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Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,
13-17
Luke 20:27-38
Haggai 1:15b-2:9
This prophecy dates
from the Return from Exile, and concerns the rebuilding of the Temple
in
Jerusalem. It is a message of hope and encouragement, directed especially to
Zerubbabel and Joshua in their roles as leaders of the people, but
including the whole people in its scope and promise. The rebuilding of the
Temple
was proving to be far more difficult, both economically and politically,
than the returnees had anticipated when the project was first begun, and
it seems that some were questioning whether God was with them in the
effort. In response to this doubt, the prophet Haggai calls the people to
take courage and to continue to rebuild: “work, for I am with you, says
the Lord of hosts.” Haggai recognizes the real frustration of the
project: “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former
glory?” as it was before the Exile, he asks; “how does it look to you
now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” But along with this realism,
Haggai sees reason for hope; like Second Isaiah before him, Haggai sees a
connection between the Exodus and the Return; and just as God was faithful
to be with the people then, Haggai affirms that God will be faithful to be
with the people now. Therefore Haggai can proclaim God’s word, “My
spirit abides among you; do not fear.” Haggai discerns God’s aim for
the people, an aim for prosperity and well-being; so Haggai affirms that
if the people will work with God’s aim, even in the midst of present
difficulties, the gift of prosperity will be realized in time. The
reference to “shaking the heavens and the earth” may be an apocalyptic
image (as it is certainly so interpreted when quoted in the Letter to the
Hebrews); or it may refer to a new occurrence of phenomena such as those
that accompanied the Exodus. Either way, whether the “shaking”
indicates the end of the age or a new action of God for the people, the
point is that the larger international and natural communities will work
with God, as the faithful people work with God, to fulfill God’s aim for
restoration and peace. The prophecy can be a message of encouragement and
hope for all people of all times who work in God’s spirit to make the
peace in difficult times.
Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21
The psalm is chosen to
echo and extend some of the themes from the Haggai reading. Where Haggai
promised the “splendor” of the future
Temple
, the psalmist meditates on the “splendor” of God's majesty and
wondrous works. Where Haggai invokes the witness of the Exodus to bring
hope to the Return, the psalmist echoes that “one generation shall laud
God’s works to another, and shall declare God’s mighty acts.” Where
Haggai calls the people to work faithfully, because God is faithfully with
them, the psalmist proclaims that God “is near to all who call on God,
to all who call on God in truth.” Because God “fulfills the desire of
all who fear God; also hears their cry, and saves them,” therefore the
faithful can be comforted and strengthened to do as God calls them to do.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5,
13-17
The second lesson
sounds an apocalyptic note which echoes through all the propers for these
final Sundays of the church year. In the first segment of the reading,
Paul warns the Christians at Thessalonika “not to be too quickly shaken
in mind or alarmed” by the notion that the Parousia is at hand. While it
is part of the Christian hope to await the return of Jesus and the
fulfillment of human history, it is merely “deceptive” to read the
events of the present as signs that the end has come; when the end does in
fact come, it will be unmistakable. Besides, Paul says, the fulfillment of
Christ’s mission cannot happen until the “rebellion” and the
appearance of “the lawless one.” As with so many apocalyptic images,
it is tempting to try to pin these down to particular meanings. It be that
the imagery of the lawless one “taking his seat in the temple of God”
and “declaring himself to be God” are references to the Roman emperor
Caligula’s order to have a statue of himself erected in the Temple in
Jerusalem (an order that was never actually carried out); or it may be
that Paul is, in effect, saying that the real end will be so bad
that even Caligula’s blasphemy will look tame by comparison. But however
the images may be interpreted, Paul’s point seems to be that the
Thessalonians should not be overly concerned with the timetable of
the End. Instead, they should “stand firm” and “hold fast to the
traditions” that work out their “sanctification by the Spirit” and
their “belief in the truth.” It is by being faithful in the present
that they will be open to fulfillment in God’s future. From a process
point of view, we could say that the anticipation of being gathered
together to Christ in the future gives an aim and a purpose to each
present moment, an aim and a purpose that can comfort and strengthen our
hearts “in every good work and word.”
Luke 20:27-38
In a classic
controversy story, a contingent of Sadducees attempt to undercut Jesus’
teaching by means of a reductio ad absurdum. Intending to show that
the idea of resurrection is incoherent, the Sadducees pose an unlikely
situation in which a woman is married to seven brothers in succession,
each brother dutifully fulfilling the obligation of Levirate marriage, but
each one dying before raising up children for the original husband. If all
eight are rejoined in the resurrection, the Sadducees ask, which of them
will be married? Jesus responds that they have misunderstood the nature of
resurrection: the Sadducees have merely projected the conditions of this
life into a sort of indefinite prolongation; Jesus, however, affirms that
the resurrection life will be a different kind of life, and
relationships among the “children of the resurrection” will not be
subject to the same limits as relationships in this age. This passage
could be taken as having an anti-marriage bias: e.g., that sexuality and
procreation are lesser goods, to which “those who are considered
worthy” of the larger life will no longer need to stoop. Much Christian
tradition has indeed regarded celibacy as more “angelic” than
marriage. But this passage could also be taken in a more positive light,
as suggesting that the kind of intimacy which requires the exclusivity
of marriage in this life, will in the resurrection life be much more inclusive.
Resurrection life is life in God; as Jesus says, to God “all of
them are alive”; or, as process theology has it, all the moments of our
lives enter into God and are held everlastingly in God, so that the pattern
of moments that makes us who we are does not perish but is alive in God.
Resurrection life is a life of intimacy with God. Further, since all are alive in God, in equal intimacy with God, we can know each other in
and through God with an intimacy that goes deeper and broader and higher
than intimacies we can achieve as “belonging to this age.” Read in
this light, the story is more than just a contentious bickering over a
fine point of first century theological speculation; it is more than a
questionable account of the value of marriage; it is an invitation to look
forward to a quality of life in God filled with an intensity and harmony
of love we can now only barely begin to imagine.
Paul S. Nancarrow is rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. and canon theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. He is a co-author of The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World.
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