There’s usually a moment in big project when we stop and look around and wonder if it’s worth continuing. We begin with hope and excitement, with energy and vision, imagining the finished goal. But somewhere along the way, the excitement dulls or the frustration kicks in. And whatever we are working toward becomes harder to see.
Maybe it’s a home renovation that’s half-done or a project at work that keeps stalling. Anyone here know what I’m talking about? Any of us currently in the middle of an unfinished project?
Or maybe it’s a whole church community, like ours, learning how to rebuild and reimagine ministry together after a global pandemic. It’s in those unfinished places we long for God to meet us with a reminder that the story isn’t over yet. Well that is if we haven’t given up already.
It is too tempting to believe that unfinished work will never come to completion, that maybe we shouldn’t try because what’s even the point.
That’s exactly what the people of God are navigating in today’s passage from Haggai. Before this part of the story, 86 years before this part of this story, Babylon invaded Jerusalem, tore down its walls, burned homes, and destroyed the temple, which was the sacred center of their life with God and a symbol of God’s presence among the people. When Babylon conquered the city, everything that held their community together seemed to be destroyed and the people were exiled.
For seventy years, they lived as strangers away from their city. Then under a new ruler, King Cyrus of Persia, they were finally set free and sent home. And they returned home to a land scarred by war with fields overgrown, homes in ruins, and a constant reminder of all that was lost. And so the people began rebuilding.
But each focused on their own survival. The people repaired their own homes, replanted their own crops, and built up their own families. Rebuilding the temple communally almost seemed like a luxury they couldn’t afford. And I don’t blame them. Destruction was all around them When resources felt scarce, their instinct was to protect what little they had, turning inward rather than toward the shared work of rebuilding as a community. For sixteen years this went on.
God sends the prophet Haggai to remind the people that that the temple’s restoration wasn’t just about the building itself; it was about restoring relationship and trust in God’s presence. Or really, in God’s abundance. And so God calls them to begin again as a community, not because they felt have enough, but because God is enough and God will provide.
When the people finally began the work, the temple that rose from the dust was not what anyone expected. It was smaller, simpler, and humbler than Solomon’s grand temple of gold and cedar.
In fact, the book of Ezra tells us that some of the older priests and leaders, who remembered the original temple, wept with grief when they saw the foundation of this new one being laid.
Think about this. You mean there were people in the church who missed how things used to be? Who longed for the “good old days”? Who thought the new thing didn’t quite measure up to the old this? Hard to imagine, right? Surely that kind of thing never happens anymore!
But in all seriousness, that kind of longing isn’t a flaw; it’s part of being human. It’s what happens when we meet change. The people who wept did so because they remembered the beauty of what had been. And honestly, that’s something the people of God have always done. Across generations and across centuries, we grieve what’s been lost even as we try to build what’s next.
And yet, it was this new temple God called greater. This temple was a glimpse of the world God promised, a place where presence mattered more than grandeur. The people learned again how to live as if there would be enough because there was.
The people, people who had been broken and scattered, were now learning to trust again. It was in their courage to build when they still felt small. It was in their willingness to believe that God’s Spirit still dwelled among them.
The new temple was greater because it was born out of faith rather than fear.
We know something of that fear too, though maybe not in the same way. These last few weeks have brought headlines and stories that have left so many of us uneasy: news of delayed or reduced SNAP benefits, families wondering how to stretch what’s left in the pantry, parents facing impossible choices about how to feed their children.
And while we might feel anxious when we read those stories about those families that we think we’ll never meet, we also know our fear doesn’t compare to the fear of a parent looking into the eyes of their hungry child. That fear is deeper and heavier.
Their fear is greater than ours. And our hearts ache because we recognize that no one should have to feel that kind of fear. That ache is just another way the Spirit is stirring us, reminding us that we are part of the better future that God has promised.
And we experience that future in holy moments here and now.
A couple of weeks ago, our neighborhoods looked a little different. Kids (and adults) dressed as superheroes and princesses and ghosts were running from door to door, laughing and shouting “trick or treat.”
Now I know not everyone celebrates Halloween. and that’s okay. But I can’t help but notice that, for one night on Halloween, we live out something the church has been trying to get right for thousands of years.
Children come to a door: they knock, they ask, and they receive.
No one is turned away. No one has to prove they deserve it. No one is asked whether they’re really from that neighborhood. No one has to qualify, show papers, or prove hardship. There are no tests or hoops to jump through. They ask and they receive.
But the people are prepared to give: happily and abundantly, without holding anything back.
For one evening, we behave as if abundance is the norm… when for most of us, abundance is the norm.
Friends, most days we live as though generosity might leave us empty. But on Halloween, we remember: giving feels good. Generosity builds community. Joy multiplies when it’s shared.
And when I watch children at those doors, asking and receiving, laughing and trusting that good things are coming, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
On Halloween, we catch a small glimpse of what those words look like in real life
It’s a glimpse of the better future God promised through Haggai. It the same promise born in the rebuilding of the temple made by the same God. This promise is a world where fear gives way to trust and where scarcity yields to abundance.
When we move from fear of scarcity to trusting in abundance, the world begins to look different. Scarcity leads to isolation while abundance builds community.
And if we can catch even these small glimpses of God’s abundance in the rebuilding of a community, in a people who share what we has, in porch lights that stay on and doors that stay open; then what’s stopping us from building toward that better future now?
If we believe these glimpses are possible, then maybe the next faithful step is to look honestly at where our time, energy, and resources go. Are we helping build the kind of world God is building? Or are we individually rebuilding our own smaller temples of control and comfort?
These glimpses of abundance matter because they show us what God is still doing… and what God is still inviting us to join. The temple, the open door, the open hand; they’re all signs of a kin-dom already breaking in.
So take courage in the breaking in and keep building. Keep your hands and hearts open. Because God is already here, and the peace that God promises is coming. Maybe not all at once, but through us, together, as we live and work toward the future God has promised.
Amen.
Where is God inviting you to move from fear of scarcity to trusting in abundance?
Scripture:
Psalm 145:1-5, 13b-21 & Haggai 1:15b-2:9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown on November 9, 2025 by Pastor Taylor Hall