How Rebuilding the Temple Nudged me to Get Involved in Church, a Little

When I woke before dawn, the day looked dark and lowering, the moon cloaked in heavy clouds and silent. Last night’s wind had calmed. Finally, when the sun rose, when I ate my snack and drank my water, I walked both dogs down the road in spitting rain. It was glorious. Both dogs pulled ahead, not hard, but like the dogs you see with dog walkers in a park. I was pleased that they walked quietly, without ra rahing at each other. I even took them down to the willows before I turned back. But then the clouds began to break up. I could see the half-moon in a blue patch of sky.

I thought about what it would have been for the Jewish people to return home and feel both relief and weariness. They were back in their city, on their land, the parts of their souls that had been missing in Babylon returned. Home.  They needed places to live, food to eat, so they built their homes, tended their fields and vineyards and olive groves. From the stories of the elders who remembered, their ears were still full of the glory of Solomon’s temple, the gold inlay, the pomegranate carvings, the terror of the real presence of God at the center. They might have heard Ezekiel tell his strange stories of creatures and whirling wheels and the Shekinah glory lifting away from the temple to settle by them in Babylon. They might have felt hopeful when they heard the legends how the Ark had been taken by Solomon’s son to Ethiopia.

And it was just too much to reset those stones, to lift timbers, to make God another house, that wouldn’t come close to the former glory. I would imagine their spirits dropped, they felt tired whenever they walked by the heap of rubble. Did anyone rummage around looking for gold or pottery fragments? But they could build their houses—their houses were simple, wood and stone nearby. They could plant and till. They needed shelter and food. After the seventy-year rest their fields should be fertile. But it never seemed like they could get ahead.

But they could never get ahead despite hard work, despite mulching their fields with manure. The wine never satisfied. The olive oil was bitter. The rain stopped falling. Dust roared up, poured into those fine houses, coated them.

I can relate. My cupboard is full but nothing satisfies. I reach for candied nuts or Poppycock to brighten my day. LL Bean is pushing me to spend the $10 rebate. We won’t even talk about Diet Coke or ordering books from Amazon. I jump on Facebook and keep on scrolling, eyes glued to the latest national drama. When I shut off the phone, I’m on edge, wondering where the drama will lead. I know better but the demon in my pocket, the darkness in my country keeps calling.

Haggai stood before Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel governor of Judah and Joshua the son of Johozadak the high priest. Haggai spoke God’s word:

³ Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: ⁴ “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

⁵ Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁶ You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. (Haggai 1: 3 – 5).

This prophecy clobbered me with my own relationship with the church. Bruce and I have church hopped in the forty years we’ve been together and have found ourselves back at the church where we started. Why did we move on from each church? I got yelled at by the pastor or staff member, so that was that, we were done. The pastor’s style was too far out. Prominent church people announced they didn’t believe in the resurrection. There was better community elsewhere. It hurt too much to stay.

We kept trying with church because I am haunted by what St Cyprian said: “No one can have God for his father who does not have the church for his mother.” Church is the only place were we get physically intimate with Jesus as far as taking his body and blood. When we are baptized, we die with him and are risen with him. I sometimes think the point is to be with people you haven’t chosen and learn to get along with them. To take communion even though the person standing across from you is not your favorite, and to know that like you, they too are much loved by God.

The church back where we started makes sense because the services are geared toward worship. We weren’t asked to get involved, which can lead to unneeded stress in a person’s life as well as more rejection, so we settled in going to services. Neither Bruce nor I are joiners. Because of our assorted experiences with church, we keep our distance.

But is God speaking to me here? Or is my work here on this blog, the freedom to be a good friend, praying for people and working on being a good neighbor enough?

Speaking of Advent, yes I’m still chewing on Advent, because waiting seems to be my natural state. David Harvey in The Inevitability of God’s Faithfulness says,

For the earliest Christ followers it would not be controversial to say that to be a Christian the Christian needs the church. Our community with Christ is enabled through his church because the Church is the body of Christ “for us”. Christ’s body is always “for us” — as Bonhoeffer said ”on the cross, in the word, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper.”⁷ But it is also never for us alone, Christ has intentionally drawn us into community and that is how we are “clothed with him.”

When I read this, the image I have is of church people turning their backs on me and walking away. I recall standing in line with someone from our church at the local fair blabbing about how I need help with something. As soon as she got her order she was gone. Ouch. After church, people dart out quick as quick can be. On the other hand, there are people there that don’t suit me, so Bruce and I have also darted out quick. Harvey continues: 

This is not to defend our failings or harm within the churches that many of us have experienced or participated within, but rather to remind us that even our failings highlight how Advent leads us to pray: “Lord, have mercy upon us! Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

Christ is coming. Not at our command, and fortunately not when we get our act together. And this is why we must not rush to Christmas but wait in Advent. We need to learn to wait “in the time between” and we need the church to do that properly. So perhaps I can say it like this: If Advent calls us to live as Christians between the two comings of Christ, Advent is telling us that it’s time to go to and be the Church.

So if I want to look for Jesus’ between his first coming and second, I need to find him in the church—the Eucharist, Baptism, the Word—the Lord himself and the scriptures. I need to find him in the people I worship with.

So this week I signed up to be a lector at our church. I did this during Covid on video, often with the horse or a flowering tree behind us at our last church. This is a small way to serve. And I must say, something uneasy loosened up between me and two other believers. And my heart lifted up in lightness and joy I’ve not felt in a while.

This morning, I walked the dogs out in snow, water dripping from the trees. Often when I do chores in the morning, the sparrows chip at the cat food. When I step into that part of the barn to leave they fly up to the extension cord that powers the electric fence. Then they fly out to the corn crib. Their wings, taking flight, a quiet and good sound, I have to listen carefully.

Well, tonight I walk forward, to read some beloved passages, a small way to serve the Lord, living in my local church. 

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