From the Prophet Haggai:
Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Haggai 1:5-6 (NRSV) – December 13, 2013.)
It never ceases to amaze me how directly Scripture can speak to the present day! The admonition to “Consider how you have fared,” and its description of an economy in a shambles, where the people work but do not enjoy the produce of their labor, continue to be hungry and thirsty, cannot find warmth, and find their earnings dribbling away to nothing, could be addressed to anyone anywhere in today’s world, I think.
Haggai’s purpose in speaking his prophecy is to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple in the years immediately following the end of the Babylonian Exile, sometime around 520 BCE. His thesis seems to be that if the Jews can reclaim their spiritual center, in his eyes quite literally the physical center of the universe, the Temple of God, their lot will improve. It’s a good point, I think.
I’ve noticed over the past few days that a lot of people were remarking that today would be “Friday the 13th,” not a few with noticeable dread. Many of the same people regularly check their horoscopes and will make it a point of telling others, “I’m a Sagittarius,” or will explain someone’s behavior with, “Well, he IS a Leo!”
My late mother was one such person. She didn’t put much stock in concern about the number 13 (live and work in Las Vegas, Nevada, and you see and learn to dismiss a lot of that sort of thing), but she sure seemed to pay attention to astrology. She was a Cancerian; she constantly reminded my brother and me that he was a Leo and I, a Libra. Whatever personality traits we exhibited were explained by the stars! But all that changed when she entered her 70s.
Something else changed then, too. Her son became a priest. About a year after my ordination, my family and I were visiting my parents and I noticed on her nightstand a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, an old study bible that had been on their bookshelves unused for years, and a newcomer’s pamphlet from a local Episcopal Church. I picked up the BCP and walked into the living room.
“Uh . . . what’s this?” I asked innocently.
“Well,” she said in that almost-sarcastic tone of voice on which I think she had a trademark, “I guess you’re serious about this, so I thought I’d better check it out.”
And check it out she did. Both she and my step-father became official members of the Episcopal Church later that year. He became a regular handyman volunteer around the church, and she became an active member (and even an officer) in the Episcopal Church Women. They attended Mass every week, took part in social events, and worked in the church’s outreach ministry. Both pre-planned their memorial services using the burial rites of the Prayer Book, and their ashes are now together in the memory garden next to the larger church sanctuary their capital contributions help to build.
Here’s the interesting thing: after that day when she admitted she was “checking out” religious faith, I never again heard a word about horoscopes or the zodiac. God, Jesus, and the Christian faith had made astrology unnecessary in her life.
I have atheist and agnostic friends who will scoff at that. In their minds there is no difference between belief that the stars control our destiny and belief that there is a God who loves us. There is, however, a significant difference and it is exactly in that verb I just used – love. The stars, the number 13, rabbit’s feet and lucky clovers, the things of superstition are indifferent to human beings; God is never indifferent.
When we put the indifferent (indeed, the inanimate) at the center of our lives, life suffers. Whether that indifferent thing is a distant star or a bank account, a good luck piece or a career, that thing cannot give back any of our devotion. Center on the indifferent, we will sow much and harvest little. When God is at the center of life, our devotion is returned. Our hunger and our thirst are satisfied.
Haggai was on the right track and his prophecy does address our current situation. A religious re-centering was needed and perhaps the Temple was a visible sign of that re-centering of the returned exiles, but one does not really need a physical center. The people, each individually and all together as a society, needed a spiritual center. The people, each of us individually and all of us together as a society, still do.
It is Advent: the Advent call to self-examination continues in Haggai’s prophecy. What is at our spiritual center? As the morning psalm says today, God is our “strong rock, a castle to keep [us] safe,” and God will lead us and guide us. (Ps. 31:3)
====================
A request to my readers: I’m trying to build the readership of this blog and I’d very much appreciate your help in doing so. If you find something here that is of value, please share it with others. If you are on Facebook, “like” the posts on your page so others can see them. If you are following me on Twitter, please “retweet” the notices of these meditations. If you have a blog of your own, please include mine in your links (a favor I will gladly reciprocate). Many thanks!
====================
Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
The devisers of our Episcopal Church Daily Office Lectionary were a clever bunch, weren’t they? 
I thought, “Surely, this is wrong! There can’t be anything as weak and lifeless in Scripture (especially in the Psalms) as the plaintive little cry, ‘I’m sorry . . . .'” So instead of the New Revised Standard Version, I turned to The Book of Common Prayer, sure that I would find a stronger statement, perhaps “I repent.” But, no. The BCP version of this psalm is really even worse because it renders the verb in the future tense: “I will confess my iniquity and be sorry for my sin.” Come on! “I will be sorry”? Really?
First, a confession: I’m not fond of the Book of Revelation. Although it has occasionally brilliant passages and some incredible metaphoric imagery, it is probably the most abused and misused piece of scripture in the entire Christian canon! I remember hearing or reading at one time that, during the formation of the canon, bishops in what is now the Eastern Orthodox wing of the church opposed the inclusion of this book. If that had been the way things went, it would have been relegated to that collection of interesting historical literature which includes The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didiche, and the Letters of Clement. But it wasn’t, so we have it and we have to take it seriously. (When dealing with the Apocalypse, it is well to remember the meme about Episcopalians, though: “We take the Bible too seriously to take it literally!”)
This series of questions is asked by Amos just before he asks, “Does disaster befall a city unless the Lord has done it?” (v. 6b) He’s provoking his readers (originally, his listeners) to answer each preliminary question, “Of course not” so that their answer to his capper will also be “Of course not.” 
In the library of my parish church is a pen-and-ink drawing of Jesus laughing. It’s not a picture I particularly like, nor is it particularly well executed. In fact, if someone hadn’t told me that it is supposed to show Jesus laughing, I would have thought he was angry! Whenever I look at it, this verse from the Psalter comes to mind.
Friday was a Holy Day in America! It was a day when all across the nation thousands, if not millions, of people breathed prayers of thanks. It was a day when all across the nation thousands, if not millions, improved the lives of many, many others. It was a day when news organizations from the smallest local radio station to international broadcast and cable conglomerates asked Americans across the nation, “How did you participate?” Yes, Friday was a Holy Day in America!
As I read the lesson from Exodus today, there is a bush in my dining room. It’s a four-foot tall evergreen and it’s sort of burning. There are little electrical lights all ablaze all over it. It’s our Christmas tree. (We have a short Christmas tree set on a table because we have three cats. We tried for a couple of years to have a normal size seven-foot tree with these guys, but it was impossible. So, small tree on table.)
“No matter how big and bad you are . . . when a two-year-old hands you a toy telephone, you answer it.” That piece of wisdom showed up on my Facebook newsfeed recently and I will return to it in a moment, but first I want to share some more Christmas poetry with you.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents and the Daily Office Lectionary again chooses lessons that underscore the day’s commemoration. In the midst of Christmas joy, we are reminded of the little children killed by Herod’s soldiers in the king’s attempt to do away with a perceived rival. I am not the first nor the only preacher or pastor to have thought of this story when, two weeks ago, gunman Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The wanton murder of children at any time makes the country where it occurs desolate and devastated. So today, again, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died:
