Lost in the Details
During and after the second World War, there were two main schools of thought that emerged in Europe regarding how to rebuild the numerous cities that were being leveled. In some cities, such as Warsaw in Poland, city planners emerged from the destruction of the war bent on rebuilding the city, largely as it had been. They used paintings from the 1700s for reference, and reconstructed walls, churches, and castles as they would have existed prior to the war. Today, the “Old Town” portion of Warsaw, a city that has existed for hundreds of years, is really less than a century old. Elsewhere in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, there were city planners who welcomed the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. The city of Coventry in particular jumped at the chance to completely redesign their medieval layout, in favor of one that would be better suited to twentieth-century commercial interests. Whatever buildings were destroyed by bombs in the war merely saved the time and money it would later cost to tear them down.
In either case, these rebuilding efforts were just that: rebuilding. Each method sought to return to something familiar and comfortable, even if the architectural style was somewhat different. The designs still reinforced inequality, refused to become more accessible, and remained focused on efficiency and meeting basic human needs, regardless of how that impacted the rest of Creation. The only real innovation that was made, and that is shared by each of these methods, is that cars were factored into the plans, pushing pedestrians to the sides and making communities less walkable and, therefore, more disconnected. Each was praised for its vision, its architectural ingenuity, the ways in which they furthered European progress and revitalization following the war. But when the opportunity had presented itself for these numerous European cities, and indeed nations around the world, to fundamentally re-order themselves, to reimagine what their cities, their nations, the world could look like and what purposes they could serve—by and large they chose to maintain their flawed economic systems, their disjointed relationship with Creation, and their social hierarchies. They chose not to build something new, but to rebuild what was, even when it had a new facade.
The prophet Haggai was writing at the end of the period of Jewish history known as the “exilic period.” This was the period of time in which the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah, or at least the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem, were forcefully removed from the kingdom and made to live in Babylon. It was during this period that prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel addressed the Judeans. It was also in this period that the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in Jerusalem. For decades, Judeans were made to live in a place not of their choosing, cut off from their customs, from their people, and from the dwelling place of God. This period of exile is what prompted the prophet Jeremiah to advise the Judeans to make the best of their circumstances, to plant gardens and live their lives. It’s what prompted the writing of Psalms about sitting down and weeping by the rivers of Babylon. It was a period of despair, a time that caused the Judeans to question how they had ended up in such a situation. It was enough to make them examine how they must have angered God, for God to leave them to exile and ruin.
Haggai’s voice chimes in as the Judeans are returning to Jerusalem. After Babylon fell to Persia, the Judeans were allowed to return from their exile, though when they returned, they still had to contend with a city—and especially the Temple—laid to waste. It was a time of destruction, of despair, of hopelessness. There were those still alive who could remember the house of the Lord “in its former glory.” They could remember times of stability, of comfort, of peace. Times when wages were better suited to meeting needs, when benefits made retirement a guarantee, when home prices were more reasonable. They returned to their home, and the grief must have been overwhelming. Everything they had once known was gone. And what’s more, many of the wealthier Judeans had not returned with them, as there was more money to be made in exile than at home. So who would fund the restoration? How could the poor rebuild the Temple, the city, and the kingdom? There were no corporations or billionaires who could pitch in towards this construction project. Even so, the memory remains of the former glory, and the question remains: how do we get back to that?
Times of destruction, though, are also times of building. In the sorrow of grieving what was, there is an opportunity to build again—and to build something new. Oftentimes in situations such as these, we mortals are limited by what we know, or what we have known. We might fall into the same inclination as the Sadducees, whose argument against the resurrection is that it can’t be reconciled with the law—when the law is pushed to its logical extreme. They place the mystery of resurrection in the context of what they know, leaning on what’s familiar, what’s safe. Surely this Jesus, with his apocalyptic resurrection preaching, can explain how marriage laws might fit into this version of reality. That should be a simple enough question, and an important logistical concern for the son of man. Maybe there are no dumb questions, but sometimes—oftentimes—we ask the wrong questions. I had a seminary professor who was a psychologist, who would get quite frustrated at times when we would ask questions that weren’t going to get us the answers we needed. Dr. Pressley would be very disappointed with the Sadducees, I think.
Jesus turns this line of questioning on its head in just one sentence. “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Bad news for those of us who might be planning weddings at the moment. For Jesus, the Sadducees are asking the wrong questions. They are working within the framework, the institutions, the systems, the boundaries of the society they know. They carry this idea that what is now is what will be carried through the resurrection, as though resurrection is simply a matter of replacing what was. But resurrection inherently follows destruction, and times of destruction are times of building. Not all building is resurrection, though. Some building is just resuscitation or reanimation. There is no new life, no blazing phoenix spirit. Just the same oppressive institutions looking the same as they always have—or with a fresh coat of paint.
We live in a time of destruction. The bombs continue to fall in Ukraine. The ceasefire in Gaza was unsurprisingly brief. SNAP benefits continue to go unpaid as the billionaires—and soon-to-be trillionaires—certainly do not. Healthcare funding is being cut to many of the most vulnerable in our communities. Drought, hunger, illness, war, climate disasters, loneliness, inflation, despotism. We live in a time of destruction. That means we live in a time of building. That means that we have the opportunity to rebuild and to build differently. We live in a time of destruction. That means we have the opportunity to break free from the limitations of what we have known—the systems of marginalization and exploitation, the physical ways of building that are inaccessible and cause us to disengage from community, the ideologies of patriarchy and queerphobia and misogyny and ableism and white supremacy and Christian nationalism and dominion over Creation. We have the chance, the opportunity, the obligation to dream—and to live into a community that looks and loves differently. We live in a time of destruction. That means we live in a time of building, a time of co-laboring with God.
So take courage. Take courage, O Zerubbabel, take courage, O Joshua. Take courage, all you people of the land. Work, for God is with us, and God has plenty of work for us to do. That work begins with envisioning what can be. It begins with getting to know your neighbors, getting to know—really know—your fellow co-laborers beside you. So take courage, because it takes courage to have hope. As a community of faith, we are called to be a place of building amid times of destruction. Not to pray for destruction, to speed things along, or to trigger the end times. But to recognize that we live in a time of destruction, and to see that something comes after it all. This is the resurrection hope to which we are called. May we not be ensnared by what is familiar, by what serves our own interests, and by the urge to hedge our bets. May we build a household that reflects God’s abounding grace, just economics, and radical inversion of the hierarchies we have come to know. May we be bold in seeking justice, practicing mercy, and humbly walking with God into the resurrection. Amen.