I Will Restore My House

I got my first real six-string Bought it at the five-and-dime Played it 'til my fingers bled Was the summer of '69

Me and some guys from school Had a band and we tried real hard Jimmy quit, Jody got married I should've known we'd never get far

Oh, when I look back now That summer seemed to last forever And if I had the choice Yeah, I'd always wanna be there Those were the best days of my life

Ok friends — think back, when were those best days of your life? The glory days? The time you would return to, if only...

I hope they bring a smile to your face. I hope they warm your heart a little bit.

I think back to my years of undergrad at Western Washington University. I think back to the house of guys I lived with at 611 North Garden Street, Apt. A, right across from Mathes Hall.

I think of the Summer of 2003, specifically. Summer after Sophomore year, when we first moved into that house. It was the first Summer I was dating Stacy, after meeting her a couple months before in a Latin American history class.

Or perhaps I’d also recall the first years of marriage with Stacy, living in the Sehome Court apartments right next to Joe’s Garden over on 32nd St.

Or maybe it was the year leading up to and into Asher’s birth, the preparation for a new member of our family to join us.

In some real ways, some of the best years of my life have been these last couple, serving here at St. James, seeking to live into my calling as a pastor, the fullness of who I know God has made me to be.

Those were the best days of my life.

But, if we’re honest, we know those days are intermingled with all kinds of heartache and tragedy.

Through that list of times of wonder for me, I must also recognize those were years of struggle. Both my father and father-in-law battled cancer. So did my wife and mother-in-law. My grandparents had heart issues, strokes and fell into dementia and eventually have begun to pass away. Having a new child was difficult in the midst of me pursuing my Masters and Stacy pursuing her Doctorate. My sister came very close to death in those years, as well. We began to watch as dear friends’ marriages started to fall apart, people who we’d been in wedding parties for back in the good ‘ol days. And while these recent years have been about a fulfilled calling, they have also been very difficult, draining, and growing for me.

I don’t mean to be a downer, but rather to note that we hold the good ‘ol days with the tension of the strain and reality of the whole of life. We kid ourselves when we idealize a particular time, when things were greater.

Think about it — when someone harkens back to the days when things were once great — we have to honestly wonder… do you mean when there was greater widespread disease and hunger? Do you mean back when people of our nation held others as property in the form of institutionalized slavery?

I don’t want to tear down the good ‘ol days. They were good. But our passage today reminds us of restoration, not as something which brings back something lost, but fulfills something hoped for. A new way is coming. In particular, we read this passage from the Prophet Haggai as a promise of the restoration of the house of Israel, not simply as a reunited nationstate, but as a house which rises up out of the line which leads to Jesus — a house that is made whole by in Christ alone.

These writings come from around 520 BC. A small remnant of people have returned to Jerusalem after Babylonian exile - governed by Zerubbabel and high priest Joshua - subject to the control of the Samaria. Babylon has been conquered by the Persian Empire, ruled by King Darius, and, as it would be for centuries in Israel, there are outside imperial forces setting up governors to rule over the people as an occupied, but somewhat free and being rebuilt community. It is following this period that the Second Temple of Jerusalem is rebuilt, which would stay standing until it was destroyed in 70 CE.

Here our second Scripture text, as Haggai questions — “Who remembers the good ‘ol days?”

The New Revised Standard Version Chapter 2

2 In the second year of King Darius, 1 in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3 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? 4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

Let’s pray.

A couple of important things to note in this passage.

First, there is language that echoes of an upheaval in the land, like the creation story, the chaos of the land and sea over which God’s spirit hovers, being shaken, quaking — chaos that will lead to something new emerging.

Second, I love this — the shaking is something that will cause the treasure of the nations to return to Israel. Do you hear that allusion — like when you shake out your purse to the the last few coins that were hiding in the folds? Or more dramatically — a shakedown, where the treasures of the nations are “shook out” and brought back to where they truly belong?

Israel had been a crossroads of the nations, a great place of commerce and wealth. Think of King Solomon, the pinnacle of the Israelite dynasty, with his immense treasure and global trade partnerships.

And behind these metaphors in the text, we hear this concluding, consoling truth — “the silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.”

The treasures of the nations, the glory of Israel — all the good of the “glory days” — it belongs to the Lord, it has and always will belong to God.

We should hear this as a beautiful promise, not selfish or hoarding — it is a celebration of the treasure of all creation, a breaking forth of all goodness from the corners of the earth, being brought to its place of fulfillment.

This has been the story of God’s people all along. It has been about promise, a promise that in the House of God all the nations would have a home, a place of belonging and rest.

I want to go back to my glory days. Or maybe to your glory days. Or maybe to our collective glory days, as a church or as a community, a city, a nation.

Hear the last verse, verse 9, with the good ‘ol days in mind, with the Summer of ‘69 in mind — “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

Was it the Summer of ‘69? Was it college days, newlywed days? Was it some era of greatness of our people? Was it the days when this church was bursting with people and programs and assets? Was it the idyllic post-war suburban America from the 50s?

“The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former...”

Let’s be honest with ourselves — we know those good ‘ol days weren’t always good. Sometimes they were downright awful.

If, like Israel, we keep looking back to the “best days of my life” — we will miss out.

I want to close us with a couple of alternative ways of understanding this passage, ways that give us hope for the future as well as honor the good of the past.

The first has to do with Veteran’s Day.

Tomorrow, our nation celebrates Veteran’s Day. I know there are members of this congregation that served in the United States armed forces. Before going on, I want to say thank you for your service and for the way you offered yourself for the needs of others. Bless you in this.

To look back on times of war, it is easy to glorify the stories. But anyone who has served or has interacted closely with someone who served knows if there was glory in it, it was mixed greatly with sorrow and pain. I do not imagine many would say those were the best days of their lives. Rather, they were struggle.

I wonder, as we look at this passage promising hope for a better, restored way in God’s kingdom, we might look at these stories from Veterans among us and see the opportunity for something better to come for them. What I mean is, we do not seek to restore the times of war. Rather, could we be a people who care for our Veterans in their pain, their grief, their sacrifice and struggle? Could we not honor the violence and horror of war, but rather honor the pain of our brothers and sisters who serve by serving them, caring for people who come home wounded and in need of care? We don’t honor and restore their pain through military parades. We do this by providing them good medical attention, access to mental health care, and stability to enter back into the world as peaceful members of society. We seek the restoration of the house by how we care for our wounded.

Another example, in closing, is how we honor the legacy of our church. We have been a church here on the South Hill of Bellingham for over 130 years. This has been a place of spiritual formation and growth in the way of Jesus for generations of people in this community. Many have been baptised, many have been called into service, many have been ordained to God’s particular calls on their lives and sent out, commissioned to serve with love and justice.

But we can’t go back to a time long gone. I doesn’t work like that. Our work of restoration does not look like turning back the clock or simply maintaining what is. Our work in honoring the legacy of this church is to always look ahead at what the next opportunity to serve and grow it. What is God calling us to, today, tomorrow?

This is such a challenge, because we also seek to honor the faith of our ancestors, the faith of our youth. But do we do this when we maintain? Or do we do this when we expand? Do we honor what was by holding it tightly, or we do honor the promise of God’s restorative power by looking for what is broken among us right here, right now, and pursuing ways of care and mercy and justice for it right here, right now?

I hope you hear what I’m getting at. This church has had a legacy of pushing in to areas of deepest need in our community. Today, we honor this legacy by caring for the unhoused and the vulnerable in our community. We do this by fighting for justice for those who cannot speak up because of their immigration status or color of their skin. We do this by seeking to protect the earth for our grandchildren and great grandchildren, those from which we are borrowing this land today and passing it on to tomorrow. This is the legacy and the promise.

“The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.”

I want to close us with words from Jesus that echo this promise, or perhaps we should say they deepen and fulfill this promise, as Jesus commissions us. Jesus says in John 14:

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus the Way to the Father

12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

Jesus is inviting us to be a part of the restoring of the house of God. Not from the good ‘ol days. Something greater, something more, something for this moment, this time.

And so we pray, may it be so with us, Lord. Amen.