Readings

by Rick Dietrich

"Hey, Guys!"

I am re-reading with profit — this pun is also intended; your forgiveness is always appreciated — the book of Haggai. It’s a little book, only two chapters—a modest book for a minor prophet. Haggai is a prophet, so he does demand reform, but he doesn’t seem to be yelling about it. He is nothing like Amos—at least to my ear.

The circumstances of the book are clear and can be simply stated. The exile has ended. At least some of the exiles have returned to Jerusalem. In fact, they have been back for some time; but the temple remains in ruins. When Hosea speaks, eighteen years after the return, it is still a hole in the ground.

This doesn’t mean that it’s been a bad eighteen years for the local building trades. Housing starts, at least, have been through the roof—to make another bad pun. The temple may remain a ruin, but the people live in “paneled houses” (1:4), that is, well built and well furnished. It maybe safer to say, however, that housing starts were through the roof, for now the exiles are experiencing an economic downturn. The prophet attributes this to their neglect of the temple. Because of that neglect, God has sent a drought. God has “called for a drought upon the land and the hills, upon the grain, then new wine, the oil, upon what the ground brings forth, upon men . . . and upon all their labors” (1:11, RSV).

There doesn’t, however, seem to be a record of an actual drought at the time. So, I an wondering, this time through the book, if Haggai isn’t writing metaphorically of the people’s experience of not having enough. That is certainly their experience: “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 he who earns wages . . . [puts] them into a bag with holes” (1:6).

Perhaps I’m tempted to read the book this way, because it makes the inhabitants of Haggai’s Jerusalem more like us. Our neglects haven’t resulted in economic ruin—at least not yet. We live in a time of much more plenty than want, most of us. We eat until we’re full . . . and fat. We drink until we’re satisfied . . . and reeling. We have clothes enough to keep us . . . and to spare. I have ten pairs of shoes in my closet and at least as many sport coats. Still, we cry out, afraid we don’t have enough! Haggai helps us understand why: we have become so centered on our own houses that we cannot see beyond them.

See beyond, the prophet counsels. Get out of your houses. “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build [God’s] house” (1:8). To their credit, the people do so. Yet they are disappointed. For they are aware, as soon as they go to work on the temple, that whatever energy they are willing to expend, it is not going begin to equal the grandeur of Solomon’s temple (2:3). They were right all along. The golden age has gone.

The golden age is gone. Compared with the glories of the past, the present is always something of a disappointment.

If we rely on ourselves. We are never as strong as our fathers and mothers. But, Haggai says, we cannot rely on ourselves. In effect: if our work on our own houses didn’t please us, our work on God’s house won’t please us either. Nor will it satisfy God. But, if the people are not able to bring true glory to the temple, God can. God will—because he promises as much: “I am with you,” God tells those who have turned out to help with the rebuilding (2:4). “Do not be afraid” (2:5); I am with you.

God is not only with us, Haggai declares. God is about to shake us up. Indeed, God will “shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and [God] will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations will come in” to fill the new temple. For, “the silver is mine, and the gold is mine,” God says. The “latter splendor of this house” won’t be “greater than the former,” God tells the people, because of anything you can do, but because I will make it so.

Finally, the gold and the silver that the nations have relied on— that we rely on—are not theirs. They are not ours. They are God’s, and he will not only take the silver and the gold. He will not only shake the nations; he will shake “the heavens and the earth,” overturning “royal thrones,” shattering “the power of the … kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots, and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall … .” (2:21-22, NIV) But, continue to look to my house, God says, for “in this place I will grant peace” (2:9).

May it be so.