Written by: Dennis Tully - Church Army
Nehemiah 9 v 22-25
“You gave them kingdoms and nations;
you gave them more land.
They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon
and the country of Og king of Bashan.
You made their children as many as the stars in the sky,
and you brought them into the land
that you told their fathers to enter and take over.
So their children went into the land and took over.
The Canaanites lived there, but you defeated them for our ancestors.
You handed over to them the Canaanites, their kings, and the people of the land.
Our ancestors could do what they wanted with them.
They captured strong, walled cities and fertile land.
They took over houses full of good things,
wells that were already dug,
vineyards, olive trees, and many fruit trees.
They ate until they were full and grew fat;
they enjoyed your great goodness.
Notes
In the midst of what must have seemed very trying circumstances, fasting and standing in confession and worship for half the day (Ch 9 vs 1-3), this part of the story of undenying graciousness from God must have evoked feelings of great remorse, regret and sorrow. One can imagine the still inner voice pricking the consciousness of the assembled gathering saying, ‘look at what you once had, what a glorious past’, as the words were read aloud. Even what was achieved in war, the conquering of other nations is attributed to God’s action and even before they arrived the gifts were prepared. The Israelites did not even have to work for these gifts as they took over houses full of good things and wells that were already dug for them.
We too can stand and acclaim what great gifts God has given us; creation, the skills to create industrialization for great good. How gracious is this same God, the same today as in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. But like the Israelites we are called to stand and confess as communities and individually. We can see the struggle of creation under the oppression of industrialization. We can see the corruption of industrialization because we worship the Market and sacrifice our wisdom. God’s gifts are mingled with our tendency to mess up. Despite it all we can still see the purity of God’s gift in a flower, a field, a building, a street, the gifts in our personalities and relationships. There are gifts in our lives we have not messed up ……. yet.
Thank you for me, for the gifts you give to me. Help me not to mess them up but to nurture them and where I am able, to work to bring new growth out of dying. Amen
Nehemiah 9 v 26-28
“But they were disobedient and turned against you
and ignored your teachings.
Your prophets warned them to come back to you,
but they killed those prophets
and spoke against you.
So you handed them over to their enemies,
and their enemies treated them badly.
But in this time of trouble our ancestors cried out to you,
and you heard from heaven.
You had great mercy
and gave them saviors who saved them from the power of their enemies.
But as soon as they had rest,
they again did what was evil.
So you left them to their enemies
who ruled over them.
When they cried out to you again,
you heard from heaven.
Because of your mercy, you saved them again and again.
Notes
Down through time, God had given the people much to guide them; teachings, prophets and saviours. The teachings were ignored, the prophets were killed and what the saviours offered the people only had the effect of temporary respite because as soon as everything was okay they did what was evil. So much guidance yet so little learning. From the distance of thousands of years we can see a pattern. The tendency to do wrong so prevalent, despite the guidance God gives to us.
Today there are many teachings, prophets and saviours. In the Christian community and from the Bible we know more about the guidance God gives us. God gives us prophets and saviours in the wider community who warn us about the way we live. We know that God uses those outside the Christian faith to offer us guidance as he sent three astrologers to confirm that God had become flesh in a stable.
These days we have to listen carefully to what prophets and saviours are saying to us. Scripture does not include issues like nuclear physics, gene therapy and microchip technology. Our critical act is to turn to God’s word to discern God’s desire for the people and creation.
We can see similar warnings and guidance being ignored today as God’s people ignored them before and during the time of Nehemiah. We complain that today there are more pressures on us but this story would suggest it is more a matter of our nature that affects the choices we make.
As I live my life, help me to discern your will for myself, my neighbour and the world around me. Let me not be rushed or pushed into what is not your will. Amen
Nehemiah 9 v 29-31
You warned them to return to your teachings,
but they were proud and did not obey your commands.
If someone obeys your laws, he will live,
but they sinned against your laws.
They were stubborn, unwilling, and disobedient.
You were patient with them for many years
and warned them by your Spirit through the prophets,
but they did not pay attention.
So you handed them over to other countries.
But because your mercy is great, you did not kill them all or leave them.
You are a kind and merciful God.
Notes
Despite the warnings to return to the teachings the people did not obey God’s commands because they were proud. Is this not the heart of the problem between ourselves and God; a constant struggle about who in fact is god of all. Today we have the ability to alter the very essence of life. Humanity is now able to replicate one animal identically to another. We have the capability to create a human being in a laboratory and to determine what kind of person they are to be; their hair colour, stature, personality and intelligence. Who is it that is trying to be god? In our daily lives, our work and relationships we individually try to dominate and control to get what we want in our own interest and not for the interest of other people.
Such a struggle to dominate gets us into difficulties. We end up oppressing others which in some way rebounds on us. Will we ultimately create something, which is a threat to our human community? DDT was once seen as a saviour to kill off the death-watch-beetle and so rid the world of malaria…. until we understood it to be a threat to other animals and ourselves. Questions abound in Europe about the meat that is eaten because we have messed with the animal food chain. Personal relationships lie dead on an old battlefield where arguments lie abandoned because pride refused to surrender.
So what is our vocation to be. To surrender our pride to God means we will live. Our lives will be full. Not euphoric but full of joy.
Let me this day, not put myself above you. May I follow you, not try to lead. May I serve others, not dominate them, and more, be willing to be served by them.
Ame
Nehemiah 9 v 32-33
“And so, our God, you are the great and mighty and wonderful God.
You keep your agreement of love.
Do not let all our trouble seem unimportant to you.
This trouble has come to us, to our kings and our leaders,
to our priests and prophets,
to our ancestors and all your people
from the days of the kings of Assyria
until today.
You have been fair in everything that has happened to us;
you have been loyal, but we have been wicked.
Notes
God is great mighty and wonderful who keeps the agreement of love. Looking back over the previous readings we see a pattern of the people straying from God, then getting into difficulty and crying out for God’s help and because God is merciful the people are restored. The cycle repeats again and again. All through these events it is God who is consistent while the people behave like spoilt children. They go their own way when everything is well, do their own thing regardless of the guidelines God has given them, and when it all goes wrong they wail as wounded children.
What kind of relationship do we want to have with God? Do we want it to be like that of spoilt children which continually puts God in the role of punishing parent? God, who keeps the love agreement is an adult God. Not in the sense of age but in the sense that God does not respond in an inconsiderate way. It is the people who choose whether to love or not to love whether to grow up or not.
We have a choice to use our faith as a way of keeping ourselves as spoilt children or we can use it to help us to grow up.
I am always your child God. Help me to grow in adult maturity so I may continually keep the love agreement. Amen
Nehemiah 9 v 34-38
Our kings, leaders, priests, and ancestors did not obey your teachings;
they did not pay attention to the commands and warnings you gave them.
Even when our ancestors were living in their kingdom,
enjoying all the good things you had given them,
enjoying the land that was fertile and full of room,
they did not stop their evil ways.
“Look, we are slaves today
in the land you gave our ancestors.
They were to enjoy its fruit and its good things,
but look, we are slaves here.
The land’s great harvest belongs to the kings you have put over us
because of our sins.
Those kings rule over us and our cattle as they please,
so we are in much trouble.
“Because of all this, we are making an agreement in writing, and our leaders, Levites, and priests are putting their seals on it.”
Notes
So it comes to the end of the confession with the people putting an agreement in writing with their leaders putting their seals on it. God’s people have stood listening to their story of a Gracious, consistent loving God, who has always been there for them. In contrast their story reflects back to them their waywardness and inconsistent commitment to the relationship. The changing fact has not been God but the people.
This new agreement is a great triumph, the reclamation of their identity as a people chosen by God. The walls give the city a new definition, new boundaries, a new outline. In the same way to enter into this agreement is to regenerate the spirituality of God’s people.
Many communities and even nations hold to their identity as being of paramount importance, even to the point of engaging in long and treacherous wars to reclaim or preserve it. Our identity is so important. We have an innate desire to know who we are and where we come from.
With so many changes affecting our lives, it is easy for us to lose a sense of who we are and where we are going. For many, loneliness fills the places where identity dies. As with the people in Jerusalem it is a requirement on us to take practical steps to hold to or reclaim our identity. This begins with a decision of commitment to begin that search. Like the people in Jerusalem, we too are created by God who loves us, has a purpose for us. The stronger we claim God as our origin the more defined we become, the more assured we are of who we are.
You created me from my father and my mother, but in you I find out who I really am. Amen
Nehemiah 10 v 28-29
The rest of the people took an oath. They were the priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, Temple servants, all those who separated themselves from foreigners to keep the Teachings of God, and also their wives and their sons and daughters who could understand. They joined their fellow Israelites and their leading men in taking an oath, which was tied to a curse in case they broke the oath. They promised to follow the Teachings of God, which they had been given through Moses the servant of God, and to obey all the commands, rules, and laws of the LORD our God.
Notes
The people follow the example of their leaders, the whole community, from the most important to the very youngest who could understand. The confession has been a way of reflecting on the past - not just recent but distant. The people can see where they have gone wrong. This is a new start, a rededication and commitment to the agreement of love between God and the people. Not only is it an agreement but the people tied it to a curse so that, if they lapse, doom will fall upon them. This is taking responsibility. This is growing up. It means if they lapse they cannot blame God for the consequences.
In this case prayer has been a means of reflecting, of taking time out to look and examine what has been. It has been a way of climbing out of the pit and looking in so the people could get an overview. Consequently, their eyes, ears and hearts were opened to the reality of their situation and their relationship with God.
For us too, prayer is a way of standing back and looking at an overview. Both individually and as a community. In prayer we hope to hear and see in a different way than we do in the activity of our daily lives and to try to discern what God wants for us. As in the case of the people in Jerusalem, prayer affects the human spirit. A human spirit affected in such a way leads us to all sorts of new beginnings.
Because of the way you love me, the little I have to offer you is enough. Calm my spirit, so my eyes and ears may be open to your love of me. Amen
Nehemiah 10 v 30-33
They said:
We promise not to let our daughters marry foreigners nor to let our sons marry their daughters. Foreigners may bring goods or grain to sell on the Sabbath, but we will not buy on the Sabbath or any holy day. Every seventh year we will not plant, and that year we will forget all that people owe us.
We will be responsible for the commands to pay for the service of the Temple of our God. We will give an eighth of an ounce of silver each year. It is for the bread that is set out on the table; the regular grain offerings and burnt offerings; the offerings on the Sabbaths, New Moon festivals, and special feasts; the holy offerings; the offerings to remove the sins of the Israelites so they will belong to God; and for the work of the Temple of our God.
Notes
There are two elements to this new agreement. Firstly it is for the community, owned by the community. The promise not to allow young women to marry foreigners is to aid the very survival of the people. The chosen people of God were losing their identity. There is tolerance, allowing people of different faiths to trade on the Sabbath while they themselves will abstain, aiding good relations across cultural and ethnic divides. There is the reinstatement of economic justice for the poor.
Secondly the corporate responsibility towards God; for the upkeep of worship and the temple. There is commitment to give money to pay for what is needed, for bread, grain and burnt offerings.
For some cultures there will be the ability to identify with such a corporate agreement. For others in the West it will be more difficult as there is a tendency to privatise what we believe. To enter into a corporate commitment means we have to compromise ourselves for the good of the community but we also derive support from it.
If we are members of the Christian community it is important that, with other people, we reflect on what the word of God is saying to us today. We listen to their experience of God and together we pray. We engage with the communities we live in. Christians play a part to ensure fairness and justice for everyone and tolerance between people of differing views.
In Jerusalem the people make a corporate commitment upon which depends the individual responsibility of everyone. The corporate is interdependent with individual responsibility.
I am one in millions, but you have created me as if I was the only one. Shape in me, responsibility to play my part, that I may act to make the world a better place. Amen
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version
(Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes