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A Sermon by Donel McClellan
A Sermon by Donel McClellan
A Pilgrim People
Haggai 1:15-2:9; Luke 20:27-38 ‑ Fifth Sunday of Thanksgiving Season ‑
October 10, 2004
Haggai 1:15- 2:9
15On
the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month.
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:
2Speak 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,
3Who 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?
4Yet 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,
5according to the promise that I made you when you came out of
Egypt.
My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
6For 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;
7and 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.
8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.
9The 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.
Luke
20:27-38
Some SadduceesCthe
ones who claim there is no resurrectionCcame forward to pose this question: "Teacher, Moses wrote that if
a man's brother dies leaving a wife and no child, the brother should marry
the woman now widowed, to raise up children with her. Let's say that there
were seven brothers. The first one married and died childless. The second
brother then married the woman, then the third, and so on. All seven died
without leaving her any children. Finally the woman herself died. At the
resurrection, who will be her husband?
Remember,
seven married her."
Jesus said to them, "The children of this age marry each other, but
those judged worthy of a place in the age to come and of the resurrection
from the dead don't take husbands or wives. They can no longer die, like the
angelsCthey
are children of God,
since they are children of the resurrection. That the dead rise
again was even demonstrated by Moses when, in the passage about the bush, he
called the Most High 'the God of Sarah and Abraham, and the God of Rebecca
and Isaac, and the God of Leah and Rachel and Jacob.' God is not the God of
the dead,
but of the
living. All are alive to God."
You may
wonder what kind of sermon I am going to make out of those two scripture
lessons. Well I=ll
tell you honestly, I wonder as well. This is Celebration Sunday and it is
the first Sunday after an important election. Politically speaking some of
us are celebrating and others are still feeling the hollowness of loss in
their stomachs.
In other
words, we bring the same emotions to worship today as on other Sundays. The
Bible speaks to us of loss and rebuilding and of life after death.
Haggai was
one of the minor prophets. That has less to do with his popularity than the
length of his books. The major prophets have long books. The minor prophets
have short books.
Haggai was
writing to Jews who had returned to Jerusalem from exile. They remembered
the Temple in its full glory before the Babylonians destroyed it along with
much of Jerusalem. Now the temple was being rebuilt. They were at the
beginning of a construction project. People were depressed at the lack of
progress and nobody could imagine ever finishing it.
Haggai
brought a word of hope from the Lord.
AMy
spirit abides among you, do not fear . . . I will fill this house with
splendor . . . the silver is mine and the gold is mine . . . and in this
place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.@
It was
word enough, and the temple was rebuilt.
What was
Haggai=s
message? Simply that the God of your ancestors is still with you and will
guide you.
In the
gospel lesson some Sadducees confronted Jesus. They didn’t believe in the
resurrection so some wag suggested that was why they were sad you see. They
proposed a story problem to Jesus. And Jesus=
response countered with the knowledge that they didn’t even believe in the
resurrection.
What
happens to a woman who has married seven brothers after they all die? It=s
irrelevant, says Jesus, things will be different in the world of the
resurrection in which you Sadducees don=t
believe.
Then Jesus
gives them a lesson from the PentateuchCthe
first five books of the BibleCwhich
was the only authority they did accept. Do you remember that story of Moses
and the burning bush? Speaking out of the bush to Moses, God claims to be
the God of Sarah and Abraham, the God of Rebecca and Isaac, the God of
Rachael and Jacob. If God is their God long after they have died, then how
can they be dead? Jesus concludes
AGod
is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive to God@
Today we
gather to celebrate who we are and what we have received in this
congregation. We have felt that the spirit of God has been with us in the
building of this church and we dare to believe that God has already blessed
us with prosperity.
We also
dare to believe that our Creator, is the living God of all who are alive,
and, as well, of all who have moved on from this life. We do not believe
that God is particular in selecting some for blessing and not others. We do
not believe that because in our most honest moments we know that if God were
selective we wouldn’t have made the cut. We are blessed today and the Living
God is with us in this very moment. God is present in this life and in the
next.
Which
brings me to a story circulating in that secret Internet space occupied by
clergy:
Janet,
Linda and Geri went to the rodeo. Unfortunately a big bull jumped the fence
into the spectators and they were trampled.
Being good
God‑fearing women, they ascended to Heaven where they were met at the gate
by St. Peter.
He said,
"Welcome to Heaven, ladies. I must warn you that we do have our rules here.
If you break the rules, you will be punished. The main rule is, don't step
on a duck. If you step on a duck, the duck quacks, then they all quack, and
it just goes on and on."
That
sounded simple enough. They passed through the Pearly Gates and lo and
behold, there were ducks everywhere!
Soon,
Janet was hurrying along and she stepped on a duck. The duck quacked, then
they all quacked, and it was a terrible racket and it just went on and on.
Pretty
soon, here comes St. Peter with a homely little man in tow. "I warned you
that if you broke the rules you would be punished," he said, and bound the
homely little man to Janet with a short little piece of chain and said, "You
will be together forever". And he walked away.
A while
later, Linda stepped on a duck. The duck quacked, then they all quacked and
it was a terrible commotion that just went on and on. Here comes St. Peter
with an even homelier little man. "I warned you that if you broke the rules
you would be punished."
He chained
the little man to Linda with a short little piece of chain and said "You
will be together forever" and walked away.
Well, Geri
was very careful not to step on a duck.
One day,
St. Peter comes with a gorgeous hunk of man. He chained them together and
said "You will be together for eternity" and walked away.
Geri said
"Wow, I wonder what I did to deserve this?" "I don't know about you" said
the man, "but I stepped on a duck."
That=s
the scene in heaven, but here below, it seems to me, that we, too, live in a
world full of ducks. We have our pet ducks and folks who see religion and
politics differently have their pet ducks, and woe be unto anyone who steps
on one of our ducks.
The recent
election was an exercise in duck herding. Each side accused the other of
threatening their ducks. Each side portrayed the other as ruthless duck
hunters. Perhaps it is time to stop accusing one another and to start
listening to others to try to understand why they value their ducks so
highly.
This
congregation is seeking to be a place of healing, a listening community in
which people with different values can be in conversationCas
long as they respect those with alternate values. This is a place where
deeply cherished beliefs are held up to the traditions of saints and
scholars who have shaped the Christian faith over the centuries.
Clearly,
values are part of contemporary political rhetoric and faith needs to
respond. The values tossed around in the recent election are: protection of
the family, support for the sanctity of life, self-protection from enemies,
compassion for the poor and the elderly, co-operation with the community of
nations, a sense of justice to guide our nation as well as our relationships
with others, and a commitment to negotiation and peaceful persuasion as an
alternative to war.
The nation
is divided with some choosing one group of these values and others choosing
another.
A program
on the radio system of our neighbor to the north, CBC, comments that there
are two value clusters in the American experience. Traditional values
include capitalism, competition leading to the survival of the successful,
individualism, as-little-government-as-possible,
anyone-can-make-it-if-they-try, revenge against enemies, and
God's-blessing-for-the-chosen. These, says the commentary, are the
mainstream American values throughout our long history.
Then the
program suggested that so-called liberal values: toleration, the
embrace of diversity, institutionalized compassion, and peace through
negotiation, are not mainstream American values, but a brief divergence
possible by post-WW2 affluence.
In my
opinion, these emerging values, the, quote, liberal ones are more grounded
in the Christian faith as I see it.
A
professor of religion at Pacific Lutheran University, Patricia O'Connell
Killen, notes that wedge-issue-values in this election, do not affect
people's pocketbooks. Being against gay marriage is an identity marker but
does not involve much personal burden, expense or change of behaviorCunlike,
say, confronting poverty or protecting the environment.[i]
Cornel
West=s
new book, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism,
enlarges that idea when he notes that in American Christianity "....there is
hardly a mumbling word heard about social justice, resistance to
institutional evil, or courage to confront the powers that beCwith
the glaring exception of abortion."
I wonder
if we, in this congregation need to be in more conversations about values.
Perhaps we should acknowledge our ducks and learn about the ducks of one
another.
But
beneath our differences there lies a great commonality. As my friend Houston
Hodges reflected after admitting some grief following the election:
Regardless of the Wednesday morning news headlines, my grandkids
could get up that morning and go to good schools, in states both "Really
Red" and "Basically Blue." They slept that night safely and warmly, without
fear of midnight marauders. If they get sick, they'll have access to the
best medical treatment on the planet. They can buy clothes and junk food and
DVDs in more stores than they can browse in. On Sunday they get to go to
church, or to sleep in. Their parents have found work, when they chose, that
was respectable and rewarding. AndC
most important ‑‑ they can look forward to an activity called "voting," a
luxury in this world, and an amazing, reality‑changing innovation (and
gamble) dreamed up by people who had never been allowed to do that. They can
even vote for those who do not win, without fear of reprisal more serious
than the consequences of losing a bet at the office or the school. They live
in a country where regime changeCor
regime continuationCis
safe and free from violence, supervised by busy volunteers from their own
neighborhoods instead of people with helmets and automatic rifles.
[ii]
Ours is a
congregation of people who cherish American values. We also have a vision of
a better America and a better world based upon our understanding of the
teaching and life of Jesus Christ. We don=t
agree on every subject, but our common commitment to Jesus guides our
conversation.
Our
understanding of the truth is might well be directed by the advice of St.
Augustine to a student:
I wouldn't have you prepare for yourself any way of grasping and
holding the truth other than the one prepared by him who, as God, saw how
faltering were our steps. That way is, first, humility; second, humility;
third, humility; and as often as you ask, I'll tell you, humility.
[iii]
It is with
humility that we make our way into the future, assured that God will be with
us then as in the past and the present. In the wonderful words of the
Uniting Church of Australia:
We are a pilgrim people, always on the way toward a promised goal.
On the way Christ feeds us with word and sacramentsY
in order that we may not lose the way.
Our faith
is not in the certainty of our beliefs but in the God who blesses us, the
God who is the God of the living, both the church militant and the church
triumphant. That includes us and all those who came before us.
We come
now, in this present moment, to commit ourselves to the future by pledging
our support to this congregation of Christ=s
great Church and to its ministry and mission in 2005. I invite you to:
Give from the centerYof
your spirit;
Amen.
BENEDICTION
May God bless you with discomfort
May god bless you with anger at injustice,
May god bless you with tears to shed
May god bless you
Amen
[i].
Lance Dickie, Seattle Times editorial columnist, The new
religious voice of America's public culture, Seattle Times, Friday,
November 05, 2004 .
[ii].
Houston Hodges, Note #4296 from Houston Hodges to H SQUARE an Ecunet
Meeting
[iii].
Cited by David Domke, Bush's Victory Heralds Ascendancy of Religious
Right, Seattle Times, Friday, November 05, 2004
[iv].
From a sermon by Pat DeJong, pastor of the First Congregational
UCC of Berkeley, California. |