Belmont University Advent GuideParaugs

God frequently asks us to examine where we stand. This is how I view God’s question to the leaders of the Jewish exiles. “Where do you stand?” God asks. Put another way: “Who do you identify with?” and, “What are you committed to?”

When we examine ourselves, hindsight often helps. We can see how our actions were wrong. This is the position of the Jewish writers struggling to make sense of their suffering. Their identity and commitments to that other than God brought exile, they reason. Where is God, they wonder? Blowing away what little home rehabilitation the people accomplish, apparently. Even the heavens and earth are against them, withholding its dew and produce (v. 10).

Yet the people miss the point. God is not the final cause of the situation; they are. They lack respect for the “framework” of flourishing, to borrow a term from philosopher Charles Taylor. They have lost sight of the background for living in relationships with respect, flourishing, and dignity. Instead of covenant, righteousness and justice they have brought the patterns of empire back to Israel.

I teach in prison, a place where the patterns of empire are very evident. Aggressive control and the selfishness of survival are norms. Yet, because we “hurry off to our own houses” we are blind to it. True, our circumstance is different than in Haggai’s time. We are drunk with the commodities of production. In hindsight we feel justified in our isolations . . . they are deserved blessings.

Immanuel, heal our misplaced hindsight this season.

Andy Watts
Associate Professor of Religion