These Are the Good Old Days

Haggai 1:15b-2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

It is natural to compare the way things are now to the way they used to be - to look back on the good old days. It is common for one generation to compare itself to the younger generation. Listen to this quote: “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” Do you know who said this? It is attributed to Socrates quoted by Plato, two and a half thousand years ago! I guess the more things change the more they remain the same.

During this 250^th anniversary celebration of the Town of Sandwich, we have heard a lot about the way things used to be. People who have lived here all their lives tell me about the way things used to be when they were young and how different they are now. Even I find myself thinking about the way Sandwich used to be when we first lived here in the early 1980’s. I especially find myself often thinking about the people! When I drive the roads of Sandwich, I identify houses by who used to live in them, rather than who lives in them now. Images of people long dead flash through my mind as I drive past certain houses. I guess that goes with knowing a place over a period of time. I can only imagine what goes through the minds of those of you who have known Sandwich much longer than I have.

I. LOOKING BACKWARDS. Our OT passage for today is from the prophet Haggai. Haggai was a prophet of Israel in what is called the post-exilic period. The Jews had been conquered by the Babylonians and taken into exile for a period of seventy years. When the Persians took power they allowed the Jews to return home to Jerusalem, but only a fraction of the people took up the offer.  This remnant of Israel tried to bring things back to the way they were in the good old days. One thing they did was rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, which had been completely destroyed by the Babylonians. The prophets Haggai and Zachariah preached at this time and encouraged that rebuilding.

The temple was built, and it was dedicated in ceremony. Our passage takes place at that time. They people gathered for the great unveiling of the new temple. People could go in and take a tour of the place before it opened for business. Most of the people thought it looked pretty good, because they had never seen the old temple. But the older people who were children when the old temple was destroyed and had seen the old temple in its glory were not impressed by the new structure. Haggai heard these comments and he says in verse 3 “Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?”

I have heard people talk about Sandwich when there were numerous businesses in town and when we had our own high school, hardware store, doctor’s office, gas station and general store. People say things are not the same now. Before moving back to Sandwich I lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That area was economically devastated by the collapse of the American steel industry. It still has only half the population that it did in its heyday the 1970’s. All the old boroughs and townships are shadows of their former selves. Out there people used to tell me story after story about what it was like in the good old days.

We can do the same thing with the stories of our own lives. My mom used to tell story after story about her childhood, growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s. I also think back to growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s. It seems like a simpler time. Someone came into our kitchen recently and remarked on an old vinyl kitchen step stool that we have from the 1950’s that we still use. She referred to it as “vintage.” If that stool is vintage what does that make me? Do you have a vintage pastor?

A lot of people live much of their lives in the past. They compare their lives now to the way they used to be and they prefer the past. And so they live there in their hearts and minds. They talk about it all the time. That is what these Hebrews were doing. But Haggai tells them to snap out of it. He says to them, “Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ says the Lord; ‘and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work; for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!’”

Haggai was calling the people to come out of the past and into the present, where the Lord God is. “For I am with you” say the Lord of hosts. “My Spirit remains among you.” God is not a God of the past and of the dead. He is a God of the Present and the living. I will come back to this point later.

II. LOOKING FORWARDS. The Epistle Lesson for today is from Second Thessalonians. It has to do with the second coming of Christ. The Gospels describe the first coming – his birth in Bethlehem, his ministry in Galilee and his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. But the epistles of the apostles look ahead to a time in the future when Christ will return. The members of those early Christian churches were getting agitated and upset about when Christ was going to return or if perhaps he had already returned and they had missed it. The apostle Paul writes to them these words. “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means….” Then he goes on to describe the things that had to take place before Christ’s return.

These people were not living in the past; they were living in the future. They were not obsessing about the good old days of long ago; they were dreaming about the great new days that were to come. I have known Christians like this during my life and ministry, devout Christians who were obsessed with the future second coming of Christ. That was all they could think about or talk about. They lived their lives so much in the future that they were no good for anything in the present.

You don’t have to be obsessed with biblical apocalyptic scenarios to live in the future. I know people who cannot wait for retirement. That is all they think about and talk about. They are postponing living until they reach a certain age, and then they will live. What about if you don’t make it? Or if retirement does not match up to your expectations? People can do this at any age. Some people wit to live when they graduate, when they get married, when they have children, when they have grandchildren, or when they win the lottery. They live in a fantasized future.

It is great to look forward to things in life. I am always looking forward to something. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and Advent and Christmas. I love the holiday season. They are a lot of work for me, but I love this time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. But if we are living in the future, what happens when the future collapses. When the holidays do not work out the way we expect them to? When our lives do not work out the way we want them to? What happens if the doctor says we do not have a future?

The Gospel Lesson for today is about some folks like that in Jesus day. They not only had their own dogmatic religious ideas about the future, they were intent upon tearing down others ideas about the future. I have my ideas about the Second Coming of Christ, but I am not going to get into arguments with people who have different ideas. I see that as a waste of time and energy. But the Sadducees enjoyed such arguments. They loved to get into theological fights.

I was just reading a recent issue of Leadership Journal. The issue was dedicated to e-ministry, how to use social media in ministry. There was an article by Ed Stetzer, a well-known missiologist and expert on church planting, church revitalization, and church innovation. His article is entitled “Not Tweeting? Repent!” It was about how important Twitter is to modern ministry. He says that every pastor ought to be tweeting regularly. It was very interesting, but I have not yet taken up tweeting. Anyway in this article he was talking about avoiding theological arguments in social media. He wrote: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.”

One day some Sadducees came to Jesus and wanted to wrestle – theologically wrestle. They did not believe in a resurrection, but they knew that Jesus and the Pharisees did. So they came to Jesus with a question to trip him up. “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children,[b] and died. 32 Last of all the woman died also. 33 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.”

They did not really  want an answer. They just wanted to show how absurd they thought the idea of resurrection was. They were looking for a fight over theology. Jesus wisely would not fall into their trap. He said to them “God is not a God of the dead but of the living.”

III. LOOKING HERE & NOW. My third point this morning is about a third alternative. Not living in the past or living in the future, but living in the present. Fully present in the present. There are references to this alternative in our scripture lessons this morning. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said that “God is not a God of the dead but of the living.” The past is dead and gone. It is nice to think about it. I have had a good past. I know many people have had difficult, painful, and even abusive pasts. I have had a good past, but I do not live in it. Some people do. All they talk about is the past. It is clear that that is where their heart is.

The past is past. In reality it is nothing more now than thoughts in our minds in the present. Brain research shows how unreliable our memories are. Memories are very fluid and constantly changing. Our brains are not like video cameras capturing the past as an unchangeable digital and permanent record storied in a computer like brain. Research has clearly shown that our memories change. We are constantly rewriting the past in our heads to make it fit our understanding of ourselves in the present. We cannot recapture the past, and we certainly cannot live in it. That is living in fantasyland.  The same with the future. The future is completely unreal. It hasn’t happened. We have no idea what the future holds. Our images of the future are just speculation. Even when we think we know what will probably happen, it is always unfolds differently than we expect. The future is a fiction created by our minds.

We have experienced God in the past. That is what biblical history is about; it is a record of God’s dealings with his people in the past. That is real. And the prophecies of God’s promises in the future are also real. We can trust them. We will undoubtedly interpret them wrongly. But they will happen as God planned. We can trust that we will experience God in the future in history and in heaven. But we are not there yet. We are not in the past or the future.

We are here now.  Why look for God elsewhere? Why wait for God? Why not experience God now. In a certain sense the only time people ever experience God is now, because that is where we always are. We are always here now. God is always here now. The scripture says repeatedly “Today is the day of salvation.” God is the God of the living. We don’t have to dream about the good old days when God did great deeds for the people of Israel. We don’t have to imagine what it was like when Jesus walked the roads of Galilee. Christ is here now. He said that “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there.” “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” We don’t have to dream about the future, whether that be some end times scenario or the glories of heaven. It is fun to look forward to heaven, but don’t live there. There is no need to. God is here. The Kingdom of God is within us. Christ is here. God is here. These are the good old days. Let us live them fully in the presence of God.