Fill This House (Haggai 2:1-9)

The prepared message I delivered for New Garden Friends Meeting semi-programmed worship on November 6, 2022.

Haggai 2:1-9

In the second year of King Darius, 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 who 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 will 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 grant peace, says the Lord of hosts.”

Good morning, Friends! It is good to see you. It has been a while since I have been up here giving a message! And it feels good to be doing that again.

We have also moved through some time in Scripture since the last time I spoke. A few weeks ago, I read from Jeremiah and talked about the trauma of the exile, how the Jewish people were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon. We have skipped ahead several decades to the reading for today from Haggai, and some of the exiles are back.

This is what they have been hoping and praying for—the return from exile. Here is something I found interesting about the book of Haggai: in this time after the exile, we actually have historical records outside of the Bible that lets us know when things were happening. The passage that we read from Haggai was in the fall of 520 BCE.

You may remember that after the exile there was a remnant left in Jerusalem; that’s where Jeremiah was when he was writing to the exiles. The exile was hard for everyone—those who were taken away and the ones who were left behind. They all dreamed of the day when they could be together again, like it was before.

And you know what happened when they were reunited? They started fighting with each other! Seriously, they could not get along!

Some of these fights were small: people being cranky and treating each other badly. Basically, being jerks.

There was also some name calling: The returning exiles thought that the remnant was lazy and lethargic. They hadn’t even been able to rebuild the Temple! Unsurprisingly, the people who had been left behind took offense at this. They felt like the exiles had no idea how hard it had been for them. I mean, the exiles had been eating all this great Babylonian and Persian food while they were starving back in the rubble of Jerusalem!

Some of the conflicts were more serious. When families were exiled, their land had been taken by people who were left behind. Now some of those families had been living on the land for decades. You can see how this would lead to disputes.

And of course, there were fights about religion. Aren’t there always? I learned something interesting about this, and it has to do with the Samaritans. You know the story of the good Samaritan in the New Testament? The reason that story works is because the Jews and the Samaritans did not like each other.

That story takes place centuries later, in Jesus’s time. At that point, the Jews would speak of the Samaritans as foreigners, descendants of foreign colonists. They saw the Samaritans as oppressors.

But the Samaritans had a different story. The Samaritans believed that they descended from the remnant of the ten tribes in the northern kingdom of Israel, some who were not deported when the northern kingdom fell in 722 BCE. The Samaritans considered themselves the bearers of the true faith of ancient Israel. They were strict and Torah observant, and they practice their faith at a shrine on Mount Gerazim, which competed with the temple in Jerusalem.

So there was tension when some Jews returned from exile in Babylon. The Samaritans opposed the rebuilding of the temple. About 160 years before Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, Jewish troops destroyed the shrine on Mount Gerazim. You can see how some of these fights had real and long lasting consequences.

That was a lot of history, but I think it’s helpful to understand the context of Haggai’s message in this text. Haggai’s message is straightforward: Rebuild the Temple. He had a message from God that the people—all of the people—were to rebuild the temple as a witness to the spirit of God among them.

We don’t know much about Haggai—whether he had been exiled or left behind, his economic status, or even if that was his real name. That may be on purpose. He has a clear message to reunite the people to rebuild the Temple, so it may be good not to know whether he was exiled or left behind.

How do you think the people responded to him? Initially, not well!

We can see this in what Haggai says: Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 

Some of the older members of the community could still remember what the Temple looked like before it was destroyed. They kept comparing the memory of a glorious past with their experience of a not-so-great present. For them, the “good old days” seemed so much better. And maybe they actually were! But it didn’t matter, because those days were gone, and the people had to deal with the Temple in the present, this pile of rocks in Jerusalem.

Haggai admitted to them that the Temple didn’t look like much yet. But he called the people to have faith in what God was about to do.

Haggai tells them to take courage three times, speaking first to the governor, and to the high priest, and then to all of the people: 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.

Why should they take courage and do this work?

For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

And then Haggai shares a message of hope, about a future where the nations of the world are shaken. It helps to know that, for the Jewish people at this time, the Temple is where God lives—not metaphorically, but literally a house for God. 

And Haggai says that all of the treasures of the nations will come to God in the Temple: I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor. God promises: The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former.

But this does not end with treasure, with silver or gold. Instead, God says: And in this place I will grant peace.

Now I want to be clear: We are not the Jewish people and New Garden Friends Meeting is not the Temple. It would be a mistake to make this a story about us—it is about a particular people in a specific time and place.

But I can’t help but see some parallels! We are rebuilding after a time apart, and sometimes we have conflicts about the best ways to do that. Even people with the best intentions can be cranky or hurt each other’s feelings. And we are committed to listening together, to hear God’s voice and leading for this building and for our community, even if it is hard.

One of the things Quakers are most well known for is our peace testimony. We long for the day when God will grant us peace. But we know that peace is not easy or always nice—sometimes there are conflicts! Still, we work together to experience God’s peace, and hope for a future when it will come for all people.

As we settle into a time of open worship, I invite you to consider the query: How do you want to fill this house? How do you see God calling us now in New Garden Friends Meeting? What is your hopeful vision for the future of this community? If you feel led to share these hopes and visions for the future with the rest of us, please speak!

We will listen.

Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash