Is There Any Seed Left In The Barn?
Sermon
Coming Home
Advent/Christmas Sermons From The Book Of Haggai
About eight years ago I first considered moving from Los Angeles to northern Indiana, from the city to the country. I'm a city boy, born and bred, and I still love the city, but I thought to be fair to my children they should experience both ways of living. So we loaded up the truck and we moved to a mildly rural place called Dunlap, located halfway between Elkhart and Goshen, Indiana.
I say mildly rural because the Concord Mall is only a mile and a half north of us, but we're surrounded by cornfields and the stars shine brightly by night.
One of the things I promised myself was that when I moved to the country I would keep bees. I'm not sure why. I can take or leave honey. I can't abide bugs. But there seemed something very domestic about keeping bees, and I liked the sound of it.
The more I read, the better I liked the prospect. Gardeners work from April to October. The average hive takes less than eight hours of maintenance per year. And the bees do all the work. It seemed a win-win situation.
Once I moved out there was nothing for it but to get started. We arrived in September, too late for bee season, but I'd done my reading and research. Over the winter I ordered a basic bee hive kit and nailed the darn thing together. Nothing to it. Even the handyman-impaired like me could do it.
The frames were a little trickier, but I even got them strung with wire and arranged a foundation for the bees to build on. Come March and I got the outside painted.
Then I ordered the bees.
I'd read all about installing the bees, so I figured this would be a snap.
One day I got a phone call from the post office. Come down and pick up your bees. We're not delivering them. The big day had come.
What I got was this box that consisted of a wood frame and mesh sides. It was packed with thousands of buzzing bees. When I gingerly picked it up, the buzzes rose a pitch. They were not happy.
Right then I considered whether I ought to follow Plan A (store the bees in a cool, dark place all day and feed them sugar water, so they'd be tanked up before I donned bee gear and to remove the queen, allowing a few others to fly around my head while I installed her, and then dump all the bees like so much cornflakes in the hive before closing it up) or Plan B (chuck the thing in the ditch and drive home).
I finally decided on Plan A, but I really thought about it.
I got it done too, although I was so tense at the thought of dealing with so many bees that I ended up with a stiff back for the first and so far only time in my life. I don't mean a little sore. I mean I could hardly move for a whole week.
Later it got easier. I relaxed more. I got stung some, too. But for seven years in a row I've kept bees, and even occasionally harvested some honey.
One tough question I always face is, do the bees have enough honey for winter? European bees store honey and eat off it all winter long. They cluster together for warmth and move from frame to frame, eating their fill and surviving. Compared to the bare six weeks that comprises the life of a summertime bee, in winter the sisters live up to six months.
The winter rages on and as long as they have food, they will not feel its blast. But what if I stole too much honey last fall? What if they get as close as February, or even March, and die off bare days before the first flowers of spring provide their nectar?
It can happen. It happened to me before. I feel so frustrated when I discover in April that a hive didn't quite make it. The bees are even less happy.
That's the real question. Do we have enough for the future? As Haggai put it, is there seed left in the barn?
At Christmastime we expend too much energy writing out cards, buying gifts, putting up decorations, making all the special treats, giving people all the special treats, accepting other special treats from folks, and eating all those other special treats, then driving or flying and feasting and hosting and visiting.
Have we any seed left in the barn? Do we have any reserves for the period after Christmas? Do we ever feel the Christmas spirit at any time during the season with all the things we have to do?
And we have to do these things. I'm not a Scrooge. But I think our approach to Christmas is wrong. Christmas is a marathon, and even if we pare down our expectations, it is still a time in which we are meant to feel more keenly the ties that bind.
Seasons don't begin and end in a single day. There is no mad rush in autumn to do all the leaf raking and storm windowing. We don't brace for a single day of winter, hurriedly plant during a frenzied day of spring, or cram three months' worth of living into a solitary day of summer.
At least I don't.
If a summer picnic is rained out, we know we can plan for another weekend. The first leaves of autumn are only the beginning. One snowfall does not a winter make.
Seasons don't come and go in a day, but that's the way we treat Christmas. For most of us the holiday begins around sunset on Christmas Eve. Christmas is usually composed of one part worship service, three parts last-second shopping and wrapping, two parts frantic driving between one's relatives and five parts total collapse.
December 26 we put away the Christmas albums we never got around to enjoying, dump the tree in the burn pile, and sullenly wonder what happened to the holiday, while brooding over the ominous arrival of the new year.
Not a pretty sight, is it?
The church calendar knows nothing of this frenetic holiday. For Christendom, Christmas is a season that begins with the first Sunday of Advent and continues through the Feast of the Magi, known as Epiphany (January 6). Each week has a different focus for celebration and worship. In many countries gifts are given on December 6 or January 6, and many of the days in between. To cease singing Christmas carols on December 25 would strike many Christians around the world as ludicrous. Stop? We're just getting started.
Christmas is for the long haul. It's a season, not a day, and that requires some serious resolutions. Here are my Ten Commandments of Christmas:
1. Honor the Lord of the season -- not through deprivation or some misplaced sense of solemnity. We have been waiting all year for the king's arrival. This is a holiday. Keep it holy by celebrating with friends and family.
2. Let your gift giving be joyful.
3. You shall not be a slave to the greeting cards.
4. You shall do one thing you have never done.
5. You shall destroy one sacred cow, ignore one holiday tradition, in order to give yourself more time. The babe will arrive whether you make your special fudge or not.
6. You shall play with the nativity set this Christmas.
7. Be resolved that December 26 is as much Christmas as the day before. (If nothing else, this allows you to take advantage of the sales. Did you ever think what great gifts you could give to people if they would only wait until December 27?)
8. Play a Christmas album loud enough to embarrass someone. (It doesn't matter which: Perry Como, the Chipmunks, or a concert choir.)
9. You shall visit one shut-in during the season and invite one lonely person into your home. Hospitality is part of the season. There was no room at the inn. Too often we have a mandatory guest list of people we have to entertain or visit. Tear it up. Pick something new to do this year.
10. Sometime around December 30, when the house is quiet except for the creaking of the boards and the distant chimes at midnight, sing "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and "Silent Night" quietly to yourself.
Worship the king.
Is there seed left in the barn? Is there any faith left for the day after Christmas?
The promise of Haggai is that God will bless with more than mere abundance. The vine, the fig tree, and the olive tree provided the staples of existence. Grapes for eating and wine for drink, figs to make a thick paste, and olives for oil and flavor. They had to be harvested in their season and pressed for preservation. Processed, they could be stored for months.
But pomegranates were luxuries. They're great fun to eat, but there's not tremendous nourishment. Most of the fruit is a woody pulp. Ah, but the sweetness of the seeds! They are more beautiful than diamonds, though almost as fragile as soap bubbles. Squeeze them and they burst. They will stain your clothes but good, too.
God not only plans for us to survive, he wants us to enjoy. God's gifts provide more than just nourishment. They provide pleasure. Look around you, God tells the people through Haggai. Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? Nonsense. There is pleasure now and pleasure in the future. Count on it.
By leaving seed you were acknowledging God's gifts of the past harvest, even while you enjoy them in the present. By setting aside seed corn you were proclaiming you could count on God's goodness even as you expressed faith in the future.
By leaving honey on the comb you were expressing your faith that spring will come again.
Which reminds me of another formulation of faith that mirrors our trust in God's nature, and that is our trust in the nature of God: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
And as the Lord spoke through Haggai, "And I will bless you."
I say mildly rural because the Concord Mall is only a mile and a half north of us, but we're surrounded by cornfields and the stars shine brightly by night.
One of the things I promised myself was that when I moved to the country I would keep bees. I'm not sure why. I can take or leave honey. I can't abide bugs. But there seemed something very domestic about keeping bees, and I liked the sound of it.
The more I read, the better I liked the prospect. Gardeners work from April to October. The average hive takes less than eight hours of maintenance per year. And the bees do all the work. It seemed a win-win situation.
Once I moved out there was nothing for it but to get started. We arrived in September, too late for bee season, but I'd done my reading and research. Over the winter I ordered a basic bee hive kit and nailed the darn thing together. Nothing to it. Even the handyman-impaired like me could do it.
The frames were a little trickier, but I even got them strung with wire and arranged a foundation for the bees to build on. Come March and I got the outside painted.
Then I ordered the bees.
I'd read all about installing the bees, so I figured this would be a snap.
One day I got a phone call from the post office. Come down and pick up your bees. We're not delivering them. The big day had come.
What I got was this box that consisted of a wood frame and mesh sides. It was packed with thousands of buzzing bees. When I gingerly picked it up, the buzzes rose a pitch. They were not happy.
Right then I considered whether I ought to follow Plan A (store the bees in a cool, dark place all day and feed them sugar water, so they'd be tanked up before I donned bee gear and to remove the queen, allowing a few others to fly around my head while I installed her, and then dump all the bees like so much cornflakes in the hive before closing it up) or Plan B (chuck the thing in the ditch and drive home).
I finally decided on Plan A, but I really thought about it.
I got it done too, although I was so tense at the thought of dealing with so many bees that I ended up with a stiff back for the first and so far only time in my life. I don't mean a little sore. I mean I could hardly move for a whole week.
Later it got easier. I relaxed more. I got stung some, too. But for seven years in a row I've kept bees, and even occasionally harvested some honey.
One tough question I always face is, do the bees have enough honey for winter? European bees store honey and eat off it all winter long. They cluster together for warmth and move from frame to frame, eating their fill and surviving. Compared to the bare six weeks that comprises the life of a summertime bee, in winter the sisters live up to six months.
The winter rages on and as long as they have food, they will not feel its blast. But what if I stole too much honey last fall? What if they get as close as February, or even March, and die off bare days before the first flowers of spring provide their nectar?
It can happen. It happened to me before. I feel so frustrated when I discover in April that a hive didn't quite make it. The bees are even less happy.
That's the real question. Do we have enough for the future? As Haggai put it, is there seed left in the barn?
At Christmastime we expend too much energy writing out cards, buying gifts, putting up decorations, making all the special treats, giving people all the special treats, accepting other special treats from folks, and eating all those other special treats, then driving or flying and feasting and hosting and visiting.
Have we any seed left in the barn? Do we have any reserves for the period after Christmas? Do we ever feel the Christmas spirit at any time during the season with all the things we have to do?
And we have to do these things. I'm not a Scrooge. But I think our approach to Christmas is wrong. Christmas is a marathon, and even if we pare down our expectations, it is still a time in which we are meant to feel more keenly the ties that bind.
Seasons don't begin and end in a single day. There is no mad rush in autumn to do all the leaf raking and storm windowing. We don't brace for a single day of winter, hurriedly plant during a frenzied day of spring, or cram three months' worth of living into a solitary day of summer.
At least I don't.
If a summer picnic is rained out, we know we can plan for another weekend. The first leaves of autumn are only the beginning. One snowfall does not a winter make.
Seasons don't come and go in a day, but that's the way we treat Christmas. For most of us the holiday begins around sunset on Christmas Eve. Christmas is usually composed of one part worship service, three parts last-second shopping and wrapping, two parts frantic driving between one's relatives and five parts total collapse.
December 26 we put away the Christmas albums we never got around to enjoying, dump the tree in the burn pile, and sullenly wonder what happened to the holiday, while brooding over the ominous arrival of the new year.
Not a pretty sight, is it?
The church calendar knows nothing of this frenetic holiday. For Christendom, Christmas is a season that begins with the first Sunday of Advent and continues through the Feast of the Magi, known as Epiphany (January 6). Each week has a different focus for celebration and worship. In many countries gifts are given on December 6 or January 6, and many of the days in between. To cease singing Christmas carols on December 25 would strike many Christians around the world as ludicrous. Stop? We're just getting started.
Christmas is for the long haul. It's a season, not a day, and that requires some serious resolutions. Here are my Ten Commandments of Christmas:
1. Honor the Lord of the season -- not through deprivation or some misplaced sense of solemnity. We have been waiting all year for the king's arrival. This is a holiday. Keep it holy by celebrating with friends and family.
2. Let your gift giving be joyful.
3. You shall not be a slave to the greeting cards.
4. You shall do one thing you have never done.
5. You shall destroy one sacred cow, ignore one holiday tradition, in order to give yourself more time. The babe will arrive whether you make your special fudge or not.
6. You shall play with the nativity set this Christmas.
7. Be resolved that December 26 is as much Christmas as the day before. (If nothing else, this allows you to take advantage of the sales. Did you ever think what great gifts you could give to people if they would only wait until December 27?)
8. Play a Christmas album loud enough to embarrass someone. (It doesn't matter which: Perry Como, the Chipmunks, or a concert choir.)
9. You shall visit one shut-in during the season and invite one lonely person into your home. Hospitality is part of the season. There was no room at the inn. Too often we have a mandatory guest list of people we have to entertain or visit. Tear it up. Pick something new to do this year.
10. Sometime around December 30, when the house is quiet except for the creaking of the boards and the distant chimes at midnight, sing "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and "Silent Night" quietly to yourself.
Worship the king.
Is there seed left in the barn? Is there any faith left for the day after Christmas?
The promise of Haggai is that God will bless with more than mere abundance. The vine, the fig tree, and the olive tree provided the staples of existence. Grapes for eating and wine for drink, figs to make a thick paste, and olives for oil and flavor. They had to be harvested in their season and pressed for preservation. Processed, they could be stored for months.
But pomegranates were luxuries. They're great fun to eat, but there's not tremendous nourishment. Most of the fruit is a woody pulp. Ah, but the sweetness of the seeds! They are more beautiful than diamonds, though almost as fragile as soap bubbles. Squeeze them and they burst. They will stain your clothes but good, too.
God not only plans for us to survive, he wants us to enjoy. God's gifts provide more than just nourishment. They provide pleasure. Look around you, God tells the people through Haggai. Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? Nonsense. There is pleasure now and pleasure in the future. Count on it.
By leaving seed you were acknowledging God's gifts of the past harvest, even while you enjoy them in the present. By setting aside seed corn you were proclaiming you could count on God's goodness even as you expressed faith in the future.
By leaving honey on the comb you were expressing your faith that spring will come again.
Which reminds me of another formulation of faith that mirrors our trust in God's nature, and that is our trust in the nature of God: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
And as the Lord spoke through Haggai, "And I will bless you."
