000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Proper 27 [32]/Year C
Haggai 1:15b–2:9+ (Semicontinuous)
Proper 27 [32]/Year C 283
Haggai worked in Jerusalem in 520 BCE. His period of prophesying and
Zechariah’s occurred in the same year (Zech. 1:1). He dates his book by
telling us when he received each of his prophetic visions. He says of the
first one: “In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the
first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai
to Zerubbabel . . . governor of Judah, and to Joshua . . . the high priest”
(1:1). Haggai’s last words from the Lord came to him four months later
(2:10, 19).
Haggai has only one concern, a distinctly odd one for a prophet in
Israel. He wants the Judeans to rebuild the Temple that the Babylonians
had destroyed. Four times in the first chapter he refers to the “house” of
the Lord (vv. 4, 8, 9, and 14). Previous prophets had little positive to say
about the Temple, although they cannot be said to have wanted to do away
with it. They desired that its worship be authentic, a liturgical celebration
of a genuine life of faith committed to YHWH’s considerate justice and
not an ersatz substitute for actively seeing to the needs of the widow and
the orphan. Yet their comments, in the un-nuanced manner of prophetic
speech, spoke strongly against the Temple (e.g., Isa. 1:10–17; Jer. 7:1–15;
Ezek. 24:15–24).
All of a sudden here comes a prophet who strongly urges Zerubbabel,
the governor of Judah under the authority of Darius the king of Persia,
and Joshua, the high priest, to: “Go up to the hills and bring wood and
build the house” (1:8). He is insistent on this point. How is it that the people
can live in “paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (1:4). “My
house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses” (1:9).
Thus Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people “came and worked on the
house of the LORD of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the
month, in the sixth month” (1:14–15), little more than three weeks after
Haggai’s initial prophecy.
When the church construction boom took place in the mid–twentieth
century, it was said that some pastors had an “edifice complex.” There is
enough iconoclasm in many of us to lead us to look askance at an emphasis
on buildings. Haggai’s text is precisely pertinent to us because it leads
us to question our biases.
We have already, in the liturgical year, been aware of Zephaniah’s
promise to Zion, upon its return from exile, that the Lord will be “in your