ONE SMALL WORD, ONE BIG DIFFERENCE

ONE SMALL WORD, ONE BIG DIFFERENCE

Haggai 2:1-9

A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on

November 9, 2007

Introduction: I bet you all got excited today when you opened up the bulletin and saw that the sermon today would be based on the Old Testament book, Haggai. Actually, I imagine that without the page reference in the bulletin or a table of contents in our Bible, most of us would struggle even to find Haggai. The second shortest book in the Old Testament, Haggai is usually overlooked. Until this week, I don’t think I have ever led a Bible study on a passage from Haggai, or tried to preach from it. But we are really missing a gem of a passage if we skip Haggai.

This is one book that you really need to understand the historical context to understand the book. In 587 B.C., the Jews of Judea were routed by the Babylonians. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the land left in ruins, and the political, military, and economic leaders of the country were sent into exile by the Babylonians. Haggai takes place 70 years later. For 20 years, the Jewish people have been permitted to return to their homeland. But there has been little rebuilding in those 20 years – the people are apparently too poor, disillusioned, and weak. And, the scale of the rebuilding is overwhelming. But Haggai’s word from God for the people is to rebuild the Temple, so that they can rebuild their country and their lives. The most important word he has to give to the people is one of the shortest words in the language – but it makes such a big difference. Let us turn then to chapter 2:1-9.

Read 2:1-9

Picture the scene as Haggai 2 begins: a dispirited people gathers in front of the site where a grand Temple once existed – the center of the Jewish religion, the site and building that ensured God’s presence with the people. Now there is only a slab of stones – that is all the people have to show after 20 years. Few people in the crowd can even remember the Temple since it was destroyed nearly 70 years ago. They are but a remnant, weak with few resources. They are overwhelmed, paralyzed by the immensity of what lies before them. How will they do it?

Picture the scene: a couple stares at a cross country move. It is not a move that they want to make. But after months of unemployment, they need to go where the job offer is. But there is so much to do to make the move – and they will be leaving grown children and their friends 3000 miles behind. There is so much to take on, and they are no longer quite so young. How will they do it?

Picture the scene: he looks around the empty office. His partner has just died suddenly – the older, more experienced one. Now he is weighed down by the double burdens of grief and responsibility. How can he keep the business going? How can he keep everyone employed? How will he do it?

Picture the scene: it is her first summer of ministry. She is a student chaplain serving on a cancer ward at Georgia Baptist Hospital. She will be there for 22 people who will die on that ward that summer. To top it off, many people do not know what to do with a woman minister, especially such a young one. Some refuse to have her visit. She wonders what someone so young and green can offer to people dealing with cancer and facing death. How will she do it?

Like the exiles in Haggai’s time, most of us know what it is like to face a problem that dwarfs our capacities. As one of you shared this week, it can be like being in a tunnel with a curve and you can see no light. When we look at the progress we have made to some distant goal, it feels like we have gotten nowhere. “Does it not seem like nothing?” Haggai asks the people as they contemplate the puniness of that completed foundation and the immensity of the building task before them.

But right after that bleak question, Haggai adds a small word that changes everything. With one small word, Haggai shifts the whole tone of his sermon to the people, from the bleakness and apparent hopelessness of the present to the brightness of a promising future. One small word – but what a difference it makes.

The word? “Yet”

“Yet now take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work for I am with you.” “Yet” – the little word that shifts our focus from what is in front of us to Who is beside us. And that makes all of the difference.

This is the message of Haggai that speaks to people in all times and places: “The present may be dark – yet the future is bright,” says the Lord, “for I am with you.” “The problems in front of you may be immense and you may be small – yet do not get discouraged,” says the Lord, “for I am with you.” “You may have accomplished little to date, yet do not give up, says the Lord, “for I am with you.”

If we stare at the problems in front of us, we may well be discouraged, if not overwhelmed. But if we focus instead on the God who stands beside us, then we will see the light and be filled with hope. God is with us – and with God at our side, we “are always within a step of undreamed of changes.”[1]

But to step into those undreamed of changes we need to keep moving.

“Take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; begin the work (as some translations put it) for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.” Haggai does not just want the people to feel better about the situation. He wants them to get to “work,” rebuilding the temple.

So it is for us. God wants to give us hope and encouragement. But God also wants to spur us to step forward in faith and do the task set before us.

That is not always easy. When life overwhelms us, we can just get paralyzed, because we do not know where to begin, and every thing we might do seems futile. The Christian writer, Annie Lamott tells a story of her brother and father that I think any parent and student here can identify with: “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin [in California], and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”[2]

When we are immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead, we can feel God surrounding us, and telling us, “Step by step, my child. Just put one foot in front of the other.”

One foot in front of the other, with God at our side. A couple finds that they are able to make that move to California – and even feel at home in their new surroundings. A businessman finds the ability to carry on after his partner’s death, and no one has to be laid off. While that young minister finds help all along the way, so that there is a 25^th ordination anniversary to celebrate.

One foot in front of the other, with God at our side. Whatever the setback or loss we face, whatever the obstacles and problems that stand before us, whatever the challenges for giving and ministry to which we are called, God is there beside us, helping us to move forward, step by step. We may not see the end of the tunnel at first; we may not feel like we are making progress at first; we may feel even more discouraged after we get started. But at some point, the light will appear. At some point, we will find ourselves in a new place of hope, one not defined by our capacities but by God’s grace and power.

As one of my former teachers wrote in her commentary on this text: “Do not the people of God, then, walk always on the edge of discoveries, feeling that any day there may be new workings of divine power, unmeasured possibilities of transformation….When God is with [God’s] people they can have great expectations.”[3]

Bruce Main is the head of one of our mission partners, Urban Promise, an outreach ministry to young people in inner city Camden. He tells of a Friday afternoon when he was feeling particularly low: “It was late Friday afternoon. The staff had left for the weekend and I was immobilized as I sat at my desk, reflecting on the previous five days. It had been a terrible week of fundraising. I needed $45,000 just to meet the next week’s payroll….I was fighting back a major case of discouragement.”

Then there was a knock on the door. It was Jeaneen. When she first came to UrbanPromise, she was a public school drop out in ninth grade. But she enrolled in UrbanPromise’s alternative high school program. She turned things around and graduated with honors. Then she worked her way through college in three years and got a master’s degree. Bruce points out that “To make that happen, Jeaneen lived at home to save money which required a three hour commute to graduate school. She cut back on frivolous spending so she could make her loan payments.”

“I wanted to give you a little something,” she said as she pulled out her checkbook. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for UrbanPromise.”

She gave him the check, they talked, and then she left.

Bruce then writes, “I didn’t think to look at the check. After all, I needed $45,000. Ten or twenty dollars from Jeaneen was not going to make a difference. But I unfolded it anyway – and nearly fell out of my chair.” The check was for $1000.

Bruce writes: “I had this overwhelming certainty [then] that I would raise the $45,000 to make payroll. It was like a little reminder from God that all was going to be okay. If a kid believed enough in this ministry to give so much, so sacrificially, somehow we would make it.”[4] And they would make that payroll. In fact, Jeaneen’s gift would have a lasting effect as one UrbanPromise board member increased his gift ten times when he heard of Jeaneen’s sacrificial giving.

The problems and challenges we are facing may seem insurmountable. The sacrifices and commitments God calling us to take on may feel too difficult to do. The odds against succeeding may seem astronomically high.

And yet. And yet, with God at our side, we can put one foot in front of the other and find a way where before there seemed no way. With God beside us, we “walk always on the edge of discoveries, feeling that any day there may be new workings of divine power.”

Don’t you wonder what tomorrow might bring?