Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors, wk7 - Haggai & Zechariah

READINGS/
Haggai; Zechariah 1:1-6, 16-17; 8:1-12 and 9:9-10

SERMON/

‘Rebuilding your broken world’: 

Haggai and Zechariah, God’s encouragers

Let’s pray: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

A friend and I have an ongoing joke. One of the things we like doing when we manage to grab time together is just hanging out:
you know - having a pizza, solving world peace, and then, seeing if there’s a movie on the telly
or some such. Inevitably one or the other of us will pick up the ‘doofer’ – or whatever you call it in your own home – and start flicking through the channels.

The problem is, we have quite different taste when it comes to movies.
Then it depends what mood we’re in:
do we really want to watch that important, yet very earnest and worthy film,
or do we want something lighter?
Can we cope with the bloodthirstiness of an action film,
or do we want something gentler?
Comedy?
Musical?
Eventually, all avenues are gone through and we turn to a tv programme
that tends to be on at any given time –
so the joke is, that when all else fails,
you can always depend on ‘Grand Designs’.
I confess to being a bit of a fan.
While there are a whole host of new home designs that are planned and built,
it’s the projects that deal with restoration that grab my attention:
from 16th century tithe barns,
Victorian life-boat sheds,
to underground water containers,
to ancient, crumbling small castles...
it’s amazing to see the imagination and ingenuity put into each of these
restoration and rebuilding projects.
And, while at the beginning of the project there’s a lot of rubble and debris,
and often various difficulties along the way,
for the most part, the end result is usually stunning.

Our readings this morning find us in Jerusalem in the year 520 BC...
Around 70 years before this, the Babylonians had
defeated the Southern Kingdom of Judah,
destroyed Jerusalem and the temple,
and taken away into captivity large numbers of the population:
the ruling elite, the professional classes, artists, musicians, and artisans.
All were taken to Babylon.
But Babylon eventually fell to the Persian Empire,
and, their leader, Cyrus the Great, released the captives –
or, at least, those who were by now mostly descended from the original captives.
Eventually they make their way back to Jerusalem...

I wonder what it would have felt like?
Initially, perhaps relief and joy:
they are no longer captives, but free.
Perhaps a sense of hopefulness:
they can go home –
although for most of them, the only home they’ve ever known
is the might and majesty of the largest city in the then-known world, Babylon.
Off they travel, back to the land of their fathers and mothers.
42 360 of them.
As mile upon dusty mile is travelled, what are their dreams, their expectations?
When they finally arrive, they have to watch how they go:
they find themselves walking through rubble and debris –
the signs of a conquering army and its destruction of the city all around them.
As they pick their way through the remains of the shattered city,
I wonder if any of it is familiar to those who were young when taken away,
and who, by now, are very elderly?

The great city is a ruin, although, in some places, those who were left behind,
and others who have moved into the area,
have made their homes among the wreckage.
They live there, just getting on with it.
They watch as the exiles return – resenting these new intruders.
There may be trouble.
As the exiles look around at the ruined city, and remember the grandeur of Babylon,
how many were thinking that they’d rather go back?
How many felt helpless and overwhelmed?
But things could change.
The ruins could be cleared.
It didn’t have to stay this way...
And so they begin:
they make shelters,
begin to lay the foundations for the temple.
At some point, however, what with hostile neighbours to contend with
and wanting to get themselves sorted, the plan to fix the temple comes to a halt.
Years pass.
And into the ruins of this once great city come Haggai and Zechariah.
They’ve got a word from God.

Haggai is the first prophet to minister to God’s people after their exile.
For a period of 16 weeks he proclaims God’s message.
Essentially it boils down to this:
‘okay, you’ve come back.
You’ve begun to settle.
You’ve made homes for yourselves,
begun to plant crops,
to tend vines,
to restore the olive groves.
You’ve sorted out the live-stock.
In fact, you’ve been so focused upon yourselves
that you’ve forgotten to look at the bigger picture.
Now you’ve got all these things,
you’re discovering that you’re not quite satisfied.
Life’s not just about meeting the physical needs:
you are my people...
that empty, niggling, unsatisfied part
is because you’ve forgotten the spiritual needs.
You’ve forgotten me in the midst of all of the other stuff.
You’re not going to feel whole, 
fully restored as a people,
until you put me into the picture.’

And so, God, through Haggai, calls upon the people to rebuild the temple:
a symbol of God’s presence with them.
The physical presence of the building acting as an encouragement to them –
reminding them of who they are and who they belong to.
They are the people who were chosen,
they were the people who God rescued from slavery,
they are people of the promise,
in relationship with the Maker of all things and the restorer of all.
God doesn’t need a house –
but God knows that the building will be a symbol of the relationship
between him and them.
Visible confirmation
that God is with them every step of the way,
that God is with them even in the broken, ruined places,
and that God will be there with them,
cheering them on,
loving them,
telling them how great they are,
and that, yes, they can do this...
that they will prosper again.

Zechariah, too, talks of restoration:
rebuilding the temple, and restoring the relationship between God and his people.
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
The broken city will be rebuilt,
a broken people will be restored.
There’s lovely encouragement within the vision of Zechariah,
‘old men and old women will come back...
sit on benches on the streets, share stories,
move around safely with their canes.’
This, in the context of so much previous conflict, that many didn’t make it to old age.
But here we have the restored Jerusalem as
‘a good city to grow old in.’
It’s not just a good place for the elderly:
boys and girls will fill parks, will play and laugh...
the restored Jerusalem is shown as
‘a good city to grow up in.’
And more encouragement:
if the present situation looks overwhelming,
when you keep seeing all the many challenges and problems,
and you don’t have enough people,
and it’s all feeling just a wee bit too much...
God says:
‘Is anything too much for me?’
And the answer is ‘no.’
God will bless his people,
they and the city will be restored from out of the ruins.
All that has been broken will be healed, made whole...
And, in God’s right time,
he will raise up a new kind of king –
not a proud, war-like, arrogant king but one who is humble –
who rides the donkey, not the war-horse...
who will bring restoration and peace
not only to Jerusalem and her people,
but will restore wholeness and well-being and peace to the whole world.
God’s grand design goes beyond just a temple being restored:
we’re talking nothing less than everything.
The exiles listen to Haggai and to Zechariah:
the temple is rebuilt,
the worshipping life of the community can now more fully take place –
a symbol of the restored relationship between God and his people.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, as I look around me,
it feels as if so many things are broken:
governments are in chaos; [c.f. scenes from HofC Tues evening: PM's statement]
the rule of law seems on shaky ground;
the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it ever was;
general human decency and compassion seem to have taken a bit of a beating...
almost as if there’s an undercurrent willing us to tear everything down,
to tear one another apart.
A broken world...
where the basic foundations have crumbled.
That’s the wider situation.

And what of the Church?
I wonder, how many of us feel it’s broken?
Once there seemed to be a golden age:
pews were filled,
there were children and young people everywhere...
And all we can see now are empty spaces,
the wider church shrinking,
going into survival mode,
telling stories of the good old days,
or hunkering down with the thought:
‘as long as it sees me out’
and not quite prepared to make the radical changes needed
to see that it’s fit for purpose in these current days,
or to look ahead to the future.
Sometimes, it can feel like we’re standing in the ruins of the temple...

And then, how many of us just feel broken –
feeling as if our own life is in tatters,
feeling that we’re walking in our own ruins?
To this broken world,
to this broken church,
into our broken lives...
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
Just as God reminded his exiled people in Jerusalem
that he loved them,
that he was with them,
and that they would be restored,
so God reminds his modern day followers that same message:
the God of the Ages is with us.
If we feel that the present situation looks overwhelming,
if we can only see the challenges and problems,
if it’s all feeling just a wee bit too much...
God says:
‘Is anything too much for me?’
And the answer is ‘no.’
God will bless his people:
the world,
the church,
each one of us...
will be restored from out of the ruins.
All that has been broken will be healed, made whole.
And, God has raised up that new king spoken of so long ago to the returned exiles:
that king rode a donkey into Jerusalem –
to shouts of acclamation and waving of palms.
The birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of that king
meant restoration for us all,
and that, in him, we have become living stones –
a new kind of temple not made out of rock, but of flesh and blood;
God’s grand design created and made in love
and called to be a sign and symbol among the ruins -
of ongoing restoration,
of the building of God’s kingdom,
built upon the foundation of God’s love,
a place where the broken are mended, restored, and given new life.

As we look around at our world,
at the church
at our lives –
nothing is impossible for God to restore,
for we worship the God of the grand design
who, from out of brokenness, creates beauty.
It is that same God who calls us to be a community of restoration -
of rebuilding:
the world,
the church,
and broken hearts and lives.
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
And calls us to care enough to get involved in the mess with him.
Without God, nothing is possible.
With God, nothing is impossible.
Our sign and symbol is Jesus.
And we do that great work he calls us to
in and through the power of God’s Spirit.
Walking with God, and with one another –
encouraged by each other –
we build a place where it is good to grow old,
and good to grow up:
where all feel safe,
where all can play,
where all are restored
for all live in the knowledge of the power
of God’s love. Amen.