Friday, November 04, 2016

Towards Sunday, Nov 6, 2016

Reading:  Haggai 1:15b - 2:9 
 
Sometimes God’s promises seem slow in coming.  In 539 BCE when the people of Israel returned from exile, they happily recalled God’s promise through Ezekiel and Isaiah that the temple of God would be rebuilt, that God’s presence would be restored among them, and that their land would once again prosper.


But then almost an entire generation passed.  Nothing was rebuilt; their land was plagued with drought; they suffered inflation, depression and continued ruin.  In this situation, Haggai challenges the people to remember and to trust God’s promise, and history records that they responded – laying the foundation for the Second Temple that was more magnificent than the first, and that stood at the heart of their kingdom until the time of King Herod and Jesus.


The "first thoughts" this week are really late coming ... I think because they circle around some really tough questions for believers of any kind in today's world.

The reading today is a word of hope and encouragement to people who are stuck in depression and doubt, to trust again and to build on the promises of God to restore their land, their well-being and their place as leaders of hope in the world.  And what I notice in the reading is the number of times Haggai, the prophet of hope, uses the phrase "says the Lord" (or some variation of it) to contrast the promises of God against the questions, doubts and depressions of the day.  By my count, nine times in just nine verses.

On one hand, Haggai makes it clear he is not just cheer-leading; he is inviting the people to choose again to live towards the future God will bring about, and be part of its coming.

But on the other hand, I remember as a student in the early 70's at the University of Winnipeg hearing William Stringfellow, a visiting American Christian lawyer and anti-Vietnam-War activist tell us that whenever we hear American conservative evangelical leaders back up their support to the American war effort with the words "the Bible says," we should know they are lying through their teeth.

And today the question of who in the world speaks for God -- or at least speaks an honest word of God for today, is only more intense and serious as religious fundamentalists take up arms, and terrorists make use of religious language and propaganda to grow their movement.


According to an interview published just this month in The Observer, this is one of the realities that led Rev. Gretta Vosper to stop believing in, and speaking of a God who speaks or of an authoritative Word of God at all.  I can see the logic, but I am not happy with that solution or conclusion.  It sounds like a disappointing decision by a University Senate some years ago -- when faced with the request to replace overtly Christian prayers at University Convocations with something more inclusive, to simply eliminate prayers altogether.  The dirty bathwater was gone, but so was the baby and the chance of anything new being nurtured.

To my mind, the questions remain and they demand honest answers.  Does God speak a word for today?  Is it, as we believe, a word of hope and encouragement -- a word of love and of life?  And how do any of us really know it, speak it and live it in ways that are good for the world and good for the day in which we live?

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