Good Enough?!

Covid didn’t stop us. We have had outdoor concerts, movie nights and worship every Sunday together. It has been a great summer. Before we read some of Haggai, let me give you a little background.

Haggai had probably seen the temple in all its glory before the most of the population was led into bablonyan exile. So while many had never seen the splendor of an ornate temple, he had. He was probably as excited as everyone else when they returned and the work on the temple began. But just like many of us today, we begin a project with a lot of zeal only to slowly realize how big the project really is. We work and toil to the point it becomes functional, we then unintentionally slow down and stop. It's not on purpose. Life gets in the way. After a while the feeling we need to finish fades. We become comfortable with the way it is. It's “good enough.”

The difference between complacency and apathy is that complacency is a feeling of contented self-satisfaction while apathy is a complete lack of emotion or motivation about a person, activity, or object; lack of interest or enthusiasm; disinterest.

There was a Danish philosopher named Soren Kierkegaard who wrote a parable to illustrate the simple slide into complacency. The parable begins, one Spring, a duck was flying north with a flock. In the Danish countryside that particular duck spotted a barnyard where tame ducks lived. The duck dropped down and he discovered these ducks had wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed for an hour....then for the day....a week then went by and a month. And because the corn and the safe barnyard were so fine, our duck ended up staying the whole Summer at that farm. Then one crisp Fall day, some wild ducks flew overhead, quacking as they winged their way south. He looked up and heard them -- and he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join his comrades for the trip south.

But all that corn had made the duck both soft and heavy -- and he couldn't manage to fly any higher than the barn roof. So he dropped back to that barnyard and he said to himself, "Oh well, my life here is safe and the food is good!" After that in the Spring and in the Fall, that duck would hear wild ducks honking as they passed overhead -- and for a minute, his eyes would look and gleam -- he'd start flapping his wings almost without realizing it...but then a day came, when those others would pass overhead uttering their cry -- and the now tame duck would not pay the slightest attention.

American Christians have been attacked by the exact same diseases of apathy and complacency as soren's barnyard duck. We have been tamed....and spoiled...in the process, we've lost whose we are and what we're to be about. Complacency is a disease that sneaks up on us. It’s also the disease that has snuck up on the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel had become complacent. All the refurbishing or rebuilding of the temple had stopped for 16 years. It was “good enough” for everyone but the prophets who knew the full implication of having a temple stand out in the community. Hence, both prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, would bring the word of the Lord to the leadership. It wasn’t to rehab the facility for the facility’s sake. It was an act of remembering that as they had learned growing up - it was a SHEMA idea. A declaration of the basic principle of Jewish belief, proclaiming the absolute unity of God. It can be found in Deuteronomy 6:4-6.

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

God was calling those who had become complacent and or apathetic back to him using four admonishments (or courses of action)

The first call to overcome complacency is to literally and figuratively “Put God first in your life.” Period. Drop the microphone. Reset your priorities.

Verse 4 reads like someone repeating an overheard excuse.

“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this (my) house remains a ruin?”

But the writer is relaying God's thoughts.

The famous preacher Billy Sunday used to say an excuse is “the skin of reason stuffed with a lie” and Ben Franklin once said, "I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good for anything else.”