Sermon Archive
A job to be done
Sermon preached by John Burdett at Holy Communion on 25 January 2004
The OT reading that we've just heard describes the climax of the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Jews returned from their captivity. Scholars tell us that the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esdras have got hopelessly jumbled and you have to keep jumping from one to another to get the story in anything approaching the right order, but what happened seems to have been something like this:
The Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon round about 590 BC. About 70 years later Cyrus issued a decree authorising a party of Jews under the leadership of Sheshbazzar to go and rebuild Jerusalem. Sheshbazzar laid the foundation stone of the new temple but appears to have done very little more. About 20 years later, after Darius had come to the throne of Babylon, Zerubbabel got the work going again and then the trouble started. The local tribes - the Idumaeans - had quite naturally moved into the land that had been vacated when the Jews were deported to Babylon. They'd been there now for the best part of a century, several generations, long enough for them to think of the land as their own, and they weren't prepared to let the Jews back in without a struggle.
They kept within the law to start off with and they put in a complaint to the local governor. The governor asked Zerubbabel what authority he had to rebuild the temple and Zerubbabel quoted Cyrus' edict. The governor allowed them to carry on with the building, but he can't have been completely convinced, because he checked with his central government in Babylon.
The civil servants looked back through the files and found the original edict, so that was all right, but the edict also said that all the country which the Jews should occupy should be theirs free of tax and that the Idumaeans should give up the Jewish villages that they'd taken over.
There's a remarkable parallel, isn't there? with the Israeli occupation first of Palestine and then of the West Bank in our own time. And it had similar results. Jews continued to trickle back from Babylon in fairly small numbers, and somehow or other large-scale violence was avoided for some time. But then in about 430 BC Nehemiah arrived from Babylon with another large group and started to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem itself.
That was more than the Idumaeans could stand and they got together with the Samaritans and formed the equivalent of the PLO. They tried to destroy the Jewish morale by ridicule, they carried out surprise attacks, they spread rumours that the Jews were plotting rebellion, they tried to kidnap Nehemiah.
Eventually Nehemiah divided the perimeter of the city into about 40 sections and made the rebuilding of each section the responsibility of a family or a group of people. Luckily the original foundations were still there and that saved a great deal of time, but even so they had to shift enormous quantities of rubble and the PLO were so active and their attacks were so incessant that half the population were continually under arms, and of the rest the labourers never let go of their weapons and the craftsmen worked with their swords at their sides. And they had to be ready to drop everything at any moment and go to the defence of whatever part of the perimeter was being attacked.
They worked an enormous amount of overtime, Nehemiah and his staff never even took their clothes off, but in spite of all the difficulties they did it. The walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt in only 52 days, and when they'd finished they celebrated their achievement by throwing an enormous party, the beginning of which we heard about this morning.
Sadly, the rest of the story's not so happy. They were content with their achievement. With a strong wall round them built by their own efforts they felt safe and became self-satisfied. The wall kept out not only their enemies but anyone who disagreed with them. They became exclusive and, besides keeping other people out, the wall kept them in and they became insular and parochial, and any group of people which becomes self-satisfied, exclusive and parochial isn't going to have much influence in the world and certainly isn't going to fulfil God's requirement of his people that they should be a priestly nation, a nation that would bring all other nations to the worship and service of God.
But all that's ancient history, isn't it? The best part of 2500 years old. What relevance has it got for us today? Quite a lot, I think.
The Church of God can't be built up by a lot of individuals working alone. We are the body of Christ and we need the support of our fellow Christians. We mustn't try to be self-sufficient. When I was young I remember hearing frequent references to 'making my communion'. I'm glad that attitude seems to have died out. Communion is an activity of a community, not just a relationship between an individual and God. As St Paul said in this morning's epistle reading, 'The body is a unit, though it's made up of many parts. The eye can't say to the hand "I don't need you." And the head can't say to the feet "I don't need you". You can't be a Christian and remain independent of other people.
The baptism of Emily and Eloise is an illustration of that. We as a congregation have accepted God's call to offer them the care and encouragement of the Church that they may grow in newness of life. We've promised to care for them. But we won't all care for them in the same way. Their parents will provide most of the love and care. Their godparents' responsibility is slightly different. Our responsibility as a congregation is different again. And throughout their whole lives Emily and Eloise will remain dependent on that love and care. You can't, as I say, be a Christian and remain independent of other people.
Christians need each other and they must be prepared not only to help their neighbour, but to accept help, which isn't always easy. But at the same time, although every Christian has a part to play in the building of the Church, everyone doesn't have the same part. Only half of the people whom Nehemiah organised actually did the building. The other half stood guard. And yet they all took pride in their achievement and they all shared in the celebratory party when the job was done.
During this past week we as a congregation have been reminded of our corporate responsibility for St John's. The emphasis has inevitably tended to be on money, but each of us has a contribution to make to the life of the congregation, and it's the duty of each of us to work out for ourselves what that contribution should be. It's not given to everyone to go out and preach the Gospel or to care for the sick or to do social work. And the people who do those things eventually retire when they get too old or too tired to carry on. But there's no retirement for the Christian.
I expect many of us have been lucky enough to come across elderly, frail people, perhaps housebound or bedridden, whose wisdom or common sense or sense of humour or cheerfulness or faith have helped us to keep our own problems in perspective. Each one of us has a job to do which is unique. A job that God has given us which no one else can do because no one else is in precisely our circumstances.
So let's by all means take pride in our achievements, whether what we achieve is so small that other people barely notice it, or so big that we throw a party in celebration, so long as we don't become self-satisfied and start thinking that we've finished our work. Every Christian has a job to do. We must be about our Father's business.
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