Paying attention to God’s ongoing presence
The reading from Haggai
and the gospel story from Luke are both stories of people getting tied up in
the details and unable to see God’s presence among them. They are about people
unable to see the much bigger story of God’s ongoing, creative and redemptive
work going on around them.
Haggai
is addressing those who have returned from exile in Babylon, freed by the new
Persian Empire. They returned full of hopes and plans, but now are disillusioned
with the lack of progress and how small and lacking grandeur their plans have
turned out to be. It has all become about them, and they have lost sight of God’s
much bigger story of which they play only a part. It is God’s ongoing presence
and work that will fill anything they create with grandeur. It is in paying
attention to this presence that will be their only enduring source of hope and
motivation.
In
Luke Jesus faces two groups (Sadducees and Pharisees) who are so busy haggling
over whether there is a “resurrection” they miss the ultimate truth of God’s
ongoing and eternal care. Whatever we believe about the afterlife God’s care
does not end at our death. As Paul says, nothing separates us from the love of
God.
In
light of these two readings I wonder how we miss the big picture and our part
in it. What details distract us, and lead us to not pay attention to God’s
ongoing work and presence among us and through us?
Today
is Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest the 11th November, the day
WWI ended. It is a day we remember and honour all those who fought in every war
New Zealanders have fought in. We honour and remember those who died in those
conflicts, and those who returned forever changed.
Anchoring
our remembering to the end of WWI offers us a chance to burst many of the myths
that surround our involvement in war. WWI should never have happened, and our involvement
was, as the war memorial on Marsland Hill in New Plymouth states, about the motherland
and empire. These men did not fight for our freedom. This day helps us recall
the great cost these wars have exacted from our country (10% of our total
population were sent to fight in WWI) and on every country involved. We honour
those who fought by recalling this cost and to keep asking what these conflicts
really were for.
May
we who worship on this site also remember those who fought and died for their
freedom, their land, their way of life in the face of the invading British
army. May we also remember the work of those who strived for a peaceful resolution
of conflict in this land, including Wiremu Tamihana, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and
Tohu Kākahi.
As
we remember these events, may we take the time to pay attention to God’s
ongoing presence, and God’s unfolding work. May it help us sharpen our resolve
to not glorify war, and to work with God in action and prayer for God’s lasting
justice and peace.
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