EZRA 1: 1-4 & HAGGAI 1:3-9

EXILED

From the beginning, the people of God have journeyed from total obscurity to the status of God’s unique favor. They griped their way through salvation from slavery in Egypt, and chased after idols at every chance. No matter how much they were blessed, it wasn’t sufficient to keep them straight. Given the promised land wasn’t enough, the kingdom of David wasn’t enough, even the kingdom of Solomon which made Israel the peak of wealth and world power of its day—not enough to keep people sniffing after idols and just wanting to be like everyone else.

From the time of the Exodus, the Lord made known to Israel that they were his possession. They belong to him and are set apart from the rest of the world to lead—to be a nation of priests—and through them all humankind will find its godly blessing. Yes somehow, the people didn’t really want to be set apart. They wanted to be like everyone else.

We see them as a people constantly struggling to escape this sense of being God’s possession—of being possessed by a purpose that is not their own, not made by themselves but appointed to them by God, just as the prophets are appointed, too, against their will.

So now they are in exile, and as we heard last week, Daniel and his friends find a new, extraordinary faith in the midst of distance and dissociation from the holy land. Daniel and Israel—indeed, even Babylon—find their faith in the Lord.

FIRST THINGS

Once Cyrus allows the people to return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the temple, Zerubabel leads nearly 50,000 back to Jerusalem. Some were clearly patriots of the older order; others were younger explorers and adventurers taking a chance on building a new future in their parents or grandparents homeland.

The first thing they do is rebuild the altar and re-engage the daily sacrifices. It seems they all would have been moved and heaved something of a collective sigh over this. It is the start of a happy ending to the exile story.

Then they get to building the temple.

TEMPLE-BUILDING

Question: who rebuilt the temple? We tend to answer: “The Jews who returned from Babylon,” but that is not the best answer. Who paid for it? Cyrus, the King of Persia. It was Babylonian money that funded the rebuild under Babylonian authority. Cyrus returned the gold appliances to the temple and protected the returning exiles for their efforts.

Remember: Babylon worshiped the God of Daniel! Babylon, after Daniel, had more believers in The Lord than did Israel and Judah combined.

Even so, the land and its cities were not empty when the exiles returned. Some people had been left behind. When Assyrians or the Babylonians conquered Israel and Judah, they took the upper classes—the nobles, the craftsmen, the most skilled laborers—and left farmers and lower class city laborers behind. Someone has to operate the conquered cities, so a remnant was left there. While everyone else was in Babylon, Assyrians moved into Palestine as a new frontier. People mix, their cultures mix, and they intermarry. Pious Jews from Israel find a Torah and re-establish worship of the Lord in Samaria and on Mt. Gerazim, where it was before there was even a first temple. They carved out a life for themselves. These are the Samaritans.

Imagine their curiosity—their deep suspicions—when all these Judeans return home with. lots of Babylonian money to throw around.

They approach the Jews now beginning the temple rebuild and offer their help. The Jews tell them “Thanks, but no.” It seems the suspicion ran two ways. It’s no stretch to say that the Samaritans wanted to keep a close eye on these returned prodigals, and wanted to make sure that their own cozy little system was neither disrupted nor overpowered.

New Jerusalem folks believed themselves to be the religious purists and the Samaritans to be only half-Jews at best. The Jews in Jerusalem meant to reestablish the true center of worship, and they knew the Samaritans would be threatened by the effort, so they kept them at arms’ length as much as possible. 

Not only Samaritans, but all the peoples who had settled in Jerusalem in the past 70 years saw these returning Jews from Babylon as a threat to the lifestyle they had built for themselves. They saw this new effort as an intrusion and unwelcome advancement. They too did what they could to discourage the new temple from being built.

When the opponents to the temple wrote to Darius to see if Cyrus had agreed to build it, Darius found the writ and that it was in the language of the Medes and therefore unalterable.

Darius’ imposes a “beam penalty” for any who interfered, which meant that a beam was pulled from their own home and they would be publicly impaled upon it.  Again, this is proof that the temple was essentially a Babylonian/Persian project.

So the temple undergoes reconstruction, but not at a very good pace. Enter the prophet Haggai

PROPHET HAGGAI

Haggai preaches to the people, telling them they have neglected the most important matter. They have neglected the center of their faith and mission in order to feather their own nests.

This happens so easily—one minute the people are all fired up about rebuilding the temple, but they quickly get side-tracked into home improvement.

“Honestly, I don’t think all that cedar would even look good in the new temple, so I think we’ll use it in our living room.”

“The committee is still working out the kinks in the design, but if we let all of that sycamore wood to just sit there, it’ll go bad by the time we really need it. So let’s do the baby’s room!”

“Did y0u see what the Danielsons did with their front entry? We should do that, too—quickly, before the materials disappear!”

Home Depot stock goes through the roof in Jerusalem, and everything but the temple gets the people’s best attention and efforts. Haggai holds their nose in it, charging them to return to their first call and priority.

“FLOURISHING”

We can see the parallels in our own lives only too easily. Our needs for comfort and security can so quickly eclipse trusting in the Lord that we think we’re doing God special glory by upgrading our kitchens.

But something even more dangerous is connected to this self-gratifying ethic, something growing in popularity within the most sophisticated theological circles. It goes by the tagline of “human flourishing.” We should beware of it.

The logic goes something like this: God’s chief concern and mission is humankind, therefore our first concern and mission should be the good of humankind and human flourishing.

But this is a grave mistake: human flourishing is not God’s greatest concern nor should it be ours. Question 1 of the Westminster Catechism puts it clearly:

Q: What is the chief end of man?

A: That we should glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Stampeding toward the “enjoy him” part (which is secondary) leads many to think that we best glorify God by pleasing ourselves. More  to the point, the idea that God’s chief interest is social justice or something like “everyone getting along.” Be clear, these are goods! But they are not the chief good, which is God’s glory and God’s glory alone.

They will press further saying that the way God is glorified is through creating human flourishing, so they justify putting human flourishing back as the top priority. Yes, God may be glorified when justice is done, when the poor are fed, prisoners freed, and the ill healed—but not necessarily so. It is a short step from putting human flourishing at the top of the theological list to making our well-feathered nest the evidence of God’s glory. Be clear: this has already happened many times in church history.

We care about God being glorified even at the cost of our own flourishing. God is to be glorified whether we are rich or poor, slave or free, healthy and wealthy or (like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), thrown into the furnace. God can be glorified in the midst of pain and suffering every bit as much as through human flourishing, so human flourishing cannot be used as the sole means of glorifying God.

Watch for it, and whenever you see self-gratification (be it individual or collective) parading as righteousness, speak out: remind your sisters and brothers that God’s glory is the center—the only center—of our theology and mission.

FAITH/GUILT

We live in that tension between taking care of ourselves and living boldly for the Lord. Our very DNA leads us to self-preserve and self-serve. We are genetically geared for survival, so we are by nature driven to care for ourselves and our loved ones. Our minds are pre-outfitted with “security monitors” and “comfort detectors,” and taking care of ourselves—feathering our own nests—is what we do by nature, just like birds, bees, and all the other mammals.

But Jesus says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”(Luke 9:24). So much of our self-preservation/instinct mode runs contrary to our calling, so it is only too easy to neglect our calling to serve ourselves.

Like God’s people in the Old Testament, We too are a people constantly struggling to escape this sense of being possessed by a purpose that is not our own, not made by us but appointed to us by God, just as the prophets are appointed, too, against their will.

WORKING ON THE LORD’S BUILDING

We may not be building a temple, but we too have been chosen, called, and appointed to work in the Lord’s service. We are the Lord’s possession, and we do our best when we cooperate to establish his kingdom here.

In Amiens, France, there is a remarkable cathedral which has been standing since the 13th century. It has the largest indoor volume of any cathedral in France, which is really saying something. It remains the largest complete cathedral in France, and it stands in the middle of a smallish town.

Picture it: a massive cathedral surrounded by modest, medieval homes. It is a miraculous testimony to the faithfulness of that community. They gathered together and gave their best for the cathedral to God’s glory. It wasn’t at all about themselves, nor was it an egomaniacal bishop’s ego at stake, nor the townsfolk’s need to put Amiens on the map; no, it was all for God. Those who planned it never saw it finished. It took generations to complete, but the people labored together and gave their best, and it stands today as a remarkable testimony to people pulling together for something higher and greater than their own comforts.

The Cowboy Junkies have a great song that says it perfectly well called “Working on a Building”:

Working on a building, a Holy Ghost building

For my Lord, for my Lord

If I was a drunkard I tell you what I'd do

I would quit my drinking and work on that building too

Working on a building, a Holy Ghost building

For my Lord, yeah for my Lord

If I was a liar I tell you what I'd do

I would quit my lying and work on that building too

Working on a building, it's a Holy Ghost building

For my Lord, yeah for my Lord

Working on a building, it's a Holy Ghost building

For my Lord, yeah for my Lord

If I was a singer I tell you what I'd do

I would keep on singing and work on that building too

We are called to work on a building. Not the temple, not even this church, but the project known as Giving all Glory to God. It is what we were created for, and in it we find our joy, not only today, but forever.  †