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31.01.2010_Nehemiah 8:1–10
| 01.02.2010, 14:46 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Psalm 19; John 1:1-18; James 1:16-25 Nehemiah 8:1-10 The Reconstruction of Souls, not Walls Today Haiti occupies the most important place in world news. The tragedy is so great for such a small country, that no one is able to remain indifferent. I am grateful to God for the response of our church and with great joy passed along the money we gathered Sunday before last in the general offering, money that will go for the rebuilding of this country that has suffered so much. Our quick response to help with finances was a good gesture, but in order for Haiti to really return to complete life, the country needs something more. As I was flying to the conference at EuNC I came across a newspaper with an article by eight experts, each of which spoke about the fact that Haiti needs much more than the rebuilding of destroyed homes. The country needs transformed people, and that is obvious from the quantity of looters, thieves and mafia, taking advantage of the situation for personal gain. Not only houses need reconstruction, but the whole society; human hearts, human souls. Otherwise in the country ruin will reign, not because of the earthquake, but because of people. In 538 BC, Israel began its return to Jerusalem from Babylonian exile. After years of effort, they restored the Temple in 515. A half century later a second wave of exiles returns, and they try to rebuild the Jerusalem walls, in order to reestablish the security and strength needed to successfully resist their enemies. However, among the people themselves reigns confusion, there is no unity or fortitude in faith or moral life and the rebuilding of the walls is continually interrupted. Then Nehemiah, having obtained a good position in Babylon, and hearing about the pitiful condition of his native people, arrives in Jerusalem with a third wave of Israelites returning from exile. He is worried not only that the reconstruction of the wall has come to a standstill, but that the spiritual condition of the people is such that they, having mixed with the peoples living around them, had lost the moral purity to which the Lord had called them. Nehemiah understood well the words of his contemporary, the Greek philosopher Thucydides: "A city is people, not walls.” Nehemiah knew that not just the walls of Jerusalem needed reconstruction, but the spirits of the people. The preceding chapters tell about the difficulties with which Nehemiah had to deal as he strived to restore the city wall: resistance from Samaritans and even those living within Jerusalem itself, attempts on his life by Sanballat and Tobiah. But with God’s help the wall was completed and when Nehemiah’s enemies heard about it, Scripture says that they "lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” (Nehemiah 6:16). This story is a witness to the fact that spiritual, moral and social investment of faithful people is more important than strong bastions. It also illustrates how the transformation of people is more difficult, but also more rewarding than the reconstruction of a city. That’s what this story in Nehemiah is really about: the difficult, but rewarding transformation of human souls. The wall was rebuilt anew, but the reconstruction was not completed until the spiritual life of the whole nation was restored. Everyone knew that it was God alone who made the restoration of the wall possible and they realized the necessity of turning their lives to him anew, to hear what He desires to do in their lives, not only on the outside, but on the inside. We read that the people gathered in the square before the Water Gate, and although they came from different places, their desire was one: they gathered "as one” to hear God’s Law. Differences, disagreements, hostility were no longer important. Their unified desire to hear God superseded everything else. How often we too are so divided on various questions, occupying categorical positions for everyone to see, that we play right into the hands of the devil, who wishes to inflate our differences and decrease what brings us together, gives glory to God, and blesses the Church. Their thirst brought them to communal repentance and united them so that nothing could separate them. Famine is a terrible tragedy, taking the lives of millions of people. But the prophet Amos in his book describes what he considers to be "the worst of all famines". ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine through the land-- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it” (Amos 8:11-12). The prophet describes the consequences of a people, who in their pride stubbornly continue in their sin, and the worst consequence that they experience is God’s silence, hunger for God’s Word and the inability to appease that hunger. That silence actually comes to pass for the Israelites soon after the prophet Malachi, when, for 400 years before the appearance of John the Baptist, proclaiming the coming of Christ, there is not a single prophet of God, speaking from God to His people. Not being able to appease hunger for God’s Word is a terrible tragedy that kills the spirit of an entire nation. The people of Israel under Nehemiah’s leadership understood that and they came to the meeting with enthusiasm, thirsting to hear what God’s Word had to say about what else needed restoration in Jerusalem besides the city walls. Notice that the people gathered on their own initiative and didn’t wait for the leaders to gather them. They gathered together and asked the scribes to bring "the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel” (8:1). They thirsted for God’s word, like a starving person longs for food. That passionate striving to understand biblical truth is more than just a human desire: it is a gift from God. It is really God who is the one who begins spiritual revival, giving people a thirst for spiritual things. Leaders aren’t able to awaken this thirst, only God can call out that kind of passion in the hearts of a people. In contemporary society people are highly indifferent to the Bible. Even in our church there really aren’t that many people who read God’s Word every day. Many of you know what anorexia is: it is an illness from which some people suffer and manifests itself as a complete or partial refusal to eat food. With time those who suffer from anorexia become so thin and weak that it is terrible to look at them. But the same sort of spiritual anorexia affects Christians who partially or completely refuse to partake of "spiritual food,” their "daily bread.” Why are we surprised that we are spiritually weak, and that a lot of spiritual things remain for us an unattainable ideal? David says in the Psalm we read today that God’s Words are "more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb”, that they give "light to the eyes” and "joy to the heart” (Psalm 19: 8, 10). God’s people thirsted for God’s truth and could not get enough of it; they thirsted for it more and more. Like a person gasping for air when they aren’t getting enough oxygen, so it is in this world that doesn’t have enough of God’s truth: when we can get, it only seems natural that we should inhale it in as much as possible. It was this thirst, this lack of God’s truth, not only in the peoples who surrounded them, but in their own lives that brought the people to the gathering at the Water Gate. It is amazing, that the reading and explication of Scripture went on for six hours, and the people all listened standing out of respect and a realization of how important God’s Word was for their lives. Scripture says that grown men and women as well as children, all who could understand, listened extremely attentively. They didn’t allow anything to distract them from the huge blessing they could receive from God’s Word. "And the ears of the people were attuned to the Book of the Law” (Nehemiah 8:3). They were clearly expecting that God would say something through his Word, given so many years before. You can sense the extreme urgency and life-giving importance they felt in all they heard. Our own hearing and reading of the Word so often gives us so little, because it becomes just another habit that we do in a hurry, mechanically, without putting our whole heart into it. Our ears are "attuned” to other stuff and we only hear the drone of long familiar words. During the reading of the Scripture in church we suddenly remember that we need to rustle around in our noisy bags or ask something of the person sitting next to us. When we read the Bible at home we jump up, having just remembered that we have to do something "important” we had forgotten about (probably because it was so important). And we don’t hear God, and we start to wither from spiritual anorexia. For the Word to penetrate our mind, heart, and will, it takes time. The Israelites were prepared to listen from sunrise to midday. We are only prepared to spend that much time listening to gossip and other useless information, leaving only minutes for the Bible, not too many in the first place and begrudgingly counted minutes at that. Will we have a thirst to hear? But just listening doesn’t bring fruit either. The famous reformer John Calvin said: "Just hearing God’s word is like a warrior’s unused weapon, left to rust as it hangs on the wall.” The people didn’t just hear, they also answered. They understood that they were not listening to the priest Ezra, but to God’s Word, and therefore when Ezra began reading they stood out of anticipation and respect. They reacted to the Word with their own words and actions. As they paid attention to what they heard, they answered "Amen!” "May it be so!” and raised their hands, worshiping God for His truth. They identified with what they heard, accepted it personally for themselves, opened their hearts in praise and repentance. They submitted to the Word. Scripture says: "they fell on their knees before the Lord, bowing their faces to the ground.” That is the posture of a person desperate for help, the posture of an indebted beggar, gratefully receiving underserved gift, the posture of a person who humbly waits in the presence of his beloved Lord. They were teachable, they submitted to what God wanted to teach them. They accepted the fact that God’s Word didn’t just affect Moses and his contemporaries, but that it was for them too, that, through His Word, God speaks to all generations. It is not always easy to comprehend that, but there are always people of God who can help. They had a chance to be born again as a people, to become a community of surpassing spirituality. They understood what God wanted and they wept as the listened to the Word; their tears were evidence of their repentance, renewal, and attentiveness to God. They gathered at the Water Gate, at the reconstructed part of the Wall, not to reassure themselves with what they had achieved, but ready to see what needed to be restored in their own spiritual life, in their heart, in their relationship with God, in their community. And listening, they wept and repented. It is easier to see the external weak points of what is around us, what should "be done,” what needs to change in the church, in society, in our family, but we so often are too proud and afraid to look in our own heart and see how empty it is. And if we are only busy with building walls, doing church stuff, creating the appearance of a spiritual life, then God’s work is incomplete in our lives. What do we allow God to do in the most treasured depths of our heart? At the beginning of the Psalm that we read today it talks about the nature all around us that extols God’s works and fills all of creation with His glory, but then it turns to the inexpressible meditations of the heart. David turns from the outer riches of nature to the inner depths of the human spirit, heart, being. God’s truth which, first of all, is given to us in Scripture, is described as "perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, sure, true.” When we listen with readiness, when we submit to the Word, it has an amazing effect on us. It strengthens our soul, replaces our lack of understanding with wisdom, the sorrow of our heart with joy, the Word opens our eyes and we see what before seemed inaccessible, and the Word never loses Its power. David knows that the Word of God doesn’t just tell us what to do, It preserves us, keeps us, "warns us” (19:11). It is like a "tent” under which one may live in safety (19:4). "In keeping [God’s Word] there is a great reward” (19:11), not in the sense of a trophy received for winning a race, but in the sense of a blessed consequence, a result that comes from listening to the Word. The reward is that God’s truth transforms your life. David prays because he knows how easy it is to stumble to get lost, and he asks God to keep him from falling away. He asks for protection from his own hidden sins, from that which is in his own soul, from those unseen motives, inclinations, and flaws that destroy the walls of his soul. He asks for protection from willful sins, from that which may be committed when we’re too self-confident, sometimes even when we have good intentions, and sometimes from stubbornness and a thirst for independence. Hidden sins and self-confident, willful transgressions are two extremes by which we act against God’s will and truth. David prays that his whole life would be submitted to God’s truth: his words, his actions, his thoughts, what’s on the inside and on the outside and everything in between. David and the people of Jerusalem listened attentively and their lives were transformed. Many of us, hearing the Word of God already for many years, week after week, have become insensitive to it, and unreceptive to its teaching. The spiritual walls of our lives, of our relationship with God and with each other have gotten cracked. We desperately need to "attune” our ears, to hear with longing every word of God and to ask that the Holy Spirit help us to answer the question, "What does this mean for MY life?” We need to listen and be prepared to acknowledge our sin, but also to be open for transformation, otherwise our repentance would be a sort of empty emotional enthusiasm that quickly fades. Weak measures won’t save us. The periodic forgiveness of sin won’t save us. For God’s voice to be at the core of our desires and strivings He has to move in to the very center of everything that gives us life, everything that we do, everything that we are. In this world, where there is so little of God’s truth, each of us has to greedily breath in the Word of God, attune our ears to what God wants to reconfigure in our lives, be unified by the one desire and hunger for God’s truth, by a need for his Word. Benediction from 1 Peter 1:22–25 | |
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