text from a
place of understanding it is important to know the background in which Haggai is preaching.
The Old Testament tells us of the exile of the people of God into foreign lands, Haggai takes place after the people
have been returned from exile. In fact, they have been back for many years, and
yet the temple remains uncompleted. When they had left for the exile the Lord’s
temple had been destroyed, and upon returning there was a little work done, but from what we have written, the people stopped
rebuilding the temples, and our text today tells us a little about what they were doing instead.
The people had turned inward, and not in a self-discovery kind of way. The people had put themselves first; they had stopped working on the temple, and instead were making their
own homes as perfect as could be. They were focusing on themselves, they added
all the best stuff to their own lives, and ignored the temple. As our passage
today discusses the people were consuming much, but not being filled, they were drinking and eating, but never feeling satisfied,
they collected money and it just was wasted. They were completely consumed with
themselves, even to the point of paneling their homes, which was something very rarely seen in Biblical times, Solomon’s’
temple was paneled if that gives you an indication of how lavish the people were being towards themselves.
It is here where Haggai through God’s direction steps in and says, enough is
enough, you will continue to squander everything unless you see the need for finishing the temple. Haggai shows the people how important it is for the temple to be finished, and unless they take the time
to focus on the worshiping of God, they will never find what is missing from their lives.
The people had spent years in a place they didn’t want to be, and they probably never fully allowed themselves
to see what God was doing in them and through them. So when they finally returned
home, they were relieved, they probably wanted to settle in and make things feel as close to home as possible. It isn’t that hard to understand. I know I for one tend
to rush through change, the faster I can transition through things the better, but that’s not what God is calling them
or us to do. God called them back home, to make it home. To prepare to be there for a long time, in other words they had all the time in the world to settle back
in to home, so why not do things right? But instead of thanking God for returning
them to their homes, they ignored God, and ignored the unfinished temple. They
picked up their lives and almost took over from where their ancestors left off; it was almost as if they hadn’t learned
a thing, that in those years of exile, they never really were able to grasp the importance of it.
I have to admit, churches are a difficult thing.
People work so hard for their money, and when they are finding it hard to figure out how to pay the bills each month,
the idea of giving money to the church or to other important causes is such an impossible decision. It really is. So how do we bridge that gap? It is easy to say that it was God who made it possible for us, to have our jobs and the ability to
work. By giving, we are responding to what God has given us. But to truly practice that is an entirely different thing. It
is at this point that we remember the message of Haggai that we can work as hard as we want, and consume all that we want,
but it won’t fill us, it won’t give us what we need, because what we need, is to worship God.
We are nearing the end of our time of stewardship this year, always one of the harder
times of the year, this is when the stewardship team tries to figure out how the church is going to be able to provide for
all of the important things that we are called to do. But what is this church
called to do and to be. Years have been spent seeking the answer to that question,
and yet the question always needs to be asked. As the long range, committee and
property committee begin to look at the report that the architect presented, this question of what is Beckley Presbyterian
Church being called to be in this community and in the world. How can we best
serve this community through our church buildings and our programs? What do we
really need to have? What is important?
The questions can go on forever. But the
reality is there is only one answer to all of them. We need to be the church
that God has called us to be, we need to be a place where we worship God, where we encourage each other and the community,
where we spend time reflecting on what God has done for us and through us. But
most of all we need to remember that we are only here because God called us to be here.
In church, we can so quickly get caught up with the competition of becoming the best church in town with the best facilities
and the best programming and the greatest increase in membership, but that isn’t what God is asking us to be.
As in Haggai where the people became more concerned with making sure their homes were
in order, the foundation of the issue was that they were putting God last. And
by trying to be the biggest and the best, perhaps we are forgetting to put God first as well.
Is it more important to be filled to capacity or to know that each person under our care is growing deeper in his or
her relationship with God? That this church is the city upon the hill, that is
open and accessible to all, and that at the heart of the city, is a true desire to seek God and to love God.
I think back to how I began today, with the community gathering to clean up the church
that had burned to the ground. There is no talk of tears, or people being afraid,
or angry, there is only mention of people helping. Of people coming together
to help. Instead of tears, there were random bouts of praise and singing. People were stopped in their tracks more to witness how God was moving among these
people instead of them stopping in their grief, and instead of them stopping to talk about how much this would cost. The people praised God in a moment of what could have been great despair; they continued
to see that space as a place to worship God. The mention of the pulpit still
standing amongst the ruined pews, that imagery is remarkable. I could almost
interpret that picture as God saying, hey even if there are no people here, God’s word will still be spoken and preached,
that people can gather on this spot to worship God. Without the need of hymnals
and without pews to sit in, without a piano or organ, without talk of money, people can gather to worship me.
The first verse of our scripture today says, “These people say the time has not
yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house” how many volumes can that one verse say?
It was the people’s excuses that caused the delay in the rebuilding of the temple, it is the people’s excuses
that often cause God to be put behind all of the things that we deem more important.
So the question now is, what did the people do as a response to Haggai’s message? They rebuilt the temple. The book of
Haggai takes place within a three-month period. From the beginning of the book
where the people were paying no attention to the temple at all, until the end of the book, which is 3 months later where they
are, being told that they have done good in their efforts to rebuild the temple. The
people responded to Haggai immediately, which is something that isn’t often heard within the scripture that people acted
right away instead of delaying the inevitable for as long as possible. Take hope
in the words of Haggai that God is with us, and that as long as we put God first, amazing and remarkable things will take
place. Let God guide us in becoming the place that we have been called to be.
It is times of great transition and change when God can be heard the loudest, if we
allow ourselves to hear. So I encourage us all to listen and to hear God in these
moments, these moments when we finish our stewardship drive and in these moments when we seek also the guidance on how to
be good stewards of our land and our buildings. For God is guiding us, we just
need to listen, listen like those who were returned from exile and told it is time to put God first and to rebuild the temple
so that we are reminded to worship. Not because that is the only place God dwells
but because it is an example of remembering God and the amazing things God has done for us already.
Rev. Janice M. Tiedeck
