In a Little While the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost Haggai 1.15B-2.9 November 10, 2019 the Rev

Sermons from First Congregational Church of Southington

In a Little While The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Haggai 1.15b-2.9 November 10, 2019 The Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Brown ††††††† Haggai 1.15b-2.9 (NRSV) 1.15bIn the second year of King Darius, 2.1 in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak 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, 3 Who 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? 4 Yet 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, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For 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; 7 and 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. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The 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. ††††††† I. I’m feeling a little nostalgic today—I thought I’d better confess that at the beginning. We are celebrating two landmark birthdays in the Brown-Rowe household today. This morning, at 8:41 and 8:43 respectively, our twin daughters, Hawley and Lydia turn 21-years-old.

How did that happen?

I will never forget that day. It was rainy and dreary outside, but light filled the room at Hartford Hospital the day they were born. And when the nurse handed me those two swaddled tiny people, and I held one in each arm, the world changed.

I even have a picture!

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And I’m glad I have that memory this morning, because as nostalgic as I am feeling, it’s been a hard week! The news has not been good.

We are a nation divided. Even on this weekend when we honor veterans of the United States military who made sacrifices on behalf of all of us—even as we remember that freedom is not free—we are a nation divided.

The truth today is that—even on my girls’ birthday—the news is not good. You probably watched the news this week—you know that it’s true. It’s almost as if someone handed out red and blue crayons of division.

And I have found that my faith has been challenged as I take it all in.

II. An Old Testament prophet that you may have never even heard of, a guy named Haggai, as feeling that way too. I’ll tell you that story, but first I want to tell you a story about another time my faith was challenged.

Watching the news this week took me back to a small New York City mission center, where I, a young seminary intern who knew nothing, I mean nothing, was taught a lesson in faith by a six-year-old girl named Gladys.

She and four others sat at a table in the storefront mission center in New York City where I was a very young, very green intern. It was right after Epiphany, and our project for the day was creating our own wise men and women from scraps of paper and wood, making them as colorful as possible with glitter and bright red, yellow and green paints. Unfortunately, the table was quickly becoming the most colorful thing in the room, and I was beginning to wonder about my own wisdom.

Suddenly, amidst the storms of glitter and the showers of glue, Gladys got a very serious look on her face. She looked me straight in the eye and asked a question that I will never forget: “What do you do when you are lonely?”

Although I was pretty new at the center, I had already learned some things about Gladys’ life. Her father, when he was around, hit her. She hid every time she heard him coming up the stairs to their apartment. Her mother, as best I could tell, pretty much ignored her. Gladys had two younger brothers and a baby sister.

And her question cut to the very center of my heart. I was twenty-two years old, a first year seminarian, and had never spent more than a week or two outside of North Carolina. I had only been in New York City for a month. Although I was beginning to love those kids gathered around that table, my

www.fccsouthington.org In a Little While November 10, 2019 Sermon Page 3 of 5 The Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Brown heart longed with passion to be back to something familiar—anything. I would have given anything to be back in those beautiful southern Appalachian Mountains that I will always call home.

I caught myself and stumbled over a few of the standard answers to Gladys’ question, clichés, really, without even thinking. “Well, when you are lonely you can count on your family and your friends.” Gladys couldn’t. “Sometimes you can talk to a teacher at school.” The school in that neighborhood was really bad. “Or you could talk to Evelyn or me,” I said, pointing to the volunteer from a neighborhood church across the room elbows deep in a container of red finger paint. “Any of those things might help you not be so lonely.”

Gladys looked at me in a way that told me I had not given her the right answer. She continued to stare directly into my eyes and said: “What about God? Can’t you talk to God when you’re lonely?” “Yes,” I said. And she smiled and glued a crown on her third wise woman.

As Gladys and the others left that day, I was thinking not of the wisdom of three rulers from the east who followed a star to see the Christ child, but rather of the simple brilliance of a six-year-old child who already had the good sense to know that she could turn to God when she was things aren’t right.

III. Haggai is one of twelve Minor Prophets in the Old Testament—one of the last three, in fact. After Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi finish their preaching, the book of Old Testament prophecy will close.

Most Old Testament prophets don’t tell us much about themselves. Haggai follows that pattern, but is specific about when he preached. “In the second year of King Darius in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month,” Haggai preached. That would have made it right about now. The seventh month is an autumn month in the Jewish calendar.

So we know that Haggai preached this sermon in 520 BCE, the second year of King Darius. And that is important.

I don’t want to bore you with too much history, but so you understand what is happening here, the great King Solomon of Israel built a magnificent temple in Jerusalem during the 10th century BCE. It was beautiful—the very presence of God’s in Israel. But after Solomon died, things didn’t go so well— the nation was literally divided. And in 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, demolished the temple built by King Solomon, and sent the people into a cruel exile. But God did not forget God’s people—God never does—and in 538 King Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonians. And not only did he publish a decree that the captive Jews should return home, he also told them that they should rebuild their temple. Remember that for Jews the temple wasn’t just a place to worship, it was the home of God.

But, over the last eighteen years, things had not gone well. They were a nation divided. There were construction delays, financing problems, governmental foul-ups—let’s just say they hadn’t made much progress on rebuilding the temple.

It had been eighteen years and the temple was still in ruins—eighteen years. Darius is now the king in Persia and the people are still divided as if partisan politicians. One party believed that the

www.fccsouthington.org In a Little While November 10, 2019 Sermon Page 4 of 5 The Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Brown government infrastructure should be rebuilt first and another thought that the housing individual families should be accomplished first and everyone thought they had a corner on the market of moral values.

So they started looking back.

“This temple was once the most beautiful in the world,” they whined, “Those were the good old days.”

So with their heads turned backwards, focused on what divided them rather than what united them, they went nowhere.

That is until Haggai came on the scene. And Haggai went to the leaders of the two parties, Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua the high priest, who had yet to agree on anything, and he said, “Yes, look back, look back at God’s promise, the promise God made when you left Egypt a free people. Take courage, for God has promised to be with you. And if you believe that promise, set your eyes forward, to the future, in a little while this place will be more splendorous than anything you now imagine.”

It’s all God’s anyway, Haggai, says. And God will use you, even in the midst of a divided people, if you believe that.

They did, in their own human and faltering ways they found their faith, and in five years the temple was completed.

IV. I’m so glad I’m here this morning, because I need to hear Haggai’s reminder. In a little while, if we believe God’s promise, we can build a new place. And it is in this place that I may just find my faith, in this community of people, some of us with red crayons and some of us with blue crayons, here, in this place, we build together.

We can build a purple community—that’s what you get when you put the red and blue crayons together, you know, a purple community of love and acceptance.

We can build a purple place where it is safe to ask questions, express doubts, and share creativity.

We can build a purple place where the most vulnerable—the frightened homeless child, the transgender teenager, the person suffering with anxiety or depression, the family worried about where they will find shelter for the night—will find help and a home.

We can build a purple place where hope is alive, because we walk together in God’s light.

And when we build this purple place, in a little while, God will shake the heavens and the earth, the treasure of the world will surround us, not the silver and gold—that belongs to God anyway—but a kind world, a place where people love justice, and where in humility, we walk humbly with our God.

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V. I stand before you today a bit nostalgic, but also remembering something I learned about faith from a little girl named Gladys that January day on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

A month or so before I left New York City to finish my last year in seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Gladys handed me a beautifully printed invitation. It was to her first communion service at St. Bridget’s Church across the street. I was in that cavernous church that day, and there she was wearing a carefully pressed white dress, a white handkerchief on her head and white gloves on her hands. And I’ll never forget, as the priest led the children in the ancient creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty…” she turned and she smiled that smile at me.

When I remember her face, and years later the first time I saw the beautiful, tiny red faces of my newborn daughters, the former splendor of this world looks pale. For in a little while God will fill this divided world with splendor and fill our hearts with love. And the latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former.

It won’t be easy. It’s been a hard week. We live in a divided nation. Conflict and uncertainty have always been part of life, even the life of faith.

God has always promised to be present in the conflict and uncertainty with us. So if we can figure out how to be present with each other in the midst of the conflict and uncertainty of our time, who knows how the world might change—in a little while.