Nehemiah 13:4-30

Why couldn’t Nehemiah have ended his book with chapter 12?  The wall has been rebuilt, that accomplishment has been joyfully celebrated (chapter 8), and then we come to the dedication of the wall (chapter 12)—another joy-filled celebration with a restored Temple, rebuilt walls, a repopulated capital city.  It’s like the days of Kings David and Solomon!  After so much difficulty and trial a happy ending!

But Nehemiah’s book actually ends with its thirteenth chapter, which is filled with troubles and challenges. The people decide to exclude from their fellowship “all who were of foreign descent” (13:1-4).  It turns out Eliashib the high priest has been in cahoots with Tobiah, one of the leaders of the opposition to the wall-rebuilding, and legitimate funding is being withheld from the priests and Levites leading to the neglect of the house of God.  And work and commerce are performed on the Sabbath.  And intermarriages between Jews and Gentiles, something prohibited by the Law, is becoming commonplace.  And Eliashib’s son-in-law was also son-in-law to Sanballat, the leader of the rebuilding opponents!

The nice thing about rebuilding a wall is that once it’s done, it’s done and we can pretty much leave it be.  The same cannot be said for our communities (marriage, family, neighborhood, church, county, and so on).

Human communities can be both resilient and fragile.  They are fragile because they are regularly threatened by people’s thoughtlessness, carelessness, laziness and endless “desire for other things.”  They are regularly stressed by changes in the cultures they inhabit.  Sometimes those stresses become outright attacks.  

Communities can also be resilient. What develops a resilient faithfulness in communities like Chatham Community Church?  Continuing attentiveness to Scripture and to the ongoing, dynamic leadership of the Holy Spirit, nudging, poking, prodding, directing us along the Jesus Way.  A willingness to recognize that we have not yet arrived but need to be vigilant, while also remembering that “happily ever after” is assured—and we can catch glimpses and foretastes of it all along the way.

Which helps us continue to address ourselves to the messes with which life on this side of “happily ever after” is inevitably filled!

OK, what’s a current “mess” that you’re facing?  How can the knowledge of a glorious future in Christ encourage and strengthen you to address it