2nd Step towards Sun, Nov 10

Scripture:    Haggai 1:15b - 2:9 and Psalm 145: 1-5, 8-9, 17-22
Sermon:       Faithful Remembrance, Faithful Hope

Still the Haggai and Psalm readings ... just a little more focused thought about them ...

Haggai and his people are struggling with their failure to rebuild the temple after such high hopes and good intentions.  Haggai could lay on the guilt; he could also try to goad them into working harder.  Instead, he offers good news that things will happen when God shakes the world.  He reminds his people it's not just a matter of human effort and will; it's a matter of waiting for and then living in tune with whatever new thing God is doing.

Question: do we really want God to shake the world?  What if it also means a shaking up of us and what we believe?

Case in point might be Psalm 145.  Most of it sounds like a normal thank-you-for-saving-us-from-our-enemies kind of psalm, celebrating God's special love for the chosen people against any who would do them harm.  But then there's that bit in the middle (vv. 8-9) that suggests God's love is not just special for the chosen people, but universal for all people and all Earth ... so that the wicked who are done away with in v. 20 are no longer just enemies of the chosen people, but any people (chosen or not) who oppose and act against God's love for all people and for Earth. 

It seems "the old-time religion" of God-is-on-the-side-of-us-chosen-people is being shaken up a bit here, and a doorway is being opened to a new way of knowing God.

Question:  as we consider our own frustrations today at not being able to build or rebuild the church, the country and the world that we want after all the changes and losses of the last generation and the last century, what holy shaking-up are we seeing in our time?  And what new ways of knowing God are we being called to accept?