Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 452

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Consider your ways!
Go up into the hill country;
bring timber, and build the house
That I may take pleasure in it
and receive my glory, says the LORD.

Haggai protested the familiar ways of the Jews upon their return to Jerusalem. Familiar in the sense that they'd always done things this way. They had always put themselves and their concerns ahead of the Lord. From the day they'd escaped Egypt to depend upon God's providence of food, drink, clothing, and protection, to the day they'd finally returned to Judah after the Babylonian exile, they'd regarded their own concerns more important than the Lord. 

It was time to build God's house even at the expense of neglecting their own houses. Their restored temple might never resemble the destroyed temple of Solomon, which has been called one of seven wonders of the ancient world. But it was neither right nor just that Jerusalem should thrive as a regional capital in the Persian empire, while the ruins of the ancient temple gathered dust. 

Their bad habit persists among us as we put off prayer until the work is done, and the eating, sleeping, exercise, and entertainment. It is neither right nor just. 

"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me!" we were told as children, and yet certain unseen, unnamed authorities demand that we take care of these matters first. We have to work! We need to eat; we must get our rest; family, neighbors, and strangers expect attention and concern; we should have some entertainment. Doesn't the Bible warn us against prayer when Lazarus is starving at the door? 

The sin is compartmentalizing. We apportion time and energy according to the demands made upon them, forgetting that the LORD has provided for all our needs since before we were born. And will still provide. And our first duty is to know, love, and serve the Lord. We cannot relegate some time and energy to the service of the LORD, because all our time and energy belongs to him. 

The practice of daily prayer -- which must include unmeasured moments of still silence -- helps us maintain the awareness of God's immediate presence. "Here I am!" we say in response to God's "I am!" Here I am before you in this moment and this place, and I repent of those moments when I have forgotten your presence, your authority, and your mercy to me. 

God's temple is certainly a building, a necessary infrastructure for the maintenance of the Church. No community of humans can long exist without investing its resources in a structure which declares its presence in the world. We need churches, shrines, and chapels along with our schools, hospitals, and recreational centers. 

But we also need that temple built in time, as Abraham Joshua Heschel describes in his book, The Sabbath. It is a time that comes to us and finds us, and we dare not fail to cease our restless activities and rest within it. We must stop and know the Lord is here in this place. He has come to us and travels with us, and does not leave us. He provides for us. 

Unless the LORD build the house,

they labor in vain who build.

Unless the LORD guard the city,

in vain does the guard keep watch.

It is vain for you to rise early

and put off your rest at night,

To eat bread earned by hard toil—

all this God gives to his beloved in sleep. Psalm 127