Epiphany I - Sunday January 8th, 2006
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
I hope you’ve read the information on the bulletin insert about Haggai. It saves my having to use sermon time to explain the book.
I refer to this passage for two reasons. One, this is essentially a new year’s sermon, a sermon about beginning new things as of this date; and the passage is also about beginning a new thing as of a very specific new date. Second, Haggai goes to great length to emphasize the correlation between a healthy relationship with God and a healthy relationship among people and the surroundings.
I don’t need to dwell on listing the great issues and problems of the day which beset us. I don’t need to tell you what your more personal problems are. Do you, nonetheless, see yourselves in Haggai’s description – “you have sown much [in non-agrarian language “put in a lot of effort”] but have brought in little; you keep eating but there isn’t enough to satisfy; you keep drinking but can’t even get drunk; you keep putting on more clothes but no one feels really comfortable; and the one who sells labour for a fee, works for a bag full of holes.” I am sure that not everyone here feels this way; I am equally sure that many do, if not now, at some time past, or some time future.
God says, “reflect upon your ways [the path you are taking to get where you are going and to live in the style you wish – your welfare]. That is a New Year’s injunction if ever I heard one – reflect upon your path so far: are you where you thought you were headed? Is this where you thought you’d be by now? Did you set out to take this path? I am not asking (although perhaps Haggai is) whether you are satisfied with where you are; only whether is this where you thought you’d be? Reflect upon this. Literally the expression is, “set your heart towards” these things (in Old Testament thinking, the heart was the seat of thought and intention; the stomach the place of emotion). Every week’s worship service should be an opportunity to set our hearts toward our paths, and God’s; an opportunity to reflect on matters.
Haggai is talking to people who have come to the homeland from places where farming is easier: “You have looked for much, but there is little here.” But that’s true of many of us, also, isn’t it? We are a society which expects much, in fact, ever more. Always the next thing, always the new thing, always more of something especially more new things. That’s what we crave. But compared with want we want, there is not nearly enough of whatever it is.
“Why is this?” asks God, rhetorically. Because God’s house [the Temple] lay desolate while everyone was assuring the welfare of their individual houses. The term “house” in Old Testament thought referred not just to the building; we would probably call it a “household,” referring to all the activity that goes on in it, and which ensues from it. The household in that society as in ours was the basic social and economic unit. God’s household therefore was the basic unit of the society as a whole, because it housed not only cultic practices and worship, but also the distribution of help to the needy, the diagnoses of many illnesses and prescriptions for them, the settling of many kinds of disputes (a quasi-judicial function), all of which had been mission in the exile. The criticism is not that the building is not in repair (although this was the fact); the criticism was that the community-building functions of the temple, connected with the worship of God, were being ignored, while people “ran around” in their own private homes.
The new thing being offered was the ability to be community again, community centered on God and radiating out from there with mercy and loving-kindness. God declares that because the people care not for each other as a whole nor for God (in Old Testament thinking, the same thing), they suffer from improvident nature which cares not for them, either. God challenges them to change their ways, and to give thought and time to the building up of the Temple and the community, so closely connected were they.
So the New Year’s message here is delivered to a different kind of society. While the church certainly contributes to the welfare of the community by our outreach programs, and aid to various kinds of needy people, we are not alone in so doing. There are hundreds of charities, and government does a lot. The provision of a sense of community is not necessarily keyed to institutional religious participation. But it is keyed to public expression of commonly held values, and I would urge that it is time for the religions to step forth and be clearly heard in those discussions.
After the Supreme Court’s decision recently that group sex cannot be prohibited simply because it offends “community standards,” the Globe and Mail, of all things, has asserted editorially that there must be a way to assert “common values and standards.” The editorial goes on to list a number of things which “it should not be impossible to say,” and laments that no one is saying them. “It is a remarkable fact that thought social and moral questions are some of the most pressing we face, public figures seldom talk about them.” It lists some beginning issues:
- What does community mean in the modern world?
- What is the role of the state, if any, in regulating morality?
- Is there even such a thing as public morals in a modern society?
It is clear that the editorial expects politicians to speak to the issues. There is no invitation to religious leaders. That’s not surprising. The conservative religious movement in the States, and fundamentalist Islam abroad, have painted other aspects of religion over, and have created the backlash that religions ought to be ignored or banned because they cause trouble.
Our Biblical heritage has two emphases. Whether we look at the Old Testament or the New, they are both there. One emphasis is the absolute rules, sometimes very specific, about theft, murder, hospitality, family responsibilities, the roles of men and women, adultery, commerce, legal hearings, diet, hygiene, homosexuality, and ownership of people and other property. We find those absolute standards emphasized in the New Testament in Paul and other early church writings, with lengthy lists of immoral behaviour.
But then we also find passages such as today’s in the Old Testament, in which the core instruction is, “set your heart toward your life’s direction.” Stop and think about it. Dedicate yourself to the worship of God and all the concern for the broader community that is supposed to go with it, and you (and the land) will prosper. It is probably significant that Haggai’s prophecies are contained in two chapters. Having said what he said, there is not much more to be said by the prophet. Subsequent words should come from the listeners.
And in Jesus’ teaching we see a similar emphasis. For example, (Matthew 5:27-32) “You have learned how it was said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say this to you: if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.…It has also been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal.’ But I say this to you: everyone who divorces his wife, except fornication, makes her an adulteress.” The punishment for adultery could be stoning to death, but to those who were preparing to stone someone, Jesus said, “Let the one without any sin be the first to cast a stone.” I think that the absolute rules have a place as an introduction. Learn these and you have an initial idea of the mind of God. But then, after we learn these rules and before we do anything about them, we should call ourselves to a time of silence and introspection and prayer. Honest to God, the first thing we should do in our daily lives is seek the Word of God in reading and prayer; the second thing is turn our hearts toward our life-paths and examine them; and only the third thing is act, both for our own good and for the common good, for we are commanded to love others as much as ourselves, and to love ourselves as much as others. Now let me tell you, this is a hard sell in an individualistic, fast-paced, action-oriented society, but it is the essential message!
I say, let conservative Christianity sound its message. They do it thoroughly and there is no reason we have to duplicate their effort. Let us, however, sound the other message, the one about reflection, setting our hearts toward our life directions. Let us offer not simple rules and codes; let us invite to deep investigation and centering on God.
If, out of that come community standards, well and good. But to have a democratic vote based on whether you like the rules or agree with them, well, we have long experience now of the tyranny of the majority as well as the tyranny of the minority. We can see the good and the bad in that way of doing things. What we can offer, rather than community standards upon which is based law, is ideals – life-long, committed relationships; honesty in our dealings; compassion and support for those who are not making it; help for those struck by disaster; companionship when being alone is the most frightening thing in the world. I don’t think you make laws about such things.
Let us set our hearts toward our life directions.
