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3rd February 2013 - Evening - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs
Sermon for Sunday 3rd February - Evening (Candlemas)
Haggai 2. 1-9
John 2. 18-22

I was very pleased to receive an excited email from Chrissie Ringrose this week with the news that all looks fair for the next Scarecrow Festival. For some of you - who are involved in the planning, this will be old news. But others may like to note that it is being planned for the 27, 28 and 29 September this year. I know it took, and no doubt will take again, a great deal of planning and hard work but the last one was so fantastic that I cannot help but be excited at the prospect. Let's hope for a lovely late September with plenty of sunshine to attract the crowds.

One of the things I remember from the last one, two years ago, was the wonderful atmosphere in the whole village. And the way that this church seemed to be buzzing all weekend long as it occupied the central point in an event that included everyone in the community - whether regular worshipper or not. Of course it will be a little sad to reflect on the people who will not be able to take part this time - I think particularly of Bob Owen (may he rest in peace) - but I am sure that others will seek to outdo their previous, ingenious artistic efforts. Mind you, the new Archbishop might not make such an immediately recognizable figure as a scarecrow .... not unless he starts cultivating some bushy eyebrows very soon!

The other wonderful thing from the last Scarecrow Festival was the impetus that arose from it to improve our Church Porch and the initial impression that visitors receive of our building.

In my version of the Bible our first reading that we heard tonight is headed "The future glory of the Temple". The context is the Exile - that catastrophic event that occurred in Jewish History around 550 years or so before the birth of Christ, when the Babylonians defeated Israel and carried all of the nation's leaders and intellectuals off into captivity - leaving only the poorest peasants behind. Several generations passed before it became possible for a remnant of the people to return from the area we now think of as Iran.

And when they did return they found their capital city, Jerusalem, largely derelict and the great temple - the centre of their faith and culture as a distinct people under God, a sad and neglected ruin. To rebuild it took an immense amount of resolve and courage - not least to persuade the Persian king, Darius, to allow it to happen - and tonight's reading tells us how the prophet Haggai tried to do his bit in strengthening the will of the people, and particularly that of the governor and the High Priest, to undertake the work. Haggai tells them that they are doing God's work; that it is his will now to rebuild the Temple and to see it rise yet more glorious from the ruins of its destruction. And if they fulfil God's will in this way, then the people may look forward to increased prosperity and good fortune.

Well our plans are rather more modest - and I am pleased to say that we do not start from a wreck to begin with, but I hope too that our building plans will not only enhance this place for generations to come, but will make it even more obvious that as a church community we are not inwardly focussed, but outward looking to the community in which we are placed and which we serve. And of course we follow in a long line of stewards of this building who have sought to improve and beautify this place and make it more impressive as the central point in this village where people might expect to find God in their midst and to offer their worship.

Now I know only too well that for some people, any change to the building with which they have grown up and which seems to them like a refuge from all that is uncertain and changing in the world at large, can seem like a threat. They would rather that everything remain the same as we have inherited it .... but that really has never been the way of the church - and I dare to say it is not the way of the faith to which Jesus calls us, which is living, breathing and dynamic.

Jesus shocked the religious people of his day by saying that if the Temple were to be destroyed, he personally could raise it again in three days. That seemed a laughable claim to those who heard him as they looked around at the great columns and courtyards, the porticoes and the paving that surrounded them. The work begun when the exiles returned from Babylon was ongoing and had still not finished, and the building seemed to them more wonderful and impressive and permanent than ever before.

With the benefit of hindsight we know that within 70 or so years of Jesus's crucifixion the temple was completely destroyed by the Romans and the people yet again dispersed. Not until 1948 would there again be a Jewish homeland that included Jerusalem. And even today it is still a site of contention and conflict. The Great Temple has still not been rebuilt - indeed may now never be rebuilt. However, the temple that was Jesus himself - though of course it was broken and destroyed on a cross, - did indeed rise in three days and has gone on to inspire Christians for over 2 millenia since!

At Candlemas we remember the dedication of Jesus to God by his earthly parents. The first time that he was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem - and the day when his future began to be spoken of both in terms of glory - and of destruction.
It is a natural human instinct to want to improve and beautify the places in which we live and which we consider sacred - both for God's glory and for our own. But the real future glory of the temple can never lie with bricks and mortar, stone and glass, but in the faithfulness, or otherwise, with which we follow the teachings of the One who came to reveal God's glory to us in the form of a man, and who taught us what God's love might truly mean.