Sermon: Rightly Ordered Priorities

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

Rightly Ordered Priorities

James Sledge                                             November 10, 2019

I’m not sure when children’s sermons became a standard part of American worship services, but my church had them when I was a child. As with other elements of worship, there are resource books on children’s sermons. I have a couple of old ones that a retiring pastor gave me. Unfortunately, almost all the ideas are object lessons, practical examples used to explain more abstract ideas about faith. But child development experts say that object lesson don’t work with young children whose thinking is too concrete, which explains why it is often adults who enjoy the children’s sermons while the little ones fidget through them.

A colleague once shared with me a children’s sermon on tithing. I really like it, but it’s another object lesson. And so I’m using it in a regular sermon. A basket of ten apples represents a person’s income. Our faith says that all we have is a gift from God. The only thing God asks is that we use the first part of our gifts to do God’s work.

God has given me ten apples. A tithe would be one of them, so I will give one apple back to God. And I still have a whole basket full to use for the things I need and want.

But very often, people don’t do it that way. I take my ten apples and buy a car and food, pay rent, take a vacation, fund hobbies, pay for streaming and cell service, and so on until little is left. Then I think about giving to God, but it would be everything I’ve got.

I can’t imagine that many young children ever made head nor tails of this lesson, but the point is a good one for those of us old enough to understand. The practice of generosity is much, much easier when it comes first. It is difficult to be generous when you only give from what is left over after you are done.

That’s true of faith and discipleship in general. If we seek to follow Jesus, to pray, study, serve others, worship, and so on, only after we’ve done everything else we need and want, there is never enough time or money left over.

Faith, discipleship, true spirituality, are largely about getting life rightly ordered. On some level, we know this intuitively. You may have  heard the adage, “No one on their deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’” We nod our heads in agreement yet we still struggle with disordered priorities.

Disordered priorities are the backdrop for the brief, two chapter long “book” of  Haggai. The entire ministry of this prophet, at least what is recorded in the Bible, lasts a scant, few months. Haggai lived when exiles in Babylon returned to Jerusalem some 70 years after its destruction. One of their first orders of business for reestablishing God’s covenant community was rebuilding the Temple, but things had not gone as planned.

Life was hard. Some who lived in and around Jerusalem did not welcome the returning exiles. A prolonged drought made it a struggle to grow crops, and the people put off work on the Temple, choosing to focus on other things they needed and wanted.

The prophet Haggai called the people to task for this a few verses before our reading, an event over a month before our passage. Then the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled  houses, while this house lies in ruins?  Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how  you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you  never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill;  you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes. 

For the prophet, everything that is going wrong, from drought to poor harvests, is the result of people’s disordered priorities. Their striving comes to naught because they have shoved God to the edges of their lives.

I’m not completely comfortable with that. It sounds a bit formulaic and trite. But then again, Jesus teaches, “…do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What  will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things;  and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all  these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

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The work of a prophet is typically thankless, proclaiming God’s truth and then being ignored. But the people listened to Haggai. Maybe things were so bad that they were desperate, but whatever the reason, they had begun work on the Temple foundation. Some weeks later, perhaps they began to be discouraged, and the prophet addresses them again.

“Anyone remember the old Temple?” he asks. There may have been none still alive who did, but everyone had heard about the splendor of Solomon’s Temple. They knew about all the precious objects of gold and silver carried off by the Babylonians when they looted and then destroyed it. They would never be able to match that past grandeur.

It can be hard to move forward when it seems the best days are in the past. I think a lot of church leaders and congregations in our time remember glorious days of yore and are stung by the prophet’s questions about the present. “How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?”

But the prophet isn’t trying to depress anyone. He acknowledges the loss of past greatness, but his word to the leaders is “Take courage.” His word to the congregation is “Take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts… My spirit abides among you; do not fear.”

God is with them. It all hinges on that. If they are on their own, they might as well quit. But if God truly is with them, then anything is possible.

That is no less true for us. It all hinges on whether or not God is with us. If we are on our own, the future is frightening and bygone days the pinnacle. But if God truly is with us, then anything is possible. If God is with us, then we are called, like Israel, to work, to order our lives around what God is doing in and through us.

Over the months and years of our Renew process here at FCPC, there have been many times when it was easy for me to observe that God was indeed with us, that the Spirit was moving, guiding us. Other times, it has been maddeningly difficult to sense God’s presence. But I suppose that faith is all about continuing to move forward both in those moments when God’s presence is palpable, and in those moments when we may feel alone.

Take courage, all you Deacons; take courage all you Elders; take courage all you people of the congregation, says the LORD. Work, commit yourselves, rightly order your priorities for giving your time and energy and money, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts. My Holy Spirit abides among you; do not fear. I have great plans for you.

All praise and glory to the God who calls us to give ourselves to the work of “Gathering those who fear they are not enough, so we may experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God’s beloved.” Thanks be to God.”