Yearly Archives: 2013

Trusting a Dream: Haggai 2

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Bust of the Prophet Haggai by GIovanni Pisano, last quarter of the 13th Century

Bust of the Prophet Haggai by Giovanni Pisano, last quarter of the 13th Century

Haggai 2

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

 10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 11 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling: 12 If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered, “Yes, it becomes unclean.”

 14 Haggai then said, So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, says the LORD; and so with every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. 15 But now, consider what will come to pass from this day on. Before a stone was placed upon a stone in the LORD’s temple, 16 how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD. 18 Consider from this day on, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider: 19 Is there any seed left in the barn? Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? From this day on I will bless you.

 20 The word of the LORD came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month: 21 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22 and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade. 23 On that day, says the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the LORD, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the LORD of hosts.

 

It is easy to start a project, but when something is going to take a while it may be harder to bring it to completion. For example, many people make New Years Resolutions, few manage to keep them throughout the year. Weight loss either through exercise or diet works really well on the front end, but most people quit and never make the changes that are necessary to prevent the weight from returning. A long building project may start out great, but if it takes more than a couple weekends it may begin occupying space in the garage. I have started a project of going through the book of Jeremiah, all 52 chapters and I’m reluctant to publish anything until I get far enough in to be confident I might actually finish it (or my place of authority work which is currently in a season of writers block because I really am not at the point where I feel confident in my own position to write about what should logically come next, the Rise of Islam). Well in Haggai, the people and the leaders in Judah are re-embarking on a long term construction project with the temple. It is not going to go together overnight or even in a year, but they have begun. God here is encouraging them that he will be with them through this project, that they will be blessed in this project and that ultimately the silver and gold of the nations will come to fill the house with splendor.

This is a people who has dealt with drought and they are having to learn to think in a new way. In a drought you go into survival mode, you hoard what you have, but God is trying to take them into a way of living with enough, or maybe even abundance. A way of living where they can focus on something that can be used by everyone. It is a much more civic and theologically minded approach to living. There is some benefit to the temple for everyone, and the people will be blessed in and through its construction.

A couple thoughts: Haggai definitely works from what is sometimes called a Deuteronomic theology “If you do good you will be blessed, if you do evil you will be cursed” this is not the New Testament’s predominant theology, but I do think we do need to consider it. In what ways do our actions and the ways in which we live effect our wealth, status, happiness, etc… There is obviously not a one to one correlation, and often those who live the most righteous appearing lives seem to suffer the most, but God appears to believe that our actions are important for God’s plans and that God will add his work to the work the people are doing.

One of the dynamics that may be functioning is the dynamic of memory. Some of the older people may remember the temple torn down by the Babylonians, and the temple being built is ‘as nothing’ and this happens in churches as well. “I remember the way it was when I grew up” and while the memories may be good they can also be dangerous. Any time our memory of the past is greater than our hope for the future we are approaching the point of despair. I know people who grasp for a past that is no longer present and fear the present and future, but there are no time machines and we are a people who are future oriented not past oriented.

As W. Eugene March correctly states, “Although the main concern of Haggai the prophet was the rebuilding and rededication of a relatively insignificant temple in a small district in the backwaters of the Persian Empire (at least as far as the world would have judged it), the real issue is worldwide domination of the Lord of hosts.” (Achtemeier, Elizabeth et. al 1999, 7:731) The larger church I am a part of for the last couple of years has used the slogan, “God’s work, our hands” and this is one of those times where the work of our hands may seem insignificant but we trust that the  impact may be larger than what we know.  Just as it may not seem like Zerubbabel is not very significant, but in God’s eyes he is chosen, a signet ring. Maybe it is only a dream, and that is always the risk of trusting and faith, but it is a dream worth having.

purple rose 01 by picsofflowers.blogspot.com

Build the House: Haggai 1

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Russian Icon of the Holy Prophet Haggai

Russian Icon of the Holy Prophet Haggai

Haggai 1

                 In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD’s house. 3 Then the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.

               7 Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD. 9 You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals, and on all their labors.

                12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the LORD. 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, saying, I am with you, says the LORD. 14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month.

One of the shorter books in the bible, one of the 12 Minor Prophets[i] Haggai speaks to the people of God with the voice of the Lord and unlike many of the other prophets the people listen. To set the scene this entire short book takes place in the span of about 3 ½ months roughly 18 years after the return of the exiles from Babylon (I deal briefly with this in The Place of Authority:  A Brief History Part 4:Re-establishment, Disillusionment and Germination) This is the period covered in the book of Ezra, and it is also the time of the prophet Zechariah.[ii]When the people who returned from the exile in Babylon came back the land was not vacant, many of the poorer people had been left behind to farm the land and so when the people came back there was some period of time where people were “re-claiming” their family lands (or dispossessing others already working the land), hence a focus on individuals rebuilding their houses.  To put this all in context, the land of Judah is a small territory within the larger Persian empire at this point (roughly the size of Rhode Island) which is sparsely populated (this is an agrarian society) with land that is not producing well. Haggai’s message is one predominantly of hope coming from the difficult situation of coming together as a post-exilic[iii] people. (Haggai fixes the time of each oracle precisely, unlike most prophets and most scholars seem to agree that the record we have comes from shortly after this point. By our reckoning the first date mentioned in verse 1 is August 29, 520 BCE, and work begins on September 21, 520 BCE. (Actemeier, Elizabeth et. al 1999, 7:711) The re-settlement of Judah has stalled, the people have become focused on their own problems and the temple begun at the beginning of the resettlement remains a great unfinished project, a daily reminder of their weakness in the midst of the nations that surround them. The people have settled into a communal depression where they have settled in and are doing what they feel they need to do, and yet it takes something new to bring them out of this. Haggai, Zechariah, Zerubbabel, and Joshua are all used by the Lord to turn this situation around.

Haggai is a person with no known heritage, unlike Zerubbabel and Joshua we don’t know his family or where he comes from, all we have is the message. The message we have here is like splashing your face with ice water, it is designed to wake up the people, to shake them out of their slumber. It, like all the prophets, is more poetry than dissertation. Haggai is not interested in a debate about when God causes hardship and famines; rather he is focused on the behavior God desires from the people. God desires to dwell among them; God would take pleasure in the temple.  Relatively quickly the people do come together, work resumes, and the Spirit of the Lord stirs up the leadership. In this post-exilic period the prophet is actually heard and the prophet-king-priest triumvirate work together and the work begins.

purple rose 01 by picsofflowers.blogspot.com

[i] I follow the delineation of minor verses major prophets where Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are Major Prophets by the size of their respective works (Isaiah 65 chapters, Jeremiah 52 +5 in Lamentations, and Ezekiel 48) where the Minor Prophets recorded works are significantly shorter. This is not a value judgment on the importance of their words. Daniel is typically classed by Hebrew scholars as a part of the writings rather than being place with either the major or minor prophets.

[ii] Zechariah and Haggai are explicitly mentioned in Ezra 5:1 as prophets working at the same time for the re-establishment of the temple.

[iii] Post-exilic in this context refers to the time after the Babylonian exile which took place beginning in 597BCE, with a more substantial portion of the population taken in 587BCE, post-exilic begins in 538 BCE with the rise of the Persian empire)

Starting Over Again…

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sunrise-among-snow

I am restarting my efforts, and so I’ve redone the look of the blog and I’m going to go in a new direction, at least for a while. I really enjoyed some of the historical work I did in many of my previous posts, as well as the work with Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability, but ultimately I reached a block…for the Place of Authority work the next logical step would be to look at the rise of Islam in the 600s, but that and the period that follows are areas that I need to do more reading in before I feel adequate to give a post that I feel could be fair. I still think it is important work and perhaps I’ll return to it but for now I need to start writing again.

Going forward I plan on working on a couple different things: much of my writing lately has been working with scriptural texts and trying to bring together a sense of the world of the text and our modern world. Blogging allows me to combine some of these things with my fascination with art and so my goal is to do two chapters a week over several posts and then supplement these with posts of other short topics and ideas that come to me as I read, listen and live. I may integrate some of the ideas I glean from fiction, things like TED talks, reading from other sources or reflection on some of the experiences I’ve had. In all of this I don’t claim to be the expert, but rather one person trying to engage my faith and the world in which I live. The scriptural work is not intended to be a running commentary, although it will have some elements that a commentary would and I will be engaging other’s work as I read, but rather it is more a meditation. I also may include sermons for the times when I do preach, but I am attempting to do this as a learning tool for me, not as some hard fast rule that I feel guilty for breaking. As a full time pastor and a single dad, my time is not always my own, so if I don’t maintain the pace I intend, I hope that I can come back to this and extend myself a little grace.

Before I started again I wanted to make sure I had some work ready to go, for times when I might fall behind, so as a preview we will start with some of the lesser encountered parts of scripture: first up will be the book of Haggai, one of the post-exilic prophets, then Esther a story set in the Jewish diaspora of the post-exilic time (if you didn’t understand post-exilic and diaspora don’t despair, I will explain that in each of those words and more as we engage the writings) and then the major prophet Jeremiah. I’ve got a fair amount done in each of the three, and how I did it evolved but rather than go back and rewrite Haggai or some of the early Jeremiah work I am simply going to allow it to show its evolution as I go.

If you have followed me before and waited for me to post since November, I hope you enjoy this. If you are encountering this for the first time welcome.

purple rose 01 by picsofflowers.blogspot.com