In This Place

Readings: Haggai 2:1-9, Heaven & Hell #286 (see below)
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Photo credit: Francesco Ungaro on Pexels

This week we prepare ourselves, with one final text, to take a break from our Old Testament journey for a time. Last week we visited Joshua’s final chapter. As leader of the Children of Israel, he settled them in the promised land, and towards the end of his days, he guided them into a renewal of their ongoing covenant with God.

Now we fast forward again, several hundred years. In the intervening time, the Israelites coalesced into a nation with a succession of kings, some good some bad. They split into two nations, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom eventually fell to Assyria and the people were scattered. And then the southern kingdom fell to the Babylonians, and the people there taken into exile in Babylon. Finally, Babylon was defeated by Persia and the Persian king allowed the people of Judah to return to Jerusalem. They are faced with the arduous work of rebuilding their society, and the physical rebuilding of the temple becomes a important part of that effort. Which brings us to Haggai. 

We don’t know much about Haggai. He was a prophet from around 520BCE and his existing writings take up a brief one page of the bible as we know it now. As joyful as the return from exile must have been, it also was a complicated process of reintegration and restoration, socially, economically, and spiritually.

In our text for today, Haggai speaks to the stakeholders in the new rebuilding process: the governor and the high priest, and to the people overall. After a seventy year exile, not many of them remember a time before the temple was anything but rubble. We can resonate if they were looking at a project that seemed insurmountable. Perhaps many wanted to give up. Perhaps many were not even sure what they were building for anymore. 

But Haggai reminds them to be strong, and to remember that God has been with them the whole time, and that their covenant with God remains in effect. Though ups and downs, though defeat and exile, and now on the precipice of the daunting task of restoration, Haggai reminds them that God remains present and that the ultimate destination is peace. And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

The Hebrew word for peace here is shalom. I won’t pretend to be an expert on how the notion of shalom is understood within the Jewish context. But I *have* always resonated with the way that shalom is used in the bible: to indicate a peace is not just about quietness, or the absence of conflict, but also about wholeness or completeness.

God does indeed promise us peace. and yet the journey we have been following these several weeks has seemed anything but peaceful. What seemed like the biggest main event: being freed from slavery in Egypt by Moses, was indeed integral but it turned out to be only the beginning. It didn’t bring peace, it started the journeying.

When we start to take steps away from the false ideas, narratives, allegiances, and habits represented by Egypt in our spiritual life, that doesn’t mean our journey will be smooth sailing from there on out. If there is anything we have learned from journeying with the Children of Israel it is this truth. In fact, coming out of Egypt can make us feel very vulnerable, and also impatient. I mean, come on, can’t we have the peace already. Where is the peace? Aren’t we there yet?

And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

What place then? Because, as much as we would love it to be so, the physical restoration of the temple spoken of here by Haggai would not be the end of the story either. The temple would indeed be rebuilt and eventually the Jewish people would have a few hundred precious years of self-rule. And then along would come the Roman Empire, and we find ourselves in the time of Jesus. Not long after that, the temple is destroyed once more, never to be rebuilt again.
So “this place” can’t be the physical temple. What is it then? I think the answer has to be contained within the notion of shalom itself. “This place” must be the wholeness and completeness that we are able to find in God.

It is two years now since we lost one of the most beloved members of our community: Millie Laakko. And this week, my mind kept being pulled to these words from her memorial sermon:

I think Millie is who we all want to be when we grow up. She was an angel but not because she was good, it was because she was whole. She combined love with discernment, compassion with clarity, intention with action. We will miss her so terribly, and not only because she was awesome and lovely, but because she reminded us, though her steadfast love and kindness, that we were awesome and lovely too.

She was an angel but not because she was good, it was because she was whole. Even as I wrote those words two years ago, I had no idea where they came from, they just felt true. Goodness is indeed a stepping stone, but goodness is also sometimes such a slippery creature. Good according to who? It is necessarily subjective, necessarily buried in the multitude of relationships that human beings have with other human beings, necessarily entwined with the nuanced question of what we owe to each other. Goodness is a difficult target to hit sometimes.

Wholeness though? Doesn’t that feel like a completely different game? Wholeness is something woven rather than targeted, it is something lived into rather than achieved. And in that way, I think it is much more a sibling to peace than goodness could ever be.

I have always loved Aristotle’s notion of the Golden Mean. In his philosophy known as “virtue ethics” Artistotle posited that in order for people to “flourish” as human beings, we should strive for a balance in virtues. Anger for example, should only be exhibited at the right time, in the right amount, for the right purpose. Too much, and we are volatile and cruel, too little and we are a doormat. Or generosity: too much and we do nothing but take care of others, never taking a moment for our God-given individuality, too little and we think of nothing but ourselves. Or courage: too much and we are impulsive, too little and we are cowardly. And so it goes for every quality a human being can possess.

The Golden Mean feels much closer to the idea of wholeness than goodness does, in the same way that the notion of “flourishing” is not the same as “happiness.” It hinges on a sense of balance, but more importantly, a sense of awareness. Awareness, or as it is sometimes called, mindfulness, is one of the most important practices that we can bring to our spiritual journey. It helps us to make space for reflection, for accountability, for nuance, for compexity, and to integrate those reflections and experiences into the way we live our lives. In terms of the Golden Mean, a commitment to awareness allows us to be flexible, to make the decisions that keep our virtues and characteristics in balance, even when or especially when our natures might tend in one direction or another. This feels much less about rightness, but rather about wisdom. And I don’t know about you, but the moment I start thinking about wisdom rather than rightness, I start feeling more peaceful. (Which I have to admit must be progress for someone like me who has always had a fair bit of teacher’s pet energy!)
And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” Rather than calling on the Israelites to build a physical space that could mediate peace, I believe that Haggai was calling the displaced and dispirited Israelites into an eternal space of wholeness, anchored in the ongoing presence of God. In their specific moment of personal and national restoration, he called them to remembrance, to strength, and to steadfast work. He called them to a sense of being shaken up, knowing that, in the spirit of wisdom and awareness, it would always bring them back to the glory of God, as it always had and always will.

During these days, these difficult and dispiriting days, let me ask: what is it that is keeping you whole? What is it that is keeping you in balance? What is it that is keeping you anchored in the ongoing presence of God? Our answers may differ, and they may change, but the asking will always lead us towards shalom.
For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty. This is all we need to know. Amen.


Readings:

Haggai 2:1-9

1 on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai:
2 “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them,
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.
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.”

Heaven & Hell #286

…Divine peace is within the Lord, arising from the oneness of his divine nature and the divine human nature within him. The divine quality of peace in heaven comes from the Lord, arising from his union with heaven's angels, and specifically from the union of the good and the true within each angel. These are the sources of peace. We may therefore conclude that peace in the heavens is the divine nature intimately affecting everything good there with blessedness. So it is the source of all the joy of heaven. In its essence, it is the divine joy of the Lord's divine love, arising from his union with heaven and with every individual there.