Nehemiah - a family service lesson

Today we are at the end of the Week of prayer for Christian Unity, and as we think about our need to celebrate and proclaim together the God of salvation and hope who came to us in Jesus, I think we’re challenged to reflect on what is really important in our faith. What is keeping us together and what is driving us apart. 

For those of you who follow such things there has been coverage on the news of the recent Primates meeting in Canterbury where the leaders of the Anglican church gathered together to discuss important issues and at the end they didn’t really totally agree, but they met and they talked and only one walked away.

And I think there’s a really good lesson in that because we won’t always agree on matters of our faith – but we remain united as part of the family of Jesus seeking to enjoy and share his love with all. Billy Graham once said ‘It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love.’   What a wonderful principle to live by… 

And this morning’s readings are helpful as we think about what unity might mean. The reading from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians (12:12-26) reminds us that we’re baptised into one body – members of the church of Uganda and members of the Episcopal church in the United States and members of this church… And in the church we are united by our love for Jesus. And in the church God gives us all kinds of gifts, different gifts to different people to make up a church that can truly do the things that Jesus talks about in our gospel reading (Luke 4:14-21), the things that Jesus himself came to show us :

Bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour

What unites us as Christians is more important than what divides us – it is the recognition that God sent his Son to offer us all new and transformed lives. It is the recognition of God’s grace and mercy and love and our desire to share those things with others… It is to do the work that Jesus talked about as he recited those words from the Prophet Isaiah.

And in the reading from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians that we heard we’re reminded that God equips us to do that work if we are willing to let him. 

And so to the character that I really want to think about this morning, or at least some of the work he did and that character is Nehemiah from whom we heard our Old Testament reading (8:1-3,5,6). This is a book that needs much longer spent on it than I’m going to offer this morning, but very briefly the story is that Nehemiah was exiled and living in Persia where he’s working for the king. 

However he has a great heart for Jerusalem and hears that the Temple there is being rebuilt, however he’s concerned that there were no walls to protect it, and so he asks the king if he can go, and he heads to Jerusalem, and he faces lots of problems but with God’s help he gets over them and gets that wall built in just 52 days.

Now I need some children to come out and join hands in a circle… 

And I want you all to imagine that there’s something very special (and I’m going to put my phone in there because that’s very special to me !!) in the middle of your circle, but also that you are not people, but are a really strong wall that nobody can get through… 

Now I want to get my phone… But what’s the problem ? 

The wall is stopping me from getting at it… 

So when I was building this wall what should I have also included ?  

Some gates – Nehemiah built gates into the wall around Jerusalem – 

How many gates do you think ???  He built 12 gates  

Now slightly off the point let’s think for a moment about the number 12 because 12 was quite an important number in the bible. Can anyone think of where we might hear the number 12 ? 

Jacob had 12 sons who went on to form the 12 tribes of Israel. 

When we hear of Jesus as a child, guess how old he is ? 12 ! 

When he chooses his disciples do you know how many there were ? 12 ! 

In fact the number 12 is mentioned 187 times in the Bible ! 

And on many occasions it was a number that signified that something more could happen – the 12 tribes of Israel would grow and grow… Jesus would grow from the 12 year old we know about into a man who would change the whole of history… The 12 disciples were appointed to go and tell others about Jesus… 

And so we go back to the gates – we’ll just pretend and have one gate today ! 

Now I get inside and see and touch and pick up something important… 

Thanks to the children who helped…. 

So we’ve thought about walls and gates and about unity and it seems to me that we’re often very good at building up walls to keep others out, or to protect ourselves, but this can be incredibly dangerous for unity… 

In protecting ourselves with walls we’re not listening to the needs outside, we’re not making ourselves available to go outside and help solve the problems around us and we’re not letting others in… others from whom we might learn new things and new ways and from whom we may even hear God speaking to us…  

And so back to Nehemiah, a man who saw that things in Jerusalem weren’t very good but who knew that with prayer and perseverance and vision and God things could be better. When we look around at other churches and people, let’s remember what we can do with God’s help together… 

May we learn from Nehemiah to leave gates in our heart for us to go out and to let others in, may we listen to the words of Paul who recognised the gifts that God gives to different people and to us and may we always be ready to be people doing what Jesus wants us to do.