All Scriptures quoted are from The New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise quoted.

At the end of Ken Burns’ new PBS series, The War, there is a beautiful and soulful song. It’s very short, but I don’t know how anyone could listen to it without thinking of those veterans who have made our freedom as a nation possible. Twenty-eight year old Norah Jones, who was raised in Grapevine and attended Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts here in Dallas, is the one who gives poignant voice to these powerful words.

For those who think they have nothing to say, Who fear in their hearts there is no hero there. Though inscribed in dignity is that which fortifies, The soul of a nation that never dies. Let them say with me I was one who believed. In sharing the blessings I received Let me know in my heart, when my days are all through America, America, I gave my best to you. America, America, I gave my best to you (American Anthem, words by Gene Sheer).

The message of the song, and of Burns’ series, is that, during World War II, average American people were called away from homes and families to fight in what became the most brutal conflict in modern world history. A call based on a belief that they should give out of the blessings they received. All of which goes to prove that, though we sometimes tend to think that history is only shaped by extraordinary people, it is, in fact, very ordinary people who reshaped world history during World War II.

We also sometimes think that the work of the kingdom can only be done by people of great esteem, or wisdom or skill. And, we do have our spiritual, legendary heroes, Billy Graham and the like. Important as their work has been, even Graham would admit that the work of the kingdom is done, largely, by average people, like you and me, who, when called, just give what we had in the moment we had it. Isn’t that the lesson of the prophet Haggai, whose words from several centuries before Christ was born, we have read this morning?

The Jewish people had been hauled off into captivity in Babylon, in what is now modern day Iraq. When the Babylonians conquered the Jews, they also destroyed the Temple, which had stood for generations as the physical reminder of God’s spiritual presence among his people. Generations later, the Jews were set free to go back home and there they were called of God to rebuild the Temple. Yet, their work had languished. They had become discouraged. As we all tend to do when we are discouraged or fear for the future, they had lapsed into self-preservation. Gifts of gold and silver that were meant for God’s temple had been spent on lesser things and the work to which God had called them had not been completed.

This is where Haggai enters the picture. Every prophet had a unique ministry, a unique message that God had given them. Haggai is no exception. Compared to the larger volume of Old Testament history, Haggai appears on the scene for what seems just a brief moment. Then, he’s gone. But, as time-specific as his message was for that moment in history centuries ago, his words remain as testimony to the call of God on all generations, even ours. The words come to life for us as we read them!

Haggai’s message to the Jews was simple, “finish the work to which God has called you.” It was a message, as are most sermons, that was more easily preached than lived. But, where would our spiritual heritage be without his words? Would we be who we are without them?

We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for our veterans who finished the work our American forefathers started. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution only guaranteed a beginning, not an end, to this great American adventure. We can only imagine where the world would be today if our forefathers hadn’t taken the risk of stepping out in independence and socialism had been allowed to conquer the world in the 1940’s. The question that stands for us this morning, as we ponder our gifts to God, is simple enough. Where will the generations that will follow us be if we don’t finish the work in this place to which God has called us? What we have been given here is just a beginning. How will we finish what generations gone before only started?

Go back with me, again, to 1938. The Great Depression had been ravaging the land for nearly a decade. People who were willing to work couldn’t find work. Families were torn apart, lost their homes and were dislocated from one end of the country to another. Across the ocean, Hitler’s war was taking deep root. Millions had already died and we hadn’t even entered the war. Pearl Harbor was still three years away but anyone who was willing to look could see the dark clouds of world war gathering, like this morning’s gray clouds warn us that winter is not long in coming.

That was the environment in 1938 in which Dr. Wallace Bassett called this church to finish the work others had only started on this corner forty years before. One dollar at a time, one brick at a time, this Temple, this very room, was built to be a physical witness to the spiritual presence of God in this community faith and the community at large. It cost $250,000! We couldn’t build a room a tenth this size for that kind of money today.

What benefit has this Temple brought to your life? What good has God given you through the generations who worshipped here and whose heritage of spiritual faithfulness made yours possible? Do the faces of specific people come to mind who, in this very place, are the faces of your spiritual heritage, whose spiritual blessings made your faith what it is? Whose faces are those? (At the conclusion of the service, people were asked to stand and call out the names of these people. It was a remarkably moving experience.) Whatever your faith may be, it is what it is largely because of the gifts of average people who heard the call of God in the midst of a storm, a call to give of the blessings they had received and the rest is holy history.

The time the Jews were in captivity in Babylon was a very trying time. It was also a time when their spiritual history was reshaped. The most trying times are always the most formative. It would have been easy, once the Jews got back home, to just give up. Out of fear that hoards of invaders could cross their defenseless borders any day, destroy their work and dislocate them to another place, they could have just dug a hole and crawled in it. Some did and we know nothing of their history.

It’s easy to do that. If everything you’ve ever believed in is taken away or someone forces you into a place you don’t want to be, it’s easy to quit. Haggai’s message was simple. The time you are most discouraged is the time to be most encouraged that God makes his home with ordinary people and empowers them to be faithful to whatever his call on their lives may be. Though it is easy when things get hard to slip into self-preservation, it seems that God always sends someone, a prophet, to call us to take another step toward faithfulness.

Sometimes, God recalls to us the words of a long ago prophet and they are as fresh as if they were printed in the morning paper. Haggai’s message, then and now, is that discouragement in our duties does not a equal a discharge from our duty. Discouragement is meant, as it was for the Jews, only as a test of faith. It could easily be argued that God used Babylon to punish the Jews for generations of unfaithfulness. But, the people he punished he then called to finish his work.

God doesn’t use perfect people. He uses average people, even people who have not been faithful, to do his holy work in this world. If the Bible doesn’t tell us anything else, it surely tells us that. Noah crawled off of the ark and got drunk. Moses struck the rock too many times. David was an adulterer. Jonah ran from God’s call and found out that running from the call of God is always the most exhausting of marathons. Yet, God used those sinners to shape what we call our faith. Our spiritual heritage, our very faith, came to us through sinners! God calls sinners to become saints, not people who have already been sainted, to be he channels of his mercy and grace into this world. He calls average people to give what they have and then to marvel at what he can do with it. The former glory of the Temple, God told his people through his prophet, was just a foretaste of what God was going to do, through ordinary people.

Those who heard Haggai’s message didn’t live to see it come true. The only question for them to answer was whether they would trust the God who was calling them to make it true, whether they could see it or not. Listen again to these ancient words.

“Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Take courage, says the Lord; take courage . . . all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you . . . My spirit abides among you; do not fear. Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

It’s not always easy to know how to apply words like that to the moment in which we live now. But, don’t they come to life for us, in this place, even as we read them this morning? All I know is that God is a God of his word. He has been faithful to us and promised to remain that way. In this place, in this very place, God said, “In this place I will give.” He will give his spirit, his courage, his very presence, even his silver and gold, all that we need and then some.

Do we believe that enough to give out of the blessings we have received? Children, in generations yet to be born, will give witness to whether or not we did.