Rev. Jon Greene, Deacon
Grace Episcopal Church, Radford, VA
November 10, 2019
Proper 27 Year C
Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38
May change bring hope, may hope bring love, may love bring change!
“Take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you.”
That’s what God tells the Jews about rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem in our Old Testament text from the Book of Haggai today.”
“Take courage…work, for I am with you.”
That’s a good practical prophecy. I can deal with that.
One of my continuing challenges in my formation as a deacon has been my practicality.
You see, I believe that faith must lead to action.
Jesus, after all, didn’t teach us much about the mysteries of the universe, although he hints at some of it in today’s Gospel; mostly, he taught us how to live…here…in this life.
Put another way, we are here at Grace for an hour or so a week…if that time, if what we believe, doesn’t change the way we live the other 167 hours of the week, what’s the point?
That’s where I’m coming from…
I’ve got to tell you, that Deacon School, wasn’t always that practical.
Now it’s not seminary, and we didn’t learn Greek or Aramaic, but they did teach us a lot of big words.
We’d learn words like “paraclete”—that means “the Holy Spirit” or “Parousia”—that means the “second coming of Christ” or “pericope”—that means a passage of the Bible.
Maybe some of you have done enough reading on theology or biblical studies that you’ve heard of these words, but I had not when I started.
Now, I’m not exactly sure why we use these words other than to maybe check and see if we did our homework.
And once in a while, we in the clergy are expected to slip these sort of words in our sermons to impress you with how learned we are.
So, in my effort to impress you today, I’m going to throw out another big word. It’s “eschatology”—and that’s the study of what comes after this world, the end of the world or the end of times.
Now both our epistle and Gospel readings today have to do with eschatology.
The second letter to the Thessalonians discusses the appearance of a “lawless one” prior to the return of Christ.
And in the Gospel of Luke the author quotes Jesus explaining how the next life is different from this one.
My reaction to all this is: eschatology/schmeschatology
It’s not that I don’t care, I’d really love to know about the end of times and life after death.
I’ve got questions.
How will the Christ reappear?
And, of course the big one, will there be dogs in heaven?
And, I have to wonder, if there are dogs in heaven, what about cats, squirrels and birds?
And what about those thousands of stinkbugs I have squashed, vacuumed or thrown outside into the cold?
The point is not that I’m not interested.
The point isn’t that I don’t have questions.
The point IS that we’ve been arguing about this stuff for 2000 years and we haven’t got very far.
The point IS that we’ve got work to do, right here and now.
I don’t have time to waste preaching on that stuff and you don’t have time to waste listening to me.
Haggai, on the other hand, gives me some text I can work with.
“Take courage…work, for I am with you.”
Now tell the truth, some of you saw the reading from “Haggai” and thought to yourself, “Is that in the Bible?”
In fairness, it’s not a very long book, two or three pages depending on the version and near the end of the Old Testament sandwiched between Zephaniah and Zechariah.
Haggai was a later prophet. He prophesied between August and December 520 BC when the Jews had just returned from exile in Babylon.[1]
and remember that the Babylonians destroyed the temple in 586 BC as they sent the Jews into exile.[2]
So, 66 years later, they were back in Jerusalem with the task of rebuilding the temple.
Now big projects like that can seem like they will never get done and it’s easy to get discouraged.
And it sounds like, as they looked on what they are building, they were disappointed and concerned that it wouldn’t measure up to the temple that was destroyed.
Haggai even says, “Is it not in your sight as nothing?”
But Haggai reminds them that they aren’t building the old temple. They are building the new one and it “shall be greater than the former.”
Take courage…work, for I am with you.
These are words that we should take to heart in today’s situation.
Take courage…work, for I am with you.
Because these are days that we need to take courage and we have much work to do.
It is no secret that the Church is not what it once was.
I wasn’t here to see it, I know many of you were, but I can walk the halls of Grace and see clear evidence that this parish was, at one point, full of children and young families.
Not so much, anymore.
Bigger picture, it is easy to find articles predicting the demise of Christianity. A quick google search turned up articles entitled:
· Christianity as we know it is dying
· Church Attendance is dying.
· Church as we know it is over
· 7 subtle signs your church is dying.
· The church is dead.
· Three symptoms of a dying church
· The Death of the Church as we know it
It’s depressing.
It is apparent that the old way of being the Church doesn’t work like it used to.
We are getting smaller and we are getting older.
If we just keeping doing things the way we’ve always done it, it is reasonable to assume we will get smaller and older still.
This diocese closed a church in Bluefield last year and there are a handful of small parishes that are really just hanging on.
While we in the Episcopal Church aren’t in as bad a shape as the Church of England, there are articles discussing the “extinction” of the Church of England.[3]
Imagine that, EXTINCTION of the Church of England.
In these times we need to take courage and work, for God is with us.
You see, like the Jews in 520 BC, we too, are rebuilding the temple.
We are rebuilding the church.
We aren’t where the Jews were in 520BC. They were starting from ground zero.
We have a lot to build on, but still we are rebuilding, rebuilding a church that will work for the context in which we now find ourselves.
You may say, “How are we doing that? I’m just sitting here in the pew hoping you wrap up this sermon soon.”
But we are!
We are in a process called “the Way of Love, Joining God”, which you have heard us mention.
We have a guiding committee of laity that is in a listening phase.
They are intentionally listening for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, listening to each other, listening to you in the congregation and to others in our community.
A discernment phase will follow in which we ask…and these are important questions:
“Where is God at work in our community?”
And “How might we join God in that work?”
Note, it’s not about what we are going to “do”. It is about what God is doing.
Then there is an experimentation phase where we do quick, inexpensive projects and see what happens.
Finally we reflect on what happened and learn from it.
Then we start listening again.
Again, this process is less about figuring out what we should “do” and more about a continuing effort to be God’s Church”.
Listening, discerning, trying stuff, learning and listening some more.
You know, the Jews in 520 BC didn’t need to build the temple that Solomon had built four centuries earlier.
The needs of the community were different.
And today, almost in 2020, we don’t need to be about trying to “grow back” into the Episcopal Church (or the Grace Radford) of 1970.
We are called to just be God’s church
…here in Southwestern Virginia…here in Radford…TODAY.
Whatever that means.
Now we aren’t going to throw out the hymnal or the prayer book or rip out all the pews.
We aren’t going to make dramatic changes. We might not make permanent changes at all.
But, I pray, that we will listen.
Listen to the Holy Spirit, to each other and to those around us and allow ourselves to evolve to be the Church that God is calling us to be.
A little scary, I know.
But take courage…and work, for God is with us.
Amen.
[1] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Kindle Locations 9595-9597). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.
[2] Life Application Bible, Tyndale House Publishers: Wheaton, IL, 1990. P. 1562.
[3] Siobhan Fenton, “Church of England ‘one generation away from extinction’ after dramatic loss of followers,” Independent, June 1 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/church-of-england-one-generation-away-from-extinction-after-dramatic-loss-of-followers-10288179.html retrieve November 8, 2019.