Episodes
Sunday Nov 08, 2015
The Challenge of New
Sunday Nov 08, 2015
Sunday Nov 08, 2015
A
sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 8,
2015.
Text: Haggai 2:3-5
Anthony and I purchased our first home in 2011 and, for the most part, it was perfect. There were several projects that needed attention and some of them we got sorted right away. Other projects lurked about in various states of NOT being finished for YEARS, partly due to lack of funds, and partly due to my feeling stuck and overwhelmed about what to do. If only I had run into the host of the reality show, “House Crashers,” as I stumbled around Home Depot! The host of this DIY network show approaches unsuspecting shoppers and offers to come to their house and do a remodel completely free! I’ve watched various versions of the “Crashers” series over the years and it always seems odd when folks refuse this offer. It is a free remodel! A whole new space! Why in the world would you not want a large crew of complete strangers to immediately invade your home and completely disrupt your environment, your schedule, your control? Well…when I put it that way…
Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the challenges of new people, new ideas, new realities in our lives—those times when new may not feel “improved” and the displacement and disruption can leave us longing for familiarity and ease. As we continue thinking about how our church building and our own lives are “Under Construction,” the theme for these next weeks is “Pew Crashers”—after all, who hasn’t been displaced from time to time by new people who didn’t get the memo that that spot in the pew has your unwritten name on it (or if you’re not a regular church-goer—maybe your spot in yoga class or your table in the coffee shop)? There are likely those among us who have squirmed in our seats over something said or done or not said or not done—about the way things happen or don’t, the way things look or don’t. In other words, church life—and all community life—gives us opportunities to learn how to deal with strangers and even friends who invade our space and change the way things look and function, disrupt the flow of our lives, who make us uncomfortable and cranky. But just as the “house crashers” T.V. reality show promises something beautiful and useful as a result of the disruption, so too the “pew crasher” moments of our lives can bring about renewal and remodeling of life in ways that we might never receive otherwise.
Today, our focus is the challenge of “new.” Why, after all, would folks not readily embrace a new thing? The text from the prophet Haggai provides an opportunity to explore this question a bit more deeply. Here’s the context: In 587 BCE the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple—the center of religious, civic, and communal life for the Jewish people—and carried the people into captivity and exile. Haggai emerges as a prophet in 520 BCE at a time when the people have been allowed to come home to Jerusalem. But the temple has not been rebuilt even after years of resettlement. Haggai calls the people to make the restoration of the temple a priority because, he insists, with the renewal of temple life, order and connection, prosperity and normalcy will finally be truly possible for the returned exiles. And as a result of his prophecy, the people were inspired to start building. Today’s short passage is spoken as the new temple is under construction. Haggai says, “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?”
Those who saw the temple before it was destroyed would be at least 73 years old by the time Haggai asks this question. They would have lived through the violence, through the exile, and now they are looking at an unfinished building project that they likely won’t live to see completed. Why might these folks be wary or critical of the new thing? Surely, they were nostalgic for the old days, for the time before everything was destroyed. And I imagine they might simply be tired—tired of waiting for justice and renewal, tired of the struggle to make things right, tired of the sacrifices of time, money, emotional energy required to constructively deal with changing circumstances. I also imagine there was fear involved: not only fear that the new won’t live up to the old, but all the familiar fears that crop up with change as well: fears of the unknown, fears of failure, fears about whether I will “fit” in the new thing, fears of investing so much in something that may all be taken away again.
Nostalgic, tired and afraid can be a lethal mix when it comes to creating something new. In my experience in the church over the years, I have experienced this nasty cocktail upend so many promising opportunities. And I realize that the desire for the old familiar ways, the sometimes pre-rational fear and the sense of deep-seated weariness and wariness—while not a new human phenomenon—stem in large part from the experience of the world in which we now live.
These days, we are bombarded with so much change, so much new data, so many questions and issues without any easy or ready-made answer. Everything happens so fast and there is little time or space to process all the newness. As I pondered this, here is a taste of what flooded my mind: changing religious attitudes and practices, the struggle for racial justice, increasing numbers of non-white males moving into positions of authority, “urban renewal” (aka “gentrification), climate change, the battle for equal rights and protections for lesbian, gay, and especially transgender folks—and the backlash against all those things; add to that scientific discoveries, new technologies, gun violence, prisons for profit, children who hunger for food, support, safety, and hope, gross income disparities, the “new math” (?!)—the list could go on and on. New challenges, new attitudes, new struggles over old issues, new opportunities proliferate and saturate our lives today. And it all needs to be sorted and addressed and cared for and worked for so that what gets built is the kind of life, the kind of world, where God is pleased to dwell. Like God’s people of old, we find ourselves being challenged to build a “temple,” though Jesus referred to it as the Kin-dom of God. Building projects, acts of new creation, do not happen quickly or without a long, messy middle. And Lord knows we are in the messy middle of so much in our world. There is so much that needs to be restored, so much that needs to be created, recreated, made new. No wonder we are tired. No wonder we sometimes just want things to be quiet and easy and organized and stable. No wonder we push back sometimes in places like church when we fear that what has been a place of refuge might change and spin out of control like everything else.
And, as if we needed any more challenges to creating newness, history—both sacred and secular—shows that there are always forces actively working against the birth of something new, always some malevolent energy getting stirred to rage against new creation. There always seems to be a violent, invading force that seeks power and control, polarizing powers that play upon our fears, convincing us that a new way is dangerous. Wizards whip up distractions tempting us to give in to more base desires—desires like control, comfort, cozy prejudices, and possessions. There is always a “Babylon” ready to move against the places where God is at work, to tear down the “temple” in an attempt to disrupt the new thing that God is doing in our own lives and in the world. And these anti-Kin-dom forces and powers can get ahold of us so that we engage in self-destructive behaviors or simply give in to the lie that we are stuck in a life-sucking reality with no way out. And those same forces and powers move in the world so that we get things like the defeat of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance through fear- and hate-mongering ad campaigns leaving the most vulnerable without basic protections for things like housing and jobs. We get defensive, fear-driven assertions that Black Lives Matter advocates support violence and hate all white people and all police officers setting up polarized dynamics that hinder the true goal of assuring that black persons simply are afforded basic human rights and dignity. We get policies that make it harder for persons who are poor or black or immigrants or Hispanic or ex-offenders to vote which assures that those already on the edges are disempowered to change their own reality through the democratic process.[i] Thanks to the new-life-crushing, anti-Kin-dom forces, we get blaming and shaming and proof-texting and back-room deals that keep some in power and others on the margins. And of course some of the loudest voices working these unjust deals and strategies claim to be Christian voices. This is not new. It is very, very old.
In the midst of all these challenges to newness, we might find ourselves staring, overwhelmed, at the mess of it all. We may find it very tempting to allow nostalgia, fatigue, disappointment, resentment, woundedness, and fear to have their way, leaving us feeling stuck, depressed and powerless to make a difference.
When the people of Judah looked at their messy, unfinished construction project, their work of restoration, their struggle to reclaim and rebuild community based on God’s vision of love and justice, and thought it was “nothing”—when they were tired and fearful that the whole thing was a waste here is what God said to them: “take courage, all you people of the land…work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.” You see ours is a God who sets people free, not a God who keeps people in chains. Our God led the oppressed and enslaved Hebrew people out of Egypt; God led the people through the wilderness, through one “messy middle” after another; God was with the people in midst of violence and exile and remains with them as they rebuild their lives. “Take courage…work, for I am with you…My spirit abides among you; do not fear.”
In the midst of so much that needs renewal—in the world, in the church, in our families, in our own lives—and in the face of all the obstacles and complications and questions on the path to newness, perhaps our greatest challenge is to believe that things can really be different, that life can really be made new. If we are human and if we have a heart and a conscience, I imagine that there are times when it’s hard to believe. And the word we receive today doesn’t make anything easier or simpler. But it is the word we need because it reminds us that the work of making things new is God’s work and that we are simply given the chance to play a part in building the Kin-dom. “Take courage, work, do not fear,” for God is with you.
[i] http://prospect.org/article/22-states-wave-new-voting-restrictions-threatens-shift-outcomes-tight-races
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