"Contagious" (Holy 2:10-19)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3Lmw8DDMM&t=2233s

Sunday, January 24, 2021

 

            Prior to 2020, an ongoing debate between my wife and me had to do with handwashing and the transmission of germs.  She is maniacal, no, not maniacal; committed!  That’s the right word, committed. Long before anyone ever said the words “COVID-19,” my wife Candy was committed to fighting germs.  In her world, “Good morning” is something you say after you’ve confirmed everyone has indeed washed their hands. 

            A year into the COVID-19 situation, she wins the debate.  We all need to be committed to hand-washing and stopping the spread of the virus, a contagion unlike anything we’ve ever seen.  Interestingly, the Biblical prophet Haggai deals with the issue of what can be caught and what cannot be caught.

            In chapter 1 Haggai established the necessity of rebuilding the Jerusalem temple that had been destroyed when exile began.  Haggai and Zechariah come along after the exile with the message that it is time once again for Israel to answer call to live as God’s people through whom God will reveal Himself to the world. 

            Recall the Torah, the law, specifically Leviticus 19:2. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  That law had not changed in 520 BC, Haggai’s day. Israel was once again called to be holy.  The first order of business was to rebuild the temple.  This work would signal to the people of Israel and the surrounding nations that worship was the central, organizing activity around which community life revolved.  Haggai’s prodding got the work started, but then what?  Once they completed the temple, what would daily life be like for God’s people after exile?

            This question confronts everyone who believes in Jesus and follows him as Lord.  When gentiles realize we are ‘in Christ’ we understand that we too are a part of the people of God.  The command “be holy” applies to the way we live.  Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  Also, in that sermon, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).  Answering this divine call to holiness determines the direction of our lives.

            Is it possible?  Can we “be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect?”  Is it just a pipe dream to suppose we can be holy?  Haggai addresses this.  After he has inspired the people to overcome their fears and begin the temple work, he hints at what must be the foundation of life lived under God and in relationship with God.

            “Ask the priests,” he writes. “If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold [of that garment then] touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy?  The priests answered, ‘no’ (2:12).”  We 21^st century American Christians take communion.  If you were to ask me, the professional religionist of this church, after a communion service, ‘Is everyone who ate today’s communion bread now sinless,’ I would answer, ‘no.’  I believe the bread shows that we are forgiven.  Jesus has taken on himself the death sin brings.  But, after we walk away from  the Lord’s Supper, we make mistakes again.  We have been forgiven.  We have not achieved holiness. Touching something holy doesn’t make us holy.  Holiness is not contagious. Sin is.

            Next, in verse 13 Haggai asks, “’If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches [you], do [you] become unclean?’ The priests answered, ‘Yes.’”  So, while holiness does not rub off, impurity does.  Paul makes this point in his first letter to the Corinthian church.  Quoting a Greek proverb, he writes, “Bad company ruins good morals” (15:33).  Who we hang out with, what we watch, and the websites we visit and games play affect how we think and how we see the world. 

Sin draws us in, so that we forget to consider the Lord as we live in the places of everyday life.  20^th century theologian James McClendon defined sin as refusal to walk the way of Jesus, ruptures in the community (which is a rejection of God’s rule), and reversion to a life apart from God.[i]  We refuse God’s way, reject God’s rule and relegate God to limited spaces.  God lives in the church building and we visit him on Sundays.  Maybe, God is awake and active when our family prays before a meal, or while we are on a mission trip, or volunteering for a ministry.  The rest of the time, God is quiet, sitting off to the side and ignored.  We would say, O yes, Jesus is Lord.  However, we’ve caught the contagion: sin! So, Jesus is a quiet Lord who doesn’t have authority in our day-to-day lives.  Grace and righteousness are condescendingly patted on the head and set on the shelf.  Other values rule.

If we can’t catch holiness, and defilement rubs off on us like wet mud clinging to our shoes, what is do be done?  How do we wash off the profane and clothe ourselves with Christ’s gospel?

In verses 16-17, Haggai, as he did in chapter 1, points out the farming failures the people struggled with prior to working on the temple.  And in verses 18-19, Haggai notes how much better they fared once they laid the foundation for that temple.  What thread ties it together?  God’s involvement; “I struck … the products of your toil with blight” says the Lord, when the temple was a pile of rubble.  And after the people obeyed the prophet and began the work?  Haggai issued God’s promise.  “From this day on I will bless you.”

Holiness cannot be caught, except when issued by God.  Impurities, defilement, sin, deviations cannot be washed off, except when the one doing the washing is God.  The divine call in Haggai is an act of God’s grace.  God invites the people once again to be His people.  They did not accomplish this, but working hard in response to His grace, they did rebuild the temple and re-establish the worshiping community.  They received God’s blessing. They lived as God’s active partners with God as the initiator.  When God initiates the relationship and we respond obediently, God makes us holy. 

Church, we cannot stop the pandemic.  We can live responsibly, limit our indoor gatherings, socially distance, and wash our hands.  We can pray.  We must do all these things.

Church, we are powerless to root sin out of the world; moreover, we will catch the corrosive effects of life lived apart from God.  We will feel God’s absence, when under the influence of people who have refused God’s way, rejected God’s rule, and reverted to a life apart from God.  The godless life defiles us.  But then we remember that the God who promised to be present in Haggai has come to us in the  flesh in Jesus. 

He modeled the perfect human life, loving selflessly, teaching God’s wisdom, fulfilling God’s law, and doling out grace.  In his death he defeated sin, and in his resurrection, he overcame death.  He calls us to himself and fills us with the Holy Spirit.  He makes us right.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30, “Christ Jesus became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

 We don’t catch holiness, we receive it.  We turn to Jesus, he removes all that dirties and ruins us, and gives us sparkling, heavenly robes.  He is righteous and covers us with his righteousness so that we may exist with one another in relationships of love and peace. 

In recent days, a lot of talk about hope has been tied to a new president and to the arrival of vaccines.  We hear people pinning their hopes to these things.  We know the only real hope for the world is Jesus, the holy, eternal one who makes us new.  His holiness covers us. He gives us life and we live in Him. 

AMEN

---

[i] McClendon, J. (1994), Systematic Theology: Vol. 2: Doctrine, Abingdon Press (Nashville), p.130-135.

"The Desire of Nations" (Haggai 2:1-9)

 

watch here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jfVJefABJM

Sunday, January 17, 2020

 

            When you hear ‘Midas’, do you think of a tire company or a dangerously greedy King from ancient Greece? Or, do you think of a cliché?  He has the Midas touch.  So, he always wins and everything he touches turns to gold.  We kind of envy him.  Should we?  Do we remember the story?  ‘The Midas Touch” didn’t turn out so well for Midas. 

            King Midas was helpful to Silenus, a satyr and friend of the god Dionysus.  To reward the king for helping his friend, Dionysus granted him a wish, and Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.  He got what he thought desired.  Then supper time came.  King Midas had a hankering for a gyro.  He grabbed that pita bread, well, you try it.  Go ahead.  Take a bite out of solid gold.      Dionysus told Midas he would be freed of the blessing that turned out to be a curse if he bathed in Pactolus River.  If you go there today, in Turkey, you’ll find gold in that river.  Please, if you do this, don’t let yourself be taken with desire for that gold as Midas was.

            What do we desire?  Four years ago, a lot of voters wanted to see Democrats out of the White House.  Are they happy with what they got?  In the 2020 election, many of those same voters wanted change again and got it.  Will they be happy, now?  President Trump wanted his supporters to, using his words, “fight for him.”  Is he glad they did? 

            What do we desire?  In my dating life, before my wife Candy came along, I would meet a young woman and convince her to go out with me.  More than once, out on the date, I discovered a new desire.  I wanted the date to be over.  As wonderful as the young woman would be for someone, she and I were not good together.  I got what I wanted, the date with the girl, and then realized, I didn’t really want that, not with that girl. 

            What do we desire?  The high paying job?  What if we have to work twice as many hours, sacrificing family time?  What does the church desire?  More people coming through our doors?  Right now, if that happened, we’d have to close completely due limited occupancy forced by the pandemic.  But let’s say, after the pandemic, with no restrictions, we hold this desire to see immediate, substantial growth.  That might be great.  But what if, someone brings conflict with that makes it harder for us do the what God has given us to do?  Don’t misunderstand!  I do want to see us grow.  I want to reach new people, but numeric growth can’t be our ultimate desire.  We must long for God and his kingdom more than anything else.

            In 520 BC, as the people of God resettled Jerusalem after a 70-year exile, God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the governor Zerubbabel, and the high priest Joshua to lead the people to rebuild the temple.  In doing this, they would re-establish worship as the central activity of community life.  Everything would revolve around their relationship with God and that relationship was rooted in worship. 

            In Haggai 2, the prophet names a struggle they faced.  The elders remembered their childhood seventy years prior, when the temple stood and was admired by those who saw it.  Visitors brought great gifts from far and wide and gave them to the temple.  The oldest people in Jerusalem listening to Haggai remembered those glory days now long past. 

            Listening to the prophet and watching the young people lay the foundation for a new temple, their eyes filled with sad tears.  “Who among you saw this house in its former glory,” Haggai asked.  After exile, nations were not coming to Israel to see the temple.  They certainly weren’t leaving lavish gifts to show their appreciation.  “How does it look to you now,” Haggai continued.  “Is it as nothing in your sight” (2:3)?  This new temple was less glorious.  The good old days were gone. 

            We believe we know what we want, then we get it, and then, often, we end up disappointed.  Repeated disappointments kill our optimism.  We come to willingly accept diminished glory. We assume disappointment is inevitable. 

            Apart from God, it is!  The world is fallen.  Sin blankets the land because sin rules the human heart. Whatever natural disasters come our way, our worst struggles come from the selfish way we confront the world around us.  Take the pandemic.  The Coronavirus is not the worst happening of the year 2020.  The very worst is our inability to compassionately, cooperatively deal with challenges that confront us.  Sin, makes disappointment inevitable for us when live apart from God.  However we don’t have to live apart from God.

            This is at the heart of Haggai’s theology.  Of the beaten down returnees, he singled out the elders because once he spoke God’s word and turned their grief to joy, he knew the rest of the community would follow.  When the elders rejoiced, the younger people would take the cue and join in the celebration. 

            Once he named their disappointment, Haggai then slings a flurry of commands the people would be glad to heed as would we.  “Take courage!”  He says it to the governor, to the priest, and then to the people. Three times: take courage!  Ask any therapist.  It does take courage to name our pain, to face it, and then, to declare ourselves free from it.  We become so comfortable in our disappointment that we forget how to live with joy.  We fear the uncertainty of giving up our sorrow.

            Next Haggai commands, “Work!”  Why?  “For I am with you, says the Lord” (2:4).  “Do not fear” Haggai continues.  Why?  “[God’s] spirit abides among you” (2:5).  Haggai’s predecessor in the prophetic ranks, Ezekiel, hit on the worst aspect of the exile and the worst fate any human or society can face: God’s absence.  Exile felt like God had turned His back on his people.  During the pandemic, during protests and riots, and in other calamities, people inevitably ask, “Where is God?”  This question comes from the emptiness of feeling God’s absence.  But in Ezekiel 39:29 God promises, “I will never again hide my face … when I pour out my Spirit on Israel.”  And in Haggai God assures his people, I am with you.”

            After the commands and the promise, God then says through Haggai, “I will shake the heavens and the earth, so that the treasure of all nations will fill this house with splendor” (2:7).  It’s a promise that the very thing the older generation missed and was certain would not ever come again was in fact coming again.  The world will flood into Jerusalem to give glory to God. 

            I read the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which renders verse 7, ‘the treasure of all nations shall come.’  The New International Version renders it “the desire of all nations shall come.” One commentator believes when Haggai wrote this, he didn’t envision ambassadors from various kingdoms bringing gold and silver.  He had in mind the Messiah, the anointed one of God. 

            Whether Haggai and the people understood this promise to specifically anticipate a person, it is intriguing to think about the idea that Jesus as Messiah fulfills this promise because more than any other value or material prize, He satisfies our desires. 

If Haggai didn’t exactly have Jesus in mind, God, who inspired Haggai’s words knew what He was doing.  Haggai, filled with God’s spirit, knew God was going to do something they had never seen.  Sit with that.  We’ve repeated the question, what do we desire?  I hope we understand what Midas learned so painfully, that our desires require more than gold or material riches to be fulfilled.  We need to know God is with us and is for us.  The promise of presence lay at the heart of Haggai’s prophecy.  God says, “In this place I will give prosperity.”  We need to desire God.

God’s presence dramatically changes the world.  “I will shake up the heavens and the earth,” we hear God say in Haggai (2:6).  When Jesus died on the cross, this temple so necessary in 520 BC, shook.  The curtain separating the holy of holies from the people tore in half.  God would no longer hide, but in the risen Christ would walk among the people, giving new life.  When the women approached the tomb, angels came, the earth trembled, the stone rolled aside, and they saw that death had been forever beaten. 

I don’t know how you would answer the question, what do we desire?  I am not completely sure I know how I would answer.  I know that Jesus – God in the flesh, our Savior and Lord – satisfies our desires as only God can.  He is the desire of nations and the joy of our hearts.

Be aware of your striving.  Bring to mind what you desire most.  See it.  Then set it aside for a moment, and in its place pursue Jesus.  Open yourself to Him, all your disappointments, mistakes, broken dreams, and uncertainties.  Hold it all before Him.  Ask Him to meet you right where you are.  Ask Him to lead you to where He wants you to be.  It’ll shake you up.  He does that.  It will rock your world.  You’ll never be the same.  And you won’t want to be.

AMEN

"Stirred Up" (Haggai 1:12-15)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEXEakKWBds

Sunday, January 10, 2020

 

            We read the Bible to hear God and relate to God.  It’s not the only way we relate to God.  Throughout the New Testament and throughout church history we see the Holy Spirit speak in dreams and directly to believers’ spirits.  Romans 1 confirms that God speaks through nature.  God can speak through a preacher’s sermon.  There are countless ways to hear God.  The Bible is the one way that is shared by all believers.  We all have the same Bible.  We don’t just read it just to say we read it. We read to hear God and grow in our relationship with God.  Hold onto that word, ‘relationship,’ because that’s the main idea.

            As I read Haggai 1 this past week, two incidents helped me hear God speak to this specific moment in history. First, Tuesday night out elders met.  We feel impatient at home, socially distanced due to spread of the very dangerous Coronavirus.  We want life to open up!  With initial roll out of vaccines, in my mind I jumped ahead of where are.  I began imagining us conducting ministries as we had before the pandemic began.  I imagined us doing that very soon. It is the pastor’s job to lay out for the church a path for achieving that imagined future. 

            We’re just not there yet.  Yes, vaccines are here.  However, with family gatherings around the holidays and colder weather driving more and more folks inside, breathing one another’s air, the number of cases has spiked.  I hear people argue that COVID-19 has been hyped up, and it’s not as bad the media make it out to be, and it’s no worse than a bad strain of the flu.  Cases have risen so sharply in North Carolina; we are running low on ICU in beds.  Just let that sink in; here in North Carolina, we could run out of ICU slots.  Vaccines are here.  One day, COVID-19 will be behind us.  We aren’t there yet, and right now it has gotten worse.

            Our elders did their job Tuesday.  They guided the pastor.  They helped me see the situation as it currently is.  It was sobering for me, but also hopeful.  We are doing good in the middle of the pandemic.  We host the food pantry and blood banks.  We stay connected through streaming worship and Zoom Bible studies.  God has enable us to make financial contributions to other ministries in our area.  God is working through Hillside Church to bless Chapel Hill.

            I am thankful God speaks through our elders.  Reflecting on that meeting, I realize God was speaking to me then.  God spoke through them to me, but also showed me how He is speaking to all of us through the words of scripture.  We need to bring our hearts along when we read Haggai 1.  If we willingly read with our full selves, emotions and all, we will be stirred up by Haggai.

            Speaking of being stirred up … after that Tuesday night meeting came Wednesday.  Refusing to accept the results of an election that have been affirmed by dozens of court decisions, rowdy supporters of Donald Trump gathered on Wednesday on the National Mall in Washington DC.  Riled up by the defiant words of the president himself, they stormed the U.S. capitol.  The videos we all watched on the news over and over of our own congress having to shelter in place because of violent insurrection have horrified us. 

            I had one church member say in a group conversation on Zoom, “I am sure Rob is going to talk about this Sunday.”  After she said that, how could I not?  Another member said she spent the day weeping as she watched the videos and digested the images of chaos and violence and disrespect of our democracy.  How could I not address this?

            What struck me on Friday is how easily the real issue comes to the fore when held alongside what’s happening in Haggai.  As we read last week, Haggai reports God’s frustration that His people were dragging their heels in rebuilding the temple.  Rebuilding the temple would put worship back at the center of Israelite community life.  Worship is the primary context for us to live in relationship with God.  There’s that word again, ‘relationship.’ Humans were created to worship God.  We were made for relationship with God. 

            After hearing Haggai, Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua obeyed the Lord.  These leaders led the people to worship God.  Haggai then writes that the remnant, not an overwhelming mass of people, but the small group who remained followed the governor and high priest’s lead.  They obeyed God. 

            God responded to this overture of worship and reverence from the people with a promise.  “I am with you,” God said.  This is one of the foundational assurances of the Bible.  It’s not a guarantee that all that’s wrong is fixed in the blink of an eye.  It’s the promise that the living God will not abandon us in the face of the storm.  Instead, God stays with us, holding us, even in the darkest hour.

            After that promise of presence, Haggai writes that the Spirit of Lord stirred up Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua and the people.  Stirred by God’s spirit, they got to work.  By the time Haggai’s protégé, the prophet Zechariah was writing his prophecy, the new temple was ready to be dedicated.  Stirred by God, the people did the work they previously thought was too hard. 

            Now, let this improbable temple building work stand side-by-side with what happened at the capital.  We need to be stirred up.  However, who is doing the stirring?  I don’t endorse candidates or political parties.  I know in our church we have Republicans, Democrats, independents, swing voters, and people who hate politics.  If you think you know my politics, you might be surprised. 

On Wednesday, a group of mostly white people, allowed themselves to be stirred up by Donald Trump to the point that they committed an act terrorism and insurrection.  If there is justice, every person who crossed the barricades will be tried and convicted of acts of terror on American soil.  Our senators and representatives, doing their jobs, representing us, were literally terrified by supporters of our president.

            We need to be stirred up, as the people in Haggai were stirred up, but by whom?.  Who motivates us to act?  Who we listen to shows what we do when we’re inspired.

            Campaigning, before he was ever elected, Donald Trump bragged about grabbing women and dragging them around by the vagina, but he used a much crasser term than vagina.  Also, he openly mocked a reporter who has a disability.  How, in the 21^st century, can we tolerate a leader, who mocks people with disabilities?  Tolerate?   We made him president and then followed his lead in making a mockery of our cherished democracy.

When white supremacists held a rally that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump insisted there were “good people” among the white supremacists, avowed racists.  He refused to condemn white supremacy.  Later in his presidency, when given the opportunity to do so, he again refused to condemn white supremacy, and he has embraced the endorsement and support of racists. 

He decried nations in Africa as “Shit-hole” countries.  I am sure someone is unhappy to hear a pastor say “shit” in the sermon.  I am equally sure the people offended by me did not utter a word of condemnation when the president said it.  I am quoting him.  I have visited more than one African country and have traveled to the continent 10 times as well meeting scores of Africans here in the U.S.  I don’t know where the president gets the idea that these are shit-hole countries.  Some of the most beautiful, proud, welcoming people I know and count as life-long friends are Africans who follow Jesus with a dedication I pray I could come close to matching.  They’re not shit-holes.  You’re wrong Mr.  President.  I know from experience.

If I said any of the things he said, I’d be fired, and should be.  The mess in Washington on Wednesday happened because too many of us have allowed ourselves to be stirred up this president.  Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua and the people were stirred up the Holy Spirit.

What does it look like when we are stirred up by the Spirit?  Temples get built.  Churches figure out how to do worship and small group and stay as safe as possible in the midst of a dangerous, contagious, worldwide pandemic.  Food pantries and Blood banks, happen at the church.  The church of Jesus Christ is known for doing good and loving people.

I see in our church people stirred up by the Spirit.  We are doing vital ministry while at the same time showing patience and discovering new ways to be God’s church.  Stirred by the Spirit, we call out evil.  What happened at the capital last week, a mob following the whims of a foolish, self-serving, self-promoting president, was evil.  We name it. 

Stirred up by the Spirit, we welcome people of different political stripes and viewpoints.  We come together in the death and resurrection of the one we all love and follow, our Lord, Jesus Christ. 

Stirred up by the Spirit, we stand in confidence, knowing that our God is with us, we are His people, He secures our future, and He holds us in His arms.  No politics, no event, no pandemic can disrupt our relationship with God in Christ.  That defines who we are.

Church, we exist to worship and serve Jesus, and to share his gospel.  We love others, follow him, spread hope, and help people God sends to us find their own way into relationship with him.

AMEN 

"What Time is It?" (Haggai 1:1-11)

 

watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK5Y5upBEIQ

Sunday, January 3, 2021

 

            What time is it?

            It’s the first Sunday of the year, so it time for resolutions?  I’m going to lose weight.  This year, I’ll read the Bible more.  I’m going to be kinder.  I am going to watch less tv and read more books.  I’ll exercise five times a week.  I’ll learn a new hobby.  I’ll discover creativity.  Happy new year!

            Resolutions indicate that we think change is needed in our lives.  We need to start over.  Why?  We’ve gotten off track.  The problem is if you’ve failed at New Year’s resolutions enough times, maybe you’ve given up on the idea of starting over.  Maybe you don’t think things can change.  Maybe you’ve settled upon just grinding through whatever miseries come.  That’s not a resurrection mindset, but it is one many churchgoers have.

            We worship and we talk about the great love of God.  Our sins are nailed to Jesus’ cross.  He rose, conquering death, and he invites us to join him in resurrection.  It’s the ultimate do-over. We earnestly declare that we believe this. 

            Do we really?  Do we live like forgiveness and second chances actually happen?  Or, are we resigned to the notion that things will always be how they are now and any hope for change is just a recipe for disappointment?  Can there be anything actually new in the New Year?

            What time is it?

            Don’t we at least believe that as we put the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 in the rearview mirror 2021 will be a little better?  A little easier?  We harbor no big ambitions, just a possibility that we’ll see slight gains with the myriad frustrations of 2020 behind us.  Here’s a small ‘hurray’ for tempered expectations.

            January 3, 2021: what time is it?

            In Haggai, a small book of prophecy near the back of the Old Testament, we find debate what time it is.  Haggai quotes God who quotes the people who say, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house” (Haggai 1:2). 

            The most influential people of Jerusalem society – priests, wealthy families, and the royal household -  were exiled to Babylon in 586 BC.  Haggai, one of the most precisely dated books in either testament comes along almost 70 years later.  The first of the four messages is dated the first day of the 6^th month, Elul, or August 29, 520 B.C.

            A lot happened in 70 years.  The Persians defeated the Babylonians, and the Persians had a different policy regarding the people they conquered.  They wanted the Jews to return to Israel and re-establish worship of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Originally the centerpiece of Israelite religious practice had been the law, Torah, and the land.  Then Solomon built a house for God.  Solomon’s temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world.  Israelite faith found a home in the temple.  There were Psalms written specifically for the time of year when they go up to Jerusalem to worship in the temple.  God is all-powerful.  God could be worshiped anywhere, and was.  But there was something special about the temple. Then Babylon burned Jerusalem and destroyed that temple.

            Haggai along with 2^nd Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Isaiah chapters 56-66, and the prophet Zechariah, as well as some of the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, give us the story and the perspective of Israel, after exile.  The exile is over.  Now what do the people of God do?  What time is it?  The Pandemic is about to be over?  Now what do we do?

            Haggai quoted God who quoted the people who said, “It’s not yet time to rebuild the temple.”  What time is it?  Was it just too exhausting for those who returned from exile, tired and haggard, to think about rebuilding?  They would get re-established in life and then get to the temple, eventually. 

            It’s not time to build the temple just yet.  Really, God asked.  Then what time is it?  God asked, “Is it time for you yourselves to live in paneled houses while the Lord’s house lies in ruins” (1:4)?  I don’t want to hear Haggai ask me these questions.  I don’t want to squirm under God’s scrutinizing gaze. 

God is love.  God is compassion.  God takes us as we are.  That doesn’t mean we tell God how things are.  God tells us how things are and God tells us who we are.  God told those returning exiles, “You have [planted a lot] but harvested very little; you have clothes but are not warm enough; you earn wages, but then put your coins in bags with holes. … The heavens have withheld rain and the earth has withheld produce” (v.6, 10-11). 

Rebuilding is long, hard work, and sometimes it seems impossibly big.  We’ll never get there.  That’s how it looks.  But God’s point to his people in Haggai is their struggles are directly tied to their neglect of living out their faith in God.  That neglect is seen in their failure to rebuild the temple.  “Why is there no rain?” God asks.  “Why won’t crops grow?  Because my house lies in ruins while all of you hurry off to your own houses” (1:9).  Things won’t be right until that pile of ash and stone is replaced with a rebuilt temple.  Rebuilding shows that the people trust God.

Standing at the threshold of a new year and a new time, Haggai interrogates us.  What do we see?  Are we focused on the pain and loss of the past year, or the potential of the new?  Are we occupied with the mess the world is in or with the creative power of God who brings order out of chaos? Are we paralyzed by depressing piles of rubble, or energized to do the rebuilding work God has given us?

Haggai interrogates us.  One of Israel’s points of devastating failure came when the nation entrusted herself to alliances with more powerful neighboring nations instead of putting her in trust in the all-powerful God.  Who do we trust?  Of course, we wear masks and socially distance and will get the vaccine and do all the necessary things to live safely.  However, the question stands.  In whom do we put our ultimate trust?  The governor of North Carolina, or the North Carolina secretary of health, Mandy Cohen?  Ourselves?  In whom do we trust?

What time is it?  What do we see?  Who do we trust?

Haggai, speaking on August 29, 520 B.C. wanted the people of God to give their full allegiance to God and find their sense life in God by rebuilding the temple.  At the dawn of the 2021, the people of God are to give full allegiance to Him, and we are to find our life in Him. 

We know from Romans and other New Testament writings that in Christ we, the church, are included among the people of God.  We know from the Gospels that all the purposes of the temple find fulfillment in Christ.  We know from 1 Corinthians that we, the church, are the body of Christ, submitted to the Holy Spirit  Empowered by that Spirit, we do the work of sharing Jesus with the world.

It’s time for us to be the church.  Of course, we sit with people in their messes, but we don’t leave them there.  Of course, we hold the hands of those who mourn and weep with them, but we know joy, not tears, are the end of the story when we are in Christ.  This week I talked with a friend, another pastor here in Chapel Hill.  He’s had several members die of COVID-19.  It has been a hard, hard year for him and his church.  But he holds on to the resurrection because he’s in Christ.  In Christ, it is always time for new life and new creation. 

What time is it?  It is time for us to be the church.  It is time for Hillside Church to discover God’s vision for us.  It’s time for us to lean into the vision.  We are a community of witnesses who testify to all the ways we are blessed by Jesus.  It is time for us to love others and share Gospel hope with Chapel Hill.

The name Haggai means ‘feast.’  Those beaten-down Jews straggling back to Israel from their Babylonian captivity saw their homeland devasted.  Filled with grief, celebration was the furthest thing from their minds.  They didn’t feel like they were in any condition to begin something new. 

God thought otherwise. God sent a man named ‘feast’ to tell them a new day had dawned, a day that belonged to the Lord of the feast.  I am here to announce that in Chapel Hill, at Hillside Church, a new day is dawning.  We won’t have a potluck supper next month, but it is coming.  In our hearts, in our minds, and in our mental orientation, we, right now, are to begin preparing to embrace God’s purpose for us as His people. 

Following the prophet named ‘Feast,’ we end up at the feet of the Savior, Jesus, the giver of abundant life.  The prophet insisted the temple be rebuilt.  Jesus our Lord is the fulfillment of the temple’s purpose and we meet God in Him.

We are His people.  So, we must ready ourselves.  What time is it?  It is time, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to proclaim salvation in Jesus, to gather in His name, to uplift the hurting and downcast, and to joyfully build his community, his church.  This is His time and we are His people.  We have His work to do.  Let’s do it with joy.

AMEN

Pray Like God Hears You and the Community Matters

 

Pray Like God Hears You (1-5-2020)

            Pray like God hears you and our community matters.

            OK, what’s this about?  It’s the first of Monday of the New Year.  I went for a walk through the neighborhood that’s adjacent to our church’s lot.  We are surrounded by neighbors of varying stories.  The hundreds of people who live within a quarterback’s throw of our property are characterized by diversity: income diversity, racial diversity, political diversity, varying family set-ups, religious diversity, and education diversity. 

            As I walked through the neighborhood and thought about it and prayed for the people who live there, a thought hit me. So, I posed my thought as a question to God.  “Why can’t three or four of these households, people who are currently unchurched, find their way to Jesus at Hillside church in 2021?” 

            We – the Hillside Church family – need to pray like we think God is listening.  We need to commit ourselves to this in 2021.  We can pray about many things, but one item that must be a priority among our many prayers, is a concern for the lost and unchurched of Chapel Hill.  We need to pray that God will show us how to reach the people right around us with the message and love of Jesus. 

            Many of our neighbors are in churches on Sundays.  Many more are not.  Those are the ones we want to reach with Jesus’ love.  God longs for these who are indifferent to faith and worship to turn to Him.  We are His messengers, commissioned to love people and help them find their way to Jesus. 

            This has to be more than a nice newsletter article from the pastor, something easily discarded and forgotten. We have to make prayer one of the centering activities of our lives so that our lives wouldn’t make sense apart from prayer.  For the story of the salvation of 100’s around us and for the story of our own church’s faithfulness to God’s call, we must commit to prayer and witness. 

            As you pray and share your faith, I request that you add a special emphasis for Chapel Hill, and specifically the people who live within 1 mile of our church’s property.  Our town has a reputation for being erudite, snobby, godless, materialistic, and decadent.  The reputation gets overstated as many followers of Jesus do live here.  Yet the grain of truth in the stereotype serves to remind us that Chapel Hill is our mission field.  Our primary mission is to help people meet Jesus and become his disciples.  In 2021, we – the people of Hillside – recommit to full dedication to our mission, one we carry out with hope and joy.