Haggai: Haggai 1 v 1-11: ‘Because of my house, which remains a ruin’
Have you ever looked forward to something which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment? It may have been a holiday that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, a show that didn’t quite have the spark you were expecting or a new job that promised more than it delivered. Imagine the people of Judah returning to Jerusalem after many decades of exile during which they dreamed about but saw no possibility of going home. Even those who were born and grew up in exile would have had the city and its Temple as it was before the exile described to them vividly by their elders. As those making the journey set out for Jerusalem there would have been a certain amount of trepidation but also great anticipation; even though many of them had never been there, they were going home. The reality when they got there, of course, was a ruined Temple, a destroyed city and broken down walls. It would have been a scene of devastation and there was much hard and laborious work to be done before any glory could return!
The short book of the prophet Haggai can be dated precisely to 520 BC, a little less than 20 years after the return from exile. From the start there were major challenges exacerbated by local opposition (described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah) and I suspect there were many moments when, rather like the Israelites of Moses’ time dreaming of the flesh pots of Egypt in the heat of the desert, the returnees ached to be back in Babylon.
Haggai’s problem was with the priorities of those rebuilding the city. Whilst people had been rebuilding their homes and actually making them very comfortable (v 4), work on building the Temple, the symbol of the nation’s identity as the people of God, had not begun (v 2). Now in one sense it seems perfectly understandable that the need to house people was made a priority; Jerusalem is a hill city and can be cold in winter. But it seems that a situation had been reached where it kept on being kicked into the long grass. From this perspective Haggai’s words are a call to action and a challenge to the people to get their priorities sorted out. One result of the fact that people are looking first and foremost to their own wants is that they are spending considerable amounts of money on unnecessary items (v 6b). Haggai pronounces that this self-orientated lifestyle will have consequences (10-11); economic disaster is on the horizon because the people have still not learned their lesson in spite of all their years in exile.
I’m writing this in lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic soon after news that a number of vaccines will soon be available. We spent most of 2020 exiled from much of what makes up our day to day lives. We have been separated from our families and friends for weeks at a time and many families are mourning the loss of loved ones and suffering acute distress that they were not able to see or say goodbye to them before they died. Many people have been unable to go to work and have either been working from home or placed on furlough. Many have lost their jobs altogether and are facing acute financial hardship. As I write restaurants, pubs and cafes are once again closed (except for take away outlets) so it is not possible to do something as ordinary and everyday as meet friends for coffee and a catch up. Many of us have spent the vast majority if not all our time at home.
So life returning to some kind of normality, as it will little by little in 2021, is going to be a big change and it will feel a little bit like a return from exile. We may feel that, whilst the exile in Babylon described in the Bible was a result of major errors on the part of the people of Judah, the pandemic was just ‘something that happened’. Yet there is a clear link between the pandemic and the continued destruction of wildlife habitats which is placing humans and animals in closer proximity than they were intended to be thereby creating a far higher possibility of the transference of ‘zoonotic’ diseases (diseases existing in animals that can evolve to affect humans) such as COVID-19. Whilst I certainly wouldn’t call the pandemic a judgement from God (it would be very strange to think of a loving God deliberately targeting the elderly and most vulnerable), it may well be a consequence of the careless way that we are draining the earth’s resources and destroying habitats in our relentless desire to have more of everything. Haggai’s words about consuming but never being satisfied (v 6) seem awfully relevant to our situation.
Haggai’s words are remarkably applicable to our consumer orientated world; we also have holes in our purses (v 6b) yet our profligacy and love of things we want but don’t need threaten the future of the planet. You simply cannot have unlimited growth on a planet with limited resources. That is why I am hoping that as the pandemic recedes we don’t just go back to ‘normal’ but start to move on to a new normal in which the planet is not threatened by climate change, habitat destruction and global consumerism. That will require a profound change of mind for us all.
This is a vast topic and so it would perhaps be best to offer a few specific thoughts about food, drink and clothes, the aspects of careless consumerism that Haggai focuses on in verse 6 of our passage. We should be prepared to ask difficult questions about how what we eat, drink or wear has been produced all the way down the supply chain to those who grew, harvested, picked and packaged what we buy. Are those at the bottom of the chain working in a safe, clean and fair environment (bearing in mind the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka in 2013 which killed 1,134 clothing workers working for a company with links to a significant number of British clothing retailers who had been ordered to come to work on pain of losing a month’s wages even though it was known the building was unsafe)? Are they being paid a fair wage for their labour? Are farmers and other suppliers being paid a fair price for what they produce (whether they live in developing countries or the U.K.)? Is the purchase we are making contributing to the destruction of rainforests and/or animal habitats? What is the carbon footprint of what we buy (some producers are beginning to introduce carbon footprint labelling)? Do we already have enough of what we are purchasing and how much does impulse buying play a part in our consumption? Are we reusing plastic bags and trying to reduce the goods we buy with unnecessary plastic wrapping?
If you (or a family member or friend) have internet access ‘Ethical Consumer’ (www.ethicalconsumer.org), an independent not-for-profit website which works with a number of organisations including Christian Aid, provides a lots of helpful information on the moral implications of purchases across a wide range of goods and services that we use as consumers.
One thing we can say for sure is that Haggai is seriously challenging us, along with his contemporaries, to purchase less and give more in order to arrive at a new normal. For him, prioritising personal comfort at the expense of rebuilding the Temple symbolised the uncomfortable reality that the people had yet again turned away from God. In the same way prioritising personal comfort in a needy world today cannot be right; Haggai would certainly have a word or two to say about that! Profound change is required and Christians need to be at the heart of it.
Questions: As Christians what changes do we need to make in the way we use the earth’s limited resources? How do you think future generations will assess us as custodians of the planet?
Prayer: Lord, open our hearts that we may reflect a spirit of generosity in all aspects of our lives including in the way we consume the precious resources of the earth that you have created and asked us to care for. Amen.