Shaken and stirred

 

Haggai 2: 1-9
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 9, 2025

Photo of a heavy red pot being stirred on a gas stovetop by a person with medium light skin using two wooden spoons. In the background out of focus there are green vegetables waiting to be chopped.

Once upon a time there were two mischievous school-age children known for causing all sorts of trouble in their town. Their mother, hoping to shake things up and teach them a lesson, asks their pastor to speak to them. The pastor agrees, but she asks to see the children individually.

The pastor, a huge woman with a booming voice, sits the younger child down and asks sternly, "Tell me, where is God?"

The kid's mouth drops open and doesn’t say a word but sits there wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. So the pastor repeats the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God?!"

The child looks hard at the floor but does not answer. The pastor raises her voice further, shakes her finger in the child's face, and bellows, "WHERE IS GOD?!"

The kid screams and runs straight home and dives into the closet, slamming the door.

The older sibling comes into the room, knocks on and opens the closet door, and asks, "What happened? Why are you shaking?”

Gasping for breath, the younger sibling replies, "We are in BIG trouble this time. GOD is missing, and they think we did it!”



When things are turned upside down, when right is now wrong and wrong is declared right, when we think we’ve messed up so badly, it can be tempting to think that maybe even God has abandoned us.



Let’s set the stage of this story from the prophet Haggai. In the year 520 BCE small bands of exiles are returning from Babylonia to the kingdom of Judah, now known as the Persian province of Yehud. These exiles have been entrusted with rebuilding the Temple. Notice how the scene opens: “In the second year of Darius”. Darius is king of Persia. It’s the first time that the history of God’s people is measured with a foreign king, rather than a king of the Davidic line.



The people are disappointed because the foundation of the Temple has been laid but the work has not progressed, so what they come home to is a half-finished foundation and no other structure. Those who could remember the temple built by King Solomon break down and cry when they see this rough replacement. They want to return to the way things were but now realize that this is not possible.



It’s more than disappointing, it’s demoralizing. What kept them going all through being exiled from their home and living in a foreign land was their dreams of returning home and rebuilding the Temple to its former glory. Their world has been turn upside down all over again.



In the midst of all this despair and shame, God speaks to the people through the prophet Haggai:

“You’re thinking about the good old days, aren’t you? You’re looking at what you have now and comparing it to what was, that it’s not good enough, that you’re not good enough. Don’t think so meanly of yourselves. Be strong. Let’s get to work. I am with you. I have been and will always be with you. Don’t be afraid. I’m going to shake things up again, turn what is upside down, right side up! All that you need to rebuild is mine to give and I will bring it here to you. And when the work is finished, this house of God will be even more glorious than before.”

God is shaking things up, turning upside down what we think is right side up. God is here to stir the pot, to disrupt the status quo, to bring forth the new thing. For a while now God has been shaking things up, to the point that some now want to turn all that change on its head and take us back before it all happened. Before women’s rights, before civil rights, before gay rights, before accessibility rights. And yet change, like rights and justice, is not like pie. Change for you does not mean less freedom for me. Unless of course I want all the freedom to do whatever I want no matter what, the whole pie, the whole world. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.



Which only means God will continue to shake things up and stir the pot. Why? Because this is how God restores justice. This is how God liberates the oppressed and troubles those of us who benefit from systems of harm. This is how God transforms us and raises us to new life. This is God’s dream. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. The poor shall be filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. The proud shall be brought low and the lowly lifted up. Shaken and stirred.



It’s our resistance to God’s shaking and stirring that causes us pain. It’s our reluctance to join God in this holy shaking up that prolongs suffering. To those who have been chained to the bottom of society, this holy shaking is good news. The earth, this planet, all life is not a hierarchy but an interdependent web. It is we who have disrupted the balance of nature, by taking more than we give back, by living the lie that we are separate from each other and the earth.



And yet even as these exiles, these nonpersons in their own land yearn for the good old days, mourning what they had, and despairing over what they judge as a meager substitute of a temple, God reminds them that God has always been with them, God is with them now, and God will always be with them.



God is with them whether there is a temple or not. There is a saying that the church is what you have left when the building burns down and the preacher leaves town. To be sure, resources like land and building and money and time and skills and intelligence have been entrusted to us for us to be good and generous stewards.



But more than that is the presence of God that has been entrusted to us. Faith that has been entrusted to us. Hope that has been entrusted to us. Love. Courage. Generosity. Compassion. Kindness. Mercy. Justice. Imagination. Dreams of repair for harm done and everyone having what they need. All in the service of the dignity of every human being. These are the true treasures we steward and these are what make us a church.



WHERE IS GOD?!



She is shaking us up and stirring us up for the peace, the wholeness, and the holiness of every living thing. Amen.



Benediction – enfleshed.com

May we be fierce in our love for each other.
Fierce in protection of those under attack.
Fierce in proclamations of resistance to domination.
Fierce in pursuit of a more holy way –
where no one falls through the cracks
or gets left behind
or abandoned to fend for themselves.
We proclaim the good news with our lives:
Love is with and for us - now and forever.