Shalom for All

 (Lectionary for Nov 6, 2016)In many respects the prophet Haggai is unique in the Hebrew Bible. His name is built on a familiar word for pilgrimage feast, chag, or hajj in Arabic, that word that indicates the need for yearly pilgrimage to Mecca for all able-bodied and financially capable Muslims. It appears then to be a created name, appropriate for a prophet whose ministry was built around concerns for a rebuilt temple in a partially restored Jerusalem. By happy chance we know nearly to the day when Haggai was active in Jerusalem, since no prophetic book offers more precise clues as to the date of its writing.

Haggai began his prophecy on the 29th of August, 520 BCE (Hag 1:1) and ceases speaking on the 18th of December of that same year (Hag 2:10, 20), comprising a prophecy of some 3 1⁄2 months. These exact dates are keyed not to events in Israel, but to the regnal dates of the Persian Empire, more specifically the reign of Darius I. We do know from other sources that the Jerusalem Temple was reconsecrated in 516 BCE, so we may conclude that Haggai played a large role in that ongoing work, pushing the people of the city to keep at the task.

In addition, we can learn from this prophet something of the ordering of Persian governmental demands on its far-flung empire. Among those demands was the requirement that Judah be ruled by a diarchy of two persons: a governor, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, and a high priest, Joshua, son of Jehozadak. This requirement of co-leaders was designed by the Persians to keep full power out of the hands of one person, thereby limiting the possibility of rebellious plots against them. Thus, the prophet by necessity must speak to both priest and governor as he buoys the flagging interest in the crucial work of rebuilding the temple.

His preaching takes on a sharp tone in Hag 2:3. “Who among you remains who saw this house in its earlier glory? What does it look like now? Is it not exactly nothing in your eyes?” Since the temple had been destroyed in 587/586 BCE by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, fully 65 years had passed, and the intelligentsia of Judah had spent 50 years in Babylon as exiles, a few returning to Judah after two generations. (A modern reconstruction of the First Temple is at left.)  It is certain that very few of those returnees, if any, had seen the first temple. Hence, Haggai’s first question in vs. 3 is surely rhetorical; in fact no one, save some creaking oldsters, standing in the hot sun of August, 520, had seen the first temple, built by the ancient king, Solomon. However, they all had their imaginative memories of the building, shared with them in Babylon by their parents and grandparents, no doubt memories that were embellished with mythical exaggeration at the wonders of that first and greatest temple. So, when Haggai challenges them to compare those memories, rather more like dreams and visions, with what they see today, there are in his words a tangible wistfulness and a rich irony. The building they see is but a pale shadow of what they have been taught to expect and treasure. “This is the temple?” he snidely questions, with the certain implication that this puny hovel will not do; it is “exactly nothing!” By this rhetorical device, he tries to goad them into greater efforts to build the temple as it should be, grand and glorious for YHWH.

His sermon then becomes more direct. “But now Zerubbabel, be strengthened, says YHWH; be strengthened Joshua, High Priest; be strengthened all you people of the land, says YHWH! Work, for I am with you, says YHWH of the armies! The word that I cut with you when you came out of Egypt and my spirit stand with you; do not be afraid” (Hag 2:4-5)! The YHWH who brought them out of Egypt in that first Exodus so many centuries ago is the same YHWH whose spirit and presence remain today. Though this new temple hardly matches the splendor of the first, and though Judah stands in 520 as a mere reflection of its former glory, yet YHWH calls again for obedience and steadfastness in the new work of reconstruction.

And that word brings the prophet to an important and complex demand about what the new temple is to signify for the restored people. Here is the content of his prophecy. “For thus says YHWH of the armies; once again, after a little while, I will shake heavens and earth and sea and dry land. I will shake all nations so that the desirable things of all peoples will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says YHWH of the armies” (Hag 2:6-7). The key word of the prophecy is the one I have translated “desirable things.” The NRSV reads “treasure,” implying a material wealth. That translation is built on the next verse that speaks of YHWH’s ownership of all silver and gold, riches that will form the basis of the greater splendor of the new temple, even greater than that of the first temple (Hag. 2:8-9). It could well be that the entire image is built on physical riches that will flow into the restored temple from every land on earth after that future “little while.”

Still, I wonder if that is all the picture implies. The word chamad, “desirable things” or “treasure” rarely refers to physical objects like gold and silver. The word is often less specific. For example, at 1 Samuel 9:20, the prophet Samuel speaks quite vaguely to Saul that he has become “the desire of Israel,” words that confuse the giant boy completely, though they appear to imply that Saul is now what Israel needs as leader, however much Samuel has railed, and will rail, against the possibility of any earthly leader. It may be that Haggai refers less to treasure than to his hope that the new temple will be a beacon light for the nations, announcing the presence and power of YHWH to the whole world. After all, he ends this part of his prophecy with this: “Greater will be the glory of this house than the first, says YHWH of the armies, and in this place I will give shalom; a saying of YHWH of the armies” (Hag 2:9). NRSV translates shalom here as “prosperity,” continuing their belief that Haggai is referring to the material splendor of the new temple, a splendor that will consist of much sliver and gold, gleaned from all the world’s nations.

However, if shalom possesses here its common meaning of “unity/wholeness,” what Haggai means is that the new temple will serve YHWH as the locus of YHWH’s presence for the entire world, and that YHWH will be recognized at last as the creator and sustainer of all. The new temple may be a rich one, but its richness will consist mainly of the shalom of YHWH for all, rather more than a jewel encrusted edifice for the people of Judah. Its delight will be YHWH’s shalom more than gold and silver.

That way of viewing Haggai’s hope for the temple of Jerusalem bears important meanings for us in the 21st century. What sort of church are we? And further, what sort of nation do we wish the USA to be? As for the former, a church that spends only on itself is by definition no church at all. When churches’ budgets give over between 50 and 60% to in-house maintenance—salaries, benefits, buildings, grounds—something is amiss. That church’s splendor consists mainly of physical objects, rather the actions of shalom. As for the latter, any nation that thinks only of itself—America first!—has not caught the rich image of Haggai of a nation, a new Jerusalem, that has been restored to be a beacon to the world, announcing and spreading shalom to all the world.

This is my last blog prior to the 2016 presidential election that will occur on Nov 8. No election in my lifetime—I have witnessed and voted in 12 of them—is more fraught with dangers if the forces of Donald Trump were somehow to win. He is the epitome of inbred, noxious nativism, seemingly impervious to the hope of shalom for all peoples here in the USA and in the entire world. In his victory we would be set back at least 50 years in terms of progress for women, African-Americans, Latino/as, LGBTQ persons, disabled persons, and a host of others who have been excoriated by him and his followers throughout the preceding 18 months. I fervently pray for his defeat, and will spend election day driving folk to the polls to help make that defeat a certainty. May the shalom of YHWH prevail, and may all of our desires be nothing less than shalom for all of God’s creatures on this globe.

(Images from Wikicommons)