November 7^th 2004 St. Andrew’s, Pictou; Remembrance Sunday

 

Respond, Regain, Rebuild: Recover

 

Haggai 2:1-9

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

 

Every single one of us, every single day, in every single situation, is called to respond to one thing or another.

 

We may have to respond to small things, like a comment made by our spouse, the “check out” clerk in the grocery store, our car’s gas gage shows “low,” a child asks a question; could be any number of ways that we are called to respond.

 

We may also have to respond to big things, like losing our job, we, or someone we love has an accident, a death in the family, or any issue or event that makes us feel that our whole world has just turned upside down.

 

There are two things and only two things, which we can choose to do.

 

We can “respond,” or we can “react.”

 

“Responding” and “reacting” only differ in one way:

if we respond, we are in control, and if we react, the other person or event is in control of us.

 

(“Doing nothing” can be either a response or a reaction, because doing nothing is also a choice.)

 

We find the prophet Haggai facing a devastating situation, but he is not in a reactive mode to the loss, (He is not overcome) he responds to the fact that the city of Jerusalem is a virtual wasteland and their much loved and venerated temple has been destroyed.

 

“We are about a quarter of the way through the fifth century B.C. The city of Jerusalem is little more than a pile of rubble from which pathetic shelters are beginning to rise. Many who have come from exile in Babylon to rebuild the city have never seen it before and have no memory of its former condition.

 

They are not the first to come back. Some years before another group returned and succeeded in laying the foundations for a new temple. Their efforts bogged down after the foundations were laid. Now this new group is trying to continue the job. With them from Babylon has come Haggai. We hear his voice encouraging the builders. Given the circumstances, his work is cut out for him. A ghastly drought is in progress, money and resources are in short supply, and enemies want to prevent them rebuilding. All in all, tough times. Little wonder that the word courage sounds so frequently: ‘Take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua.’ These men need courage! They are leaders sent with the people from Babylon to oversee this desperately difficult project.” O’Driscoll  p. 158, 159.

 

We find the people of God, returning from slavery in exile, to their city of former glory and their temple, in ruins, but they respond by choosing to rebuild the temple. As difficult as that was, with as little as they had, they chose to rebuild, but we mustn’t overlook that they were sustained by their faith and belief that God was with them.

 

“…take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord, work for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts…. I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of Hosts… and I will give prosperity, says the Lord of Hosts.”

 

So the people under the leadership of Haggai and Joshua respond to the calamity: they regain their homeland, they rebuild their temple, and they recover their culture, their homes and their lives.

 

When I mentioned the difference between responding and reacting, I said that when we react the other person is in control and when we respond, we are in control. Notice how Jesus does exactly this very thing in the Gospel reading. Jesus responds and stays in control: Jesus dismisses a ridiculous story when he was asked to comment because it was a trap.

 

If you think that you have to answer every question you are asked, just because you have been asked, Jesus is telling us to first “consider the source.”

 

When a question is asked, consider whether it was asked because the person needs the answer, or will be helped by the answer, or whether it was asked to put you down?

 

They asked Jesus about the custom of marrying your brother’s wife if your brother died, and if this happened seven times, they asked as to who would be partnered to whom in heaven.

 

As we would say, “this is apples and oranges.” They are two different things. The considerations between earthly physics and heavenly spiritual reality are not the same. Jesus is saying that you can’t take your idea and superimpose that to constrain and limit heaven. Heaven will not be limited to the concepts of your imagination.

 

Jesus did not react to their question, he responded so that he was in control, turned the time into a teaching lesson as was his mission, so he used the question to regain his mission, and was rebuilding people’s knowledge and wisdom, so yet again, as with Haggai, they and we can use this wisdom to recover our lives.

 

Jesus spoke with power. When he was finished telling them about the resurrection of the dead, and that for God, all are living, as God is God of the living and the dead.

“Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.” (Here we see the power of a solid response rather then an emotional reaction.)

 

Why is this church here?

Why did they make it beautiful and uplifting?

Why do we come to church?

Why did Jesus come?

Why do we have Jesus’ Gospel message?

 

All of this occurred so that each of us with faith and in loving friendship can have the power to be who we are in our lives, so that when things happen, we can respond, regain what we might have lost, so that we recover and go one in our life process.

 

In Canada we take time to remember. We might even take time to remember what other people say about our country. Sir Winston Churchill once gave his opinion of our country: “That long (Canadian) frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, guarded only by neighborly respect and honourable obligations, is an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world.”  (April 20^th 1939)

 

In Canada, we take today to remember. We remember 117,000 Canadians who in the threat of losing freedom here in Canada, and with other countries in our peacemaking activities around the world, men and women of character, respond to the call of serving others for the purposes of building peace in our world, so that we can regain peace and security, rebuild countries, rebuild trust and safety, rebuild hope, so that people’s lives are recovered from the threat of loss, pain, and suffering.

 

Not all wars are waged for this purpose. Canadian troops might have liberated Holland at the end of WWII, but they left the country to the Dutch people. Holland has sent millions of tulips to Ottawa since the war. On the 25^th Anniversary of their liberation, the Dutch people gave a Dutch made Flentrop pipe organ to the Ottawa Arts Centre.

 

What do you think that the people of Iraq be sending the people of the United States on the 25^th anniversary of President Bush’s liberation of their country?

 

This week, the people of the USA have re-elected a President who has waged an illegal war according to the UN Secretary General, and we have recently been told that 98,000 Iraqi people have died since they have been liberated, with no end and no solution in sight to the carnage. The victory rhetoric assures us that there will be more of the same.

 

What are we to do?

 

As in every situation: Respond, regain, rebuild, and recover!

 

AMEN             Rev. Alan Stewart