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There
is a legendary 13th century satirical Sufi character, named
Mulla Nasrudin to whom many stories are attributed. One of my
favorites is where Nasrudin stood on the bow of a ferryboat next to a
professor.
“Have you ever studied astronomy?” asked the professor.
“I
can’t say that I have,” answered the mystic.
“Then you have wasted much of your life,” the scholar declared.
“Knowing the constellations, a skilled captain can navigate a boat
around the entire globe.”
A
while later the intellectual asked Nasrudin, “Have you studied
meteorology?”
“No,” answered Nasrudin.
“Then you have wasted most of your life,” chided the academician.
“Methodically capturing the wind can propel a sailing ship at
astounding speeds.”
Another while passed, and the professor continued to quiz Nasrudin,
“Have you ever studied oceanography?”
“Not
at all.”
“My,
how you have wasted your time! Awareness of the currents helps sailors
find food and shelter.”
A
few minutes later Nasrudin approached the professor and nonchalantly
asked him, “Have you ever studied swimming, doctor?”
“Haven't had the time,” the professor answered haughtily.
“Then you've wasted all of your life. The boat is sinking.”
Nasrudin is one of many attributed with coining the
phrase, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Of
course, a simpler way of saying it is, “First things first.”
This summer
we have had the opportunity to visit with old friends you may have
never met. Today we stop by to visit Haggai, a sixth century BC
prophet of priorities, who tried to wake up a slumbering people and
remind them what we have heard said so many times in so many ways –
First things first.
Haggai’s ministry occurs in just a few months, from September through
December of 520 B.C. when Darius was the emperor of Persia. Sixteen
years earlier, Cyrus, Darius’ predecessor, had issued a decree for the
exiles from Jerusalem to return to their land. Headed up by Ezra,
they did just that and as Clay pointed out to us last week, they built
the altar first. Then they hit a little snag. Opposition sprang up
and they sort of quit. They went home and started fixing up their
houses. They started to enjoy the comforts of being back home and
just never got around to getting back to work on the Temple, the
symbol of God’s presence. As often happens with God, a prophet was
called into action. The word of the Lord came to Haggai. We find the
beginning of this story in the first six verses of the book that bears
the prophet’s name, found on page 878 in your pew Bibles. Hear now
the word of the Lord:
1In 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 son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of
Jehozadak, the high priest: 2Thus says the
Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to
rebuild the Lord’s house. 3Then the word of the
Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying:
4Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses,
while this house lies in ruins? 5Now therefore thus says
the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have
fared. 6You 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.
The Word of God for
the people of God. Thanks be to God.
In this passage the
prophet Haggai exhorted the people of God to honor God in their
priorities. Haggai is one of those old friends you may have never met,
but his book is a great book and his story is a great story. Of
course, it begins as all great stories do, “Once upon a time…”
Once upon a
time, there was a man named Haggai. He was a man whose life was
changed dramatically in just three days. That’s really all we know
about the man is that there were three days in three months that
caused him and all those around him never to be the same again. In
each of the three days, the message was the same. It is a message
that we have heard many times, in many places, said many ways –
First things first.
Let’s look at those
days and that message.
Day One: Do what God wants you to do – first.
The people
in Jerusalem had lost sight of this priority. They were quite
comfortable in their paneled houses, even though they never had
enough. I can almost see them, stretched out in the hammock in the
back yard, their wives shouting out the kitchen window, “Hey, are you
guys ever going to fix up the Temple? It is in shambles.” The
hammock dwellers would bellow back, “Nah, the time has not yet come to
rebuild the Lord’s house.”
God is
introduced as the Lord of Hosts, a title that is used 267 times in the
Old Testament and fifteen times in the thirty-eight verses that make
up the book of Haggai. This term highlights God as the creator, the
All-powerful sovereign, a God capable of waging war. When we read the
words, “Lord of Hosts” we are acknowledging a very powerful entity.
The Lord of Hosts pulled a Dr. Phil on the people of Jerusalem when he
asked, “How’s that workin’ for you? Let’s see, you plant a lot, but
you don’t harvest much. You eat some, but you’re still hungry. You
drink a little, but you’re still thirsty. You have some clothes, but
you’re still cold. You get paid, but you put the money in sacks with
holes. Would you say it could be better? Of course it could. If you
do one thing: Do what God wants you to do – first.”
Last Sunday
morning I worshipped at First United Methodist Church in Brownwood.
The children’s sermon was about Martha and Mary. The speaker wanted
the children to remember those names. She asked them, “What were
their names?” and the kids just mumbled, having not paid a bit of
attention. Then she pulled out a bag of M&M’s. “Let me help you
remember their names,” she said. “M&M stands for Martha and Mary.”
She then gave each child a handful of M&M’s.
Before she
reached all the children, the little boy who was at the beginning of
the line spoke up, “May I please have some more Martha and Mary?”
The poor
citizens of Jerusalem. They had only a morsel to eat and found
themselves soon wanting more, more food, more drink, more clothes,
more money. They never really had enough and God thought they might
just turn toward heaven. The Lord of Hosts thought they might realize
their need to do what God wanted them to do – first.
It is easy
to get caught in the trap of working harder for our own comfort and
finding ourselves farther away from it. The old Dutch proverb,
“The hurrier I go the behinder I get,” comes to mind nearly every
week. A few months ago I wrote in my journal, “I know. I know I
will have more energy if I exercise. I know I will have more money if
I give generously. I know I will have more time if I keep the Sabbath
more regularly. I know I will have more clarity if I pray more
consistently.” I know these things. I have done all of them and
proven these statements to be true. Yet, there is this tendency
within in me that whispers, “The time has not yet come…” I fool myself
into thinking I don’t have the energy to exercise, I don’t have the
money to give any more, I don’t have time to keep Sabbath. I don’t
have the clarity of mind to pray.” To which the Lord of Hosts, the
God of Creation, the Father Almighty replies, “Then you will never
have enough until you put
First things first.”
On the first
day of the sixth month of the second year of King Darius’ reign, the
Word of the Lord came to Haggai and told him to tell his people, “Do
what God wants you to do – first.” And they did. On the
twenty-fourth day of that same month, they organized a work crew and
started putting the Temple back together. But it just did not look
like the Temple that some of the older citizens remembered. So Haggai
experienced a second extraordinary day.
Day Two: See what God wants you to see – first.
Nearly one
month had passed since the work began. It is now mid-October 520 BC
and some of the old-timers are growing quite discouraged. As long as
they could ignore the Temple, the pain was bearable. However, as they
started looking at it they realized that there was no way that this
thing would be restored to the glory of Solomon’s day. The first
temple had lumber from Lebanon, furnishings from all over the world.
This second temple was looking more like mesquite wood and garage sale
furnishings. I can only imagine their response to Haggai 2:3, “Who is
left among you that saw this house in its former glory. How does it
look to you now?” With their eyes, it looked dreadful, but the Lord
of Hosts wanted them to see what He saw.
In
Haggai2:7-9 the Lord of Hosts says, “I will fill this house with
splendor…the silver is mine and the gold is mine…This place is going
to look better than ever.”
Every now
and then I will turn on the television at night to watch the reply of
the Astros game. I only do this when I know that the Astros have
already won. If I saw on the news that they lost, why would I want to
watch that? But if they won, I can watch with complete confidence,
even if they are six runs behind in the third inning. This is the
perspective of God. God, the Lord of Hosts, knows that the earth
belongs to him and all that is in it. God knows that the Temple will
exceed anything that ever was before.
I wonder if
God was referring to the building in Jerusalem that was restored and
about which the apostles marveled to Jesus in Mark 13, “Look,
Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” Or was
God referring to another Temple about which Paul wrote in I
Corinthians 6, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not
your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your
body.”
How easy it
is get discouraged when what we see does not look like what we want to
see. In those times may we hear what the Lord of Hosts spoke through
the prophet in Haggai 2:4, “Yet now take courage.” See what God
wants you to see - first. Two months passed from that day in
October 520 and the work was continuing. It would be more than four
years before the reconstruction project would be completed. Yet there
was still one more extraordinary day in store for the prophet Haggai.
Day Three: Be who God wants you to be – first.
The
twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, sometime around mid December,
the prophet received two messages one reinforcing the other that the
people of God had turned the corner. There are four words declared in
these messages that excited me so much when I read them. They are
found in Haggai 2:15, “From this day on…” Up until the
twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, there never seemed to be enough,
but all that was about to change from this day on, because the
people of God were claiming their identity. The promise is given even
more clearly in verse nineteen, “From this day on I will bless
you.”
When I was a
teenager, I bowled in a Saturday morning bowling league at Recreation
Lanes in Findlay, Ohio. My dad taught me to bowl and how to keep
score. Back in the day we used to have to keep score by hand - on
paper - with a pencil. I know that is hard for some of you to
imagine. One of the advantages of the old-fashioned way of keeping
score was the ability to draw fences. My Dad taught me this.
Whenever I strung together several bad frames, all I had to do was
take the pencil and draw a fence at the end of the last frame that I
had bowled. What that fence meant was, “From this point on, no
more bad frames. From this point on, I regain my focus, return to the
fundamentals, forget the shortcomings of previous frames, and press on
toward strikes and spares.” It was actually a fairly successful
psychological tool providing a fresh start even in the middle of a
game.
This is what
happened on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. In fact, God
declared to Zerubbabel that he would make him like a signet ring.
That is, the leader of these people was to be like God’s signature.
The signet ring was that stamp that the king would place in hot wax to
authenticate a document or declaration. It was the king’s signature.
Zerubbabel was to be the ring on God’s hand.
That is what
the church is. We are called to be God’s signature in the world. We
are called to represent God in this world. Jesus prayed, not only for
his disciples, but for all who would believe in John 17, “May they be
brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me.” We are charged to be
who God wants us to be – first.
I’m glad
that I got to hang around with Haggai for a while this summer. This
old friend that you may have never met, had only a few memorable days
in three months that we know about, but I’m glad he wrote them down.
It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it or in how many ways it is
said, I need to be reminded,
First things first.
●
Do what God wants you to do – first
●
See what God wants you to see – first
●
Be who God wants you to be – first
Robert Grant
knew the importance of keeping first things first. He was born in
India in 1779, the son of the director of the East India Company. He
attended Oxford and become elected to Parliament at the age of 29.
Grant was deeply concerned about social issues and world missions. He
became the governor of Bombay and even has a medical college in India
named for him. However, that which Sir Robert Grant is most known for
are his words of devotion to the Lord of Hosts:
O worship the King, all glorious above, O gratefully sing God's power and God's love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite? It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail;
Thy mercies how
tender, how firm to the end, our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and
Friend.
Please sing
with me hymn number 73 “O Worship the King.” (stanzas 1, 4, and 5) as
we rearrange our priorities this week and put
First
things first.
Amen. |
