Prophetic Voices (Wk 2: Haggai) - Kyle Hanawalt

SPEAKER NOTES

SLIDE: Dr. King the arc quote I have probably watched MLK’s I have a dream speech 20 times in my life. And I am still moved by it every time I see it.
It provokes something inside of me - a combination of passion, drive, even hope.
Yes, hope. Which is no small thing. Honestly, over the last several years I often struggle to find hope about the world, so anything that provokes it inside of me is something I try to come back to I can actually remember a time when I was just generally feeling more hopeful on a daily basis. MLK once said, that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” and there was one point where I thought that we were really bending towards Justice. It was the fall of 2014, this was just after shooting of Michael Bown and all that happened in and around Ferguson. There was so much pain and outrage, but It was this point that I felt like things in American were really getting ready to change. SLIDE: Implicit Bias infographics I, personally, did an implicit bias training for the first time. Where we were no longer arguing over whether we were racist of not, it was just a given that we all have implicit bias around race. That “racist or not”, wasn’t the right question, it was asking where racism exist in each of us, because it does.
And then I was reading about all these Police departments all over the country were doing implicit bias training, helping their officers see where and how their own unconscious biases might be betraying them in high stress situations. And I was seeing school districts that were doing training with their teachers to understand how their implicit bias were affecting their classrooms and the ways teachers and school systems can unconsciously perpetuate racial inequity in academic outcomes. All of it, kinda filled me with hope. That we weren’t there yet, but we were beginning to have the right kind of conversations. Not ones where I have to defend myself, but ones where I was looking within myself at how I, each of us can perpetuate injustice I had hope that we might really be moving in the direction of a more just and equitable society

And sadly, since that highpoint of hope, I have just felt a steady diet of disappointment since.
SLIDE: Charlottesville I remember the low point of this being after what happened in Charlottesville. And seeing the public debate going back to whether Nazi salutes and Lynch mob-esque tourch carrying was ok.
And how the narrative that Christian straight White men in our Country are persecuted actually began to gain traction. All of it was just so deeply disappointing to me. And most of our public discourse since has not exactly refueled my hope. All of it and my deep disappointment in where we have come, most often has left me feeling cynical, hopeless, apathetic - like some of the dreams that I had about what our world could be were just silly naivety that I should just let go of. Lower my expectations.

SLIDE: Resistance Literature slide

And it is from this place - where I struggle to find hope that I again this week return my current series Looking at the Hebrew Prophets of the Old Testament.

The Prophetic writings of the OT were written over hundreds of years, in the midst of the rise and fall of Israel. Before the time of Jesus

I think the best way to think about the Old Testament Prophetic writings are as resistance literature Because, if you’re like me a person of privilege who grew up exposed to the Bible, perhaps you at some point began to find the words of the Old Testament prophets “morally hard to swallow”. Chances are this is because, in a world of privilege, the prophets are often flattened into object lessons for “how to treat your co-workers”. (Those object lessons are not at all bad, but when the threats attached to them have the intensity of the Biblical Prophets, things can seem… well… out of proportion.) The Prophets are not coming from a world of privilege; the Prophets are Resistance Literature. And reading them from that perspective unlocks their moral courage and their timeliness for America today! All of which I find so helpful in the midst of feeling a lack of hope because like all good resistance literature the Prophetic writings do call out the evil and injustice of the status quo, condemning the wrong they see around them, which I can totally relate too right now, but oh so helpfully they also speak of hope for the future.

So, I want to continue our foray into prophetic writings of the OT, asking together, how the resistance the literature of the ancient Hebrew people might be a help to us in a world today that so often kills off the hope we feel.

Today I want to do this by looking at the writings of the Prophet Haggai. SLIDE: Haggai points of interest A little context to Haggai, I think will help us. About 16 years before Haggai writes this, the Hebrew people has just returned from a generation in exile. And They began rebuilding the Temple which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, the Temple which worked as the epicenter of cultural, social, and religious life Within a few years they had the temple’s foundation completed, but stopped construction for 2 reasons.

1. There were some corrupt people who found their way into power, who undermined the effort of rebuilding the Temple and
2. There had been a slow decline in enthusiasm among the Hebrews about the new temple, because seeing the foundation - they found it deeply disappointing compared to the grandeur of the original temple And so, there the temple sat, unfinished and untouched for 16 years.

And this is when Haggai enters the picture. Addressing the people of Israel whose disappointment has lead to apathy. His prophetic writing is meant to offer consolation for their disappointment, and renew Isreals passion and hope in order to move them to finish the Temple.

SLIDE: Haggai Scripture Reading from Haggai 2

Haggai 2:3 NIV Speaking of the temple, he writes 3 ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? 4 But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. 5 ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’ 6 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. Reminding the people how he had been there for them in the past when escaping Egypt 7 I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. 8 ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. 9 ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

when I read Haggai’s words, I resonate with the kind of disappointment that he talks about here. I think about how the Hewbrews must have felt returning to Jerusalem, eager and excited to rebuild the temple. With big dreams and aspirations, not just for what the temple could be, but what they as a people could be now that they were home.

And I can resonate with how it would feel to be begin rebuilding that temple, only to find corrupt leaders, and bureaucracies undermining each effort to move forward. Not only making the completion of the temple more difficult, but eroding their dreams of what their society would become. Corrupt political processes and bureaucracies have a special and unique way of wearing us down, stealing our hope, and making us feel silly, cynical that we had such dreams in the first place.

And then I think of the Isrealite, disillusioned from that corruption, looking at the progress they had made, full of cynicism, and saying to themselves. Is this even worth it, this New temple is nothing like I thought it was going to be, it pales in comparison to what the first temple was. Is it even worth dealing with all this crap, pushing through it all, And concluding in the end to just throwing in the towel. It doesn’t even matter anyway.

And there the apathy set in, and sat for 16 years.

And I just feel for them, I don’t judge them, I get it. I think about the apathy I have often felt about my hope for the world over the last few years.

And here is the funny thing, I think often we end up in apathy not realizing it. it wasn't a moment like "I'm done now" -- it's a gradual thing.

So often a result of experiencing disappointment, which leads to us being overwhelmed, or losing passion, or giving up hope on our dreams.

And so when I read Haggai’s words to these people, when I hear him comforting them, reminding them that God is still with them, and promising them that if they do rebuild the temple that it will greater than the glory of the former house.

When I read those words, I think they would have landed a bit like MLK’s words The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice - land with me today.

To be a reminder that our disappointments don’t define us, our setbacks don’t dictate our future, that there is a hope for our future. And that kind of reminder is often just the thing to kick us out of our places of apathy.

And this is not a cheap or trite reminder, but one full of real and hard-earned hope. The God of the Bible, the God who is behind Haggai’s comfort and who is behind Dr. King’s belief isn’t removed from the human experience. This is a God who came close to humanity in Jesus, who knows hopelessness and disappointment, a God who knows betrayal, and knows suffering. A God whose pinnacle moment in life was facing death, and then overcoming it.

And so, I wonder here today, how we can grab ahold of the kind of hope Haggai speaks to ahd that Jesus lived out and Dr. King believed in? How can we find the strength to pursue that hope -- when the disappointment we feel is so strong -- when apathy has worked on us for maybe years at this point?

SLIDE: Prayer suggestion Well, again just like last week, I don’t think I have the perfect answer, but I can tell you what has helped me the most. And it is the same thing that I suggested last week Prayer I don’t return to this practice because I have run out of ideas, I’ve done it intentionally, because although it sounds simple, it’s the thing I have found that makes the most difference I’ve seen and I have handled the disappointment I have felt about the world in many different ways.
Telling those around me, Posting it on FB Ignoring it And none of those ways has really given me any more hope, broken me out of apathy. If anything they feed my sense of being overwhelmed, or they steal any sense of passion or vigor I feel
And that is why I come back to setting time aside to pray, pray for our disappointment, pray for hope, ask god for helping seeing a better way forward There is actually something that Jesus says about this that I find really helpful He says SLIDE Matthew 6:5-6 5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." what if the "reward" Jesus talks about is a soft, affected heart that can hope, that doesn't shut down in apathy, that can dream, that can be resilient through hardship and tragedy? And that is my hope for everyone here, that you can keep ahold of your dreams feel resilient in your dreams, that the disappointment we feel about this world around us, in our life doesn’t steal our hope and passion to drive it forward. That we like the Isrealites can push forward and keep building, keep fighting, keep pushing.

So, If you will stand with me, I’d like to pray for all of us

Ignite dreams