Building Up and Sending Out: Part 1
August 18, 2024 Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Ephesians 2:11-22 Nehemiah 2:11-20
“Building Up and Sending Out: Part 1”
Melissa K. Smith
Here in Missouri the main natural disasters are tornadoes and severe storms – two things I was not used to when I moved from Los Angeles. In California, our main natural disasters are earthquakes and fires. There are two distinct times I remember being evacuated from our house because wildfires had made their way to the canyon next to our neighborhood – the first was when I was in middle school, and the second was five years ago.
In October of 2019, the Saddleridge fire came to town. My parents and I were watching the news to see if and when we needed to leave. We were packing our cars, grabbing our valuable belongings, making arrangements for the family dog, and trying to plan in the midst of scary chaos. Our next move was determined by the direction of the wind. Ultimately around 2 in the morning we were evacuated. The whole neighborhood was awake and leaving quickly. We said hello and goodbye to neighbors not knowing when we would see them next or what our neighborhood would look like when we came home.
After 12 hours of fighting the fire in the neighborhood, the wind changed her mind and blew the fire in another direction, permitting us to go home. My dad and I got home that evening to a smoky but safe house – and our whole street was safe. It was quiet, grey from the ash, but safe. That evening we took a walk around the neighborhood to see if everyone was safe. There were two houses that abutted to the canyon that burned to the ground. It was devastating. Thankfully no one was hurt, but to see a house burnt to the ground…I will never get that image out of my head.
Slowly we all got back to life as usual around the neighborhood…except those two houses. It took two weeks for the Saddleridge fire to be contained, but it took years for those houses to be cleaned up. For years, those empty lots served as a vivid reminder of what those families lost.
This morning, we heard a piece of Nehemiah’s story: the story of rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. The walls did not crumble because of a fire that swept through the neighborhood…and they took way more than a few years to rebuild. But the fallen walls served as a vivid reminder of what they lost – their culture, their nation, and their identity.
The Bible tells of a rich history of the Kingdom of Israel from its origin with King Saul, then King David, and then King Solomon. This truly was the “golden age” of Israel. But after King Solomon’s reign, the kingdom split: his son Jeroboam became king of the southern kingdom, Judah, and his son Rehoboam became king of the northern kingdom, Israel. After a series of bad kings in both kingdoms, the kingdoms fell. If you turn your bulletins over, you will see a timeline of an incredibly simplified version of Israel’s history. In 722BCE the Northern Kingdom, Israel, fell to Assyria, casting them into exile. Prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea tried to help Israel turn away from their sins and back to the God who loves them – but Israel did not heed their warnings. Ultimately their kingdom fell. Years later in 586BCE, the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon, casting them into exile. Prophets like Micah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah cried out to their neighbors and kings asking them to repent, but Judah did not repent.
Ultimately their kingdom fell. At this point, Israel was a conquered nation cast into a diaspora: they were dispersed from their homeland. But the world continued to be in a “conquer or be conquered” mindset and in 539 BCE it was Persia who conquered Babylon. Persia was different than the other empires. They invited the conquered peoples they inherited to go back to their homeland. This ended up being more complicated than hoped for. For Israel, their home and their temple were destroyed. The land had been trodden on by so many boots and weapons with the intention to conquer and destroy. Like the neighbors whose houses burned to the ground five years ago: the place they knew and loved was gone by the time they returned. The people who went back to Jerusalem worked hard to rebuild the temple, and their history is recorded of Ezra. But we are picking up at the story of Nehemiah – the man who helped rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in
445 BCE.
Nehemiah was not a prophet or a priest. He was a layman. His occupation was “cupbearer to the king” and he served Artaxerxes the first. He worked closely with the king. One day the king looked at Nehemiah and asked, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This can only be the sadness of the heart” (Nehemiah 2:2). Nehemiah shared that he longed to go back to the land of his ancestors so that he could help rebuild it. He has heard stories of the great kingdom – oral tradition was rich and the Jews tried to maintain their identity through stories and memory. The Persian Empire gave them the opportunity to establish their history from their songs and stories and root them back into the ground of their forefathers.
Nehemiah went to Jerusalem and scouted out the ruins of the city wall. Day and night he worked to inspect the wall. He kept his plans a secret at first because he feared interruption. Jerusalem was not preserved for the Jews – nor was it left vacant. There were peoples there who did not wish to see the people of Israel return, so Nehemiah was strategic in his plans so that they could be successful.
Nehemiah took building up the wall seriously: he helped create a sacred space for the people of God to be the people God created them to be. He tried to establish community, to establish camaraderie, to establish fellowship once again. He was, in a sense, creating church.
As we remember the history of Israel and as we hear the story of Nehemiah, do we see any similarities? This week alone I have heard the words, “well, before the pandemic…” or “Since the pandemic…”. The pandemic has served as an event that has become our exile. We are “post-pandemic” now – it’s been years since we have been fully back. But the memory is fresh, and the scars are evident. Is there motivation to rebuild the church? To come back and reclaim who we are called to be? But we cannot simply blame the pandemic, can we. In Nehemiah, we see that he was working in Persia serving the king – people adapted to exilic life. They got used to the new status quo, they adapted their lives around it. By the time they were allowed to go home it seemed like another displacement rather than a homecoming.
Is that what it is for us now? Has our routine of going to church and engaging in the life of the church been broken and now is replaced with new rhythms? Are we getting caught up in the church of memory rather than being the church of today? Come. Let us build up the church so that we can grow in our faith and be the church God created and calls us to be.
Let us be encouraged to build up the church. Church is founded on the Word of God, and it is important that we know the story of the Gospel. But Church is also community. Ezra and Nehemiah faced some obstacles with their building project – and churches face obstacles with building themselves up. There are financial obstacles, personnel obstacles, but more than that – there are obstacles that we face because the church has become so intermingled with the secular world. In a way, the church around the world is falling into a diaspora: a dispersion of Christians from the church.
We are reverting to the ways of the exile – relying on stories and traditions but not rooting ourselves in the foundation. We need to build up the church. When we are at church we read the Word of God, we pray to God, we are able to repent: to turn back toward the God who loves us. When we are at church we are able to teach our children and youth about the God who loves them – and help them discover their own faith and cultivate their own relationship with God. When we are at church we can grieve together and ensure that no one navigates the valley of the shadow of death alone. These are things that do not need to happen in exile. Like Nehemiah, let’s reestablish who we are as the church.
Back in my parent’s neighborhood there has been progress on the houses that burnt down. Both of the lots have since sold and one has a house already built. The other has plans submitted. Did it happen in the time frame the community wanted? No – but the living scars of the land have new life and can create a new story. That community, soon, will be made whole.
The church has plenty of scars – it is not divine and is made up of sinners like you and me. But if we come together, if we work to build up the church, if we remember who we are and why we are here, then new life will grow. Let us build up the church so that we can be the church.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Ephesians 2:11-22 Nehemiah 2:11-20
“Building Up and Sending Out: Part 1”
Melissa K. Smith
Here in Missouri the main natural disasters are tornadoes and severe storms – two things I was not used to when I moved from Los Angeles. In California, our main natural disasters are earthquakes and fires. There are two distinct times I remember being evacuated from our house because wildfires had made their way to the canyon next to our neighborhood – the first was when I was in middle school, and the second was five years ago.
In October of 2019, the Saddleridge fire came to town. My parents and I were watching the news to see if and when we needed to leave. We were packing our cars, grabbing our valuable belongings, making arrangements for the family dog, and trying to plan in the midst of scary chaos. Our next move was determined by the direction of the wind. Ultimately around 2 in the morning we were evacuated. The whole neighborhood was awake and leaving quickly. We said hello and goodbye to neighbors not knowing when we would see them next or what our neighborhood would look like when we came home.
After 12 hours of fighting the fire in the neighborhood, the wind changed her mind and blew the fire in another direction, permitting us to go home. My dad and I got home that evening to a smoky but safe house – and our whole street was safe. It was quiet, grey from the ash, but safe. That evening we took a walk around the neighborhood to see if everyone was safe. There were two houses that abutted to the canyon that burned to the ground. It was devastating. Thankfully no one was hurt, but to see a house burnt to the ground…I will never get that image out of my head.
Slowly we all got back to life as usual around the neighborhood…except those two houses. It took two weeks for the Saddleridge fire to be contained, but it took years for those houses to be cleaned up. For years, those empty lots served as a vivid reminder of what those families lost.
This morning, we heard a piece of Nehemiah’s story: the story of rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. The walls did not crumble because of a fire that swept through the neighborhood…and they took way more than a few years to rebuild. But the fallen walls served as a vivid reminder of what they lost – their culture, their nation, and their identity.
The Bible tells of a rich history of the Kingdom of Israel from its origin with King Saul, then King David, and then King Solomon. This truly was the “golden age” of Israel. But after King Solomon’s reign, the kingdom split: his son Jeroboam became king of the southern kingdom, Judah, and his son Rehoboam became king of the northern kingdom, Israel. After a series of bad kings in both kingdoms, the kingdoms fell. If you turn your bulletins over, you will see a timeline of an incredibly simplified version of Israel’s history. In 722BCE the Northern Kingdom, Israel, fell to Assyria, casting them into exile. Prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea tried to help Israel turn away from their sins and back to the God who loves them – but Israel did not heed their warnings. Ultimately their kingdom fell. Years later in 586BCE, the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon, casting them into exile. Prophets like Micah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah cried out to their neighbors and kings asking them to repent, but Judah did not repent.
Ultimately their kingdom fell. At this point, Israel was a conquered nation cast into a diaspora: they were dispersed from their homeland. But the world continued to be in a “conquer or be conquered” mindset and in 539 BCE it was Persia who conquered Babylon. Persia was different than the other empires. They invited the conquered peoples they inherited to go back to their homeland. This ended up being more complicated than hoped for. For Israel, their home and their temple were destroyed. The land had been trodden on by so many boots and weapons with the intention to conquer and destroy. Like the neighbors whose houses burned to the ground five years ago: the place they knew and loved was gone by the time they returned. The people who went back to Jerusalem worked hard to rebuild the temple, and their history is recorded of Ezra. But we are picking up at the story of Nehemiah – the man who helped rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in
445 BCE.
Nehemiah was not a prophet or a priest. He was a layman. His occupation was “cupbearer to the king” and he served Artaxerxes the first. He worked closely with the king. One day the king looked at Nehemiah and asked, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This can only be the sadness of the heart” (Nehemiah 2:2). Nehemiah shared that he longed to go back to the land of his ancestors so that he could help rebuild it. He has heard stories of the great kingdom – oral tradition was rich and the Jews tried to maintain their identity through stories and memory. The Persian Empire gave them the opportunity to establish their history from their songs and stories and root them back into the ground of their forefathers.
Nehemiah went to Jerusalem and scouted out the ruins of the city wall. Day and night he worked to inspect the wall. He kept his plans a secret at first because he feared interruption. Jerusalem was not preserved for the Jews – nor was it left vacant. There were peoples there who did not wish to see the people of Israel return, so Nehemiah was strategic in his plans so that they could be successful.
Nehemiah took building up the wall seriously: he helped create a sacred space for the people of God to be the people God created them to be. He tried to establish community, to establish camaraderie, to establish fellowship once again. He was, in a sense, creating church.
As we remember the history of Israel and as we hear the story of Nehemiah, do we see any similarities? This week alone I have heard the words, “well, before the pandemic…” or “Since the pandemic…”. The pandemic has served as an event that has become our exile. We are “post-pandemic” now – it’s been years since we have been fully back. But the memory is fresh, and the scars are evident. Is there motivation to rebuild the church? To come back and reclaim who we are called to be? But we cannot simply blame the pandemic, can we. In Nehemiah, we see that he was working in Persia serving the king – people adapted to exilic life. They got used to the new status quo, they adapted their lives around it. By the time they were allowed to go home it seemed like another displacement rather than a homecoming.
Is that what it is for us now? Has our routine of going to church and engaging in the life of the church been broken and now is replaced with new rhythms? Are we getting caught up in the church of memory rather than being the church of today? Come. Let us build up the church so that we can grow in our faith and be the church God created and calls us to be.
Let us be encouraged to build up the church. Church is founded on the Word of God, and it is important that we know the story of the Gospel. But Church is also community. Ezra and Nehemiah faced some obstacles with their building project – and churches face obstacles with building themselves up. There are financial obstacles, personnel obstacles, but more than that – there are obstacles that we face because the church has become so intermingled with the secular world. In a way, the church around the world is falling into a diaspora: a dispersion of Christians from the church.
We are reverting to the ways of the exile – relying on stories and traditions but not rooting ourselves in the foundation. We need to build up the church. When we are at church we read the Word of God, we pray to God, we are able to repent: to turn back toward the God who loves us. When we are at church we are able to teach our children and youth about the God who loves them – and help them discover their own faith and cultivate their own relationship with God. When we are at church we can grieve together and ensure that no one navigates the valley of the shadow of death alone. These are things that do not need to happen in exile. Like Nehemiah, let’s reestablish who we are as the church.
Back in my parent’s neighborhood there has been progress on the houses that burnt down. Both of the lots have since sold and one has a house already built. The other has plans submitted. Did it happen in the time frame the community wanted? No – but the living scars of the land have new life and can create a new story. That community, soon, will be made whole.
The church has plenty of scars – it is not divine and is made up of sinners like you and me. But if we come together, if we work to build up the church, if we remember who we are and why we are here, then new life will grow. Let us build up the church so that we can be the church.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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