They say that Labor Day marks the end of the summer, and I guess there is some truth in that for we have come to the last message in our summer message series, “Liars, Cheaters, Cowards & Other Bible Heroes.” We have received a lot of feedback on this series, most of it very positive. I think there are two main reasons why this series has be so well received. First, they are just great stories. The Bible is filled with great stories, and who doesn’t like a good story? Secondly, I think the deacons and I were largely successful in connecting these great stories to ordinary, everyday life.
The last two weeks we looked at heroes during the time of the Babylonian Exile. This week our story begins around the year 450 BC, so just about the end of the Babylonian Exile, and the beginning of the last period of the Old Testament. It was during this time that some of the Israelites made their way back to Jerusalem.
What they find is a city in ruins. The gates to the city have been destroyed by fire. The wall around the city is crumbling, leaving the city insecure. The Temple has been looted and fallen into serious disrepair. All the main buildings of the city have been gutted by fire.
Enter our hero of the week, Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the Persian King. While that might not seem like an important position, it was actually a very influential, coveted position which gave him the ear of the King. You can read about Nehemiah in the Book of Nehemiah which is basically his memoir. Of course, Nehemiah was one of the exiled Israelites.
One of Nehemiah’s brothers went back to Jerusalem, and after living there for a while, came back to Persia and told Nehemiah about the condition of Jerusalem. Nehemiah is very saddened to hear about the condition of the city, the home of his ancestors. He begins to mourn and fast for the city for several days.
The King notices that Nehemiah is sad, and he asks him, “What’s up?” The King was concerned that Nehemiah was sick. Nehemiah tells the King that he is sick of heart because the city where his ancestors are buried lies in ruins. The King asks if there is anything he can do to help, and Nehemiah says, “If it pleases the king, send me to Jerusalem, that I may rebuild it.”
While this was a really bold request, the king agrees and makes Nehemiah the royal governor of Judah, giving him the authority to do whatever he needs to to get the job done. The king even gives him a lot of funding for the project.
So Nehemiah gives up his very comfortable position of being the king’s cupbearer, and sets off for Jerusalem. When he gets there he finds the situation far worse than advertised. A lesser man would have felt completely overwhelmed, and decide to give up before even giving it a try. Nehemiah doesn’t allow himself to feel that way. First he quietly surveys the situation to determine what needs to be done. Then he calculates his assets, what he has on hand in order to do the job. In addition to the funding from the king, he sees that he has a large labor force. He then takes the massive project, and breaks it down into smaller, more modest projects. Finally he recruits teams of people to undertake each of those smaller projects, and motivates them to get started.
Nehemiah inspires the people of the city by pointing out all that God had already done for them, and how He is continuing to work in this situation. Looking at it with this new perspective, the people get real excited to get to work. They are filled with enthusiasm and vigor to rebuild the Temple and the city.
Not everyone, however, want Nehemiah to be successful. Some of the other Persian governors saw the Jews as rivals, so they want to keep the Israelites down. One of them sends a letter to the king saying that the Israelites are planning a rebellion, and that is the real reason that they are rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah does not take the criticism to heart. He assures the king that it is all an invention in the mind of these other governors. Instead of becoming discouraged, Nehemiah redoubles his efforts. Of course the project takes years to complete, but it is successful. The rebuilding effort actually achieved something even more important than new walls and restored buildings. It restored the community sense of identity and dignity.
In the last scene in the Book of Nehemiah, the whole community of the city are gathered together, and the scribe Ezra brings forth the book of the Law of Moses and reads it to the people from daybreak till midday. After not hearing them for a long, long time, the people hear the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. They hear their stories; stories of liars, cheaters, cowards and other heroes. At first the people start to cry, but Nehemiah says to them, “Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not lament. Do not weep!” Then he tells them to basically party.
Nehemiah gave the people more than a new, rebuilt city. He gave them a vision for who they could be.
The story of Nehemiah is so very appropriate for us because as a parish we are about to embark on a rebuilding project. No, it is not going to be a rebuilding involving bricks and boards. Rather we are going to be rebuilding ourselves as a community.
Over the past year or more, the Pastoral Council, deacons, and myself have felt that the parish was in a kind of rut. We have a good number of really wonderful volunteers, whom we hope continue to share their time and talent with us. However, they are also getting older, and they have been asking me “Where are the next generation?” People in their 80s who want to step down from some of their ministry responsibilities but feel that they can’t because they have no one to take their place.
The Pastoral Council, deacons and I are going to start this rebuilding project by working through two books, “Rebuilt” and “The Rebuilt Field Guide.” Both about a parish in Maryland who turned from being a parish of just trying to maintain what they had, to a parish that was actively evangelizing. Now, we cannot do exactly what they did because our situation will be different than what theirs was. But we can follow their basic process, which is basically what Nehemiah did.
We will start by carefully assessing our current situation. What are we doing well and what can we be doing better? What are our resources, especially the ones that we have not been tapping into? Who is the typical person, our Debbie and Donny Delran, Rachel and Robert Riverside, that we need to evangelize? Then when we have a clear picture of the overall project, we will need to break it down into smaller, more manageable projects, and recruit people to tackle those projects.
It is my hope that after hearing the stories of our salvation history, like we have over the past 12 weeks, we see that we do not have to be some perfect, super-saint. Rather any of us can be disciples of Jesus, no matter our faults and limitations. Then, if we allow Him, God will do great things with us.