sermonizing...

Our church is doing a summer series on the book of Nehemiah, and today I was tasked with providing the historical background and groundwork (the pastor's on vacation).  The text was from 2 Kings 24:8-25:17, 27-30...

A World in Need of Reformation

My freshman year in high school we were required to take a one-semester course called “Principles of Career Success.”  While I am sure Portland Public Schools’ intentions were good, the 14-year-olds stuck researching job options and filling out work permit applications took this process less than seriously, as you might imagine.  It was a working-class school—I went to Madison in NE Portland—and thus some of my peers were starting to find part-time jobs, but “careers” were still light years away for kids just discovering the wonders of “open campus” lunches at the fast food restaurants along 82^nd Avenue.  I found the course particularly unappealing insofar as I was 13 through March of my freshman year and thus not actually eligible to file for a work permit in the first place. 

            Nonetheless, in typical type-A fashion, I obediently researched careers ranging from television news anchor to marine biologist (again, I was 13).  One day I found myself in the hall outside the computer lab with several squirrelly classmates and my teacher, a member of the art department, of all things, who’d been enlisted to teach the course.  Suddenly, she turned to 13-year-old me and asked: “do stupid people bother you?”  I was far too shy—and surprised—at the time to formulate an intelligible response, but her comment has gone down in Ritchie family lore ever after.  Yes, as a matter of fact, stupid people do bother me…

            My journey back through the last days of the Kingdom of Judah in an attempt to give you the groundwork for the rest of our Nehemiah series brought this anecdote to mind.  It might be unkind to refer to some of Judah’s kings as “stupid,” but their actions were less than wise, and the results were indeed bothersome. 

            Most of us are familiar with the great kings of the united nation of Israel—Saul, David, and Solomon.  “Israel” as a unified nation of 12 tribes, though, didn’t last very long.  Solomon built a beautiful temple for the Lord, and he lived in pretty fine style, as well, but the resources to build all this did have to come from somewhere.  By the time of the wise king’s death around 930 BC, tribes from the more distant northern part of Israel, in particular, were growing tired of harsh labor requirements and taxes.  Even before King Solomon’s death, a dissident officer of his guard by the name of Jeroboam had attempted an insurrection.  His revolt was unsuccessful and he fled to Egypt, but after Solomon died he returned to northern Israel. 

Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, was tasked with addressing the unrest among northern tribal leaders.  Rehoboam’s advisers urged a respectful response.  Kindness and acknowledgement of the tribes’ burdens could go a long way.  Rehoboam, however, wanted to assert his power and his influence.  Rather than respect, he treated northern leaders with hostility.  (Do stupid people bother you?)  Northern leaders abandoned negotiations, stoned an agent sent by Rehoboam to continue the conversation, forced Rehoboam to flee for Jerusalem and successfully broke away from what would become the Jerusalem-based Kingdom of Judah, forming a separate Kingdom of Israel with Jeroboam as its first king.

Neither of these kingdoms was known for the unfailing faith and devotion of its leaders.  In fact, the Kingdom of Israel would fall apart before Judah, collapsing in 722 BC.  The story we follow now, however, is that of Judah, which managed to maintain its existence for about 135 more years.  In the period between the fall of Israel and the fall of Judah, Judah’s leadership swung back and forth between good kings and bad.  Hezekiah, for example, was a good king.  He reigned from 727 to 697 BC, and was noted for doing “what was right in the sight of the Lord just as his ancestor David had done.”  He destroyed sites of idol worship, and while the king of Assyria captured the Israelites of the north—now called Samaria—Hezekiah and the Kingdom of Judah were saved.  Hezekiah was a good guy.  One wonders, however, about his farsightedness (or lack thereof).  Following a visit by Babylonian diplomats the prophet Isaiah warned Hezekiah that one day all Judah and its treasure would belong to Babylon.  Bafflingly, Hezekiah seemed unconcerned.  2 Kings 20:19 records him as thinking, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” 

Maybe Hezekiah simply trusted in the Lord’s greater plan for Judah—if God willed this to happen, so it must be.  Perhaps he was just a really bad long-range planner.  In any event, something went seriously wrong with the next generation.  Hezekiah’s son Manasseh took the throne in 697.  He reigned for 55 years, and he was, to put it bluntly, a real jerk.  As the author of 2 Kings puts it in chapter 21, verse 9, “Manasseh misled [the people] to do more evil than the nations had done that the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.”  The Lord pronounced Judah’s future doom through the prophets over the course of Manasseh’s 55-year reign, but such proclamations didn’t seem to impact the policies of either him or his son; Amon, who succeeded Manasseh, ruled only 2 years before he was killed by his own servants, but he was just as nasty as his dad had been.

When Amon died, the heir to Judah’s throne was all of 8 years old—but this young boy, King Josiah, would be a much better leader than either his father or grandfather had been.  About a decade into Josiah’s reign, Judah undertook a renovation of Solomon’s Temple.  The high priest unearthed the book of the Law.  Imagine if the folks doing demolition work on the church house yesterday had miraculously uncovered a hidden handbook meant to govern our lives together—and we learned we had been doing everything wrong!  This was what Josiah faced, and his reaction to such stunning, and troubling, news cements his reign as one of the most noble among the kings of Judah.  Tearing his clothes in distress, he told his priests to consult the prophetess Huldah (yes, prophetess, as in a woman—never let anyone tell you, ladies, that women haven’t been gifted by God to do all sorts of things).  Huldah confirmed that yes, as Manasseh and Hezekiah had been told, the Lord would bring disaster upon Judah—but because Josiah was truly repentant, this would not happen during his lifetime.  Josiah proclaimed God’s law to the people and made a public covenant before God to keep God’s commands.  He destroyed all of his grandpa’s idols. 

It would have been well for the people of Judah had Josiah stayed around a long time.  Unfortunately, despite starting his reign so young, Josiah fell prey to international intrigue at the age of 39, killed by the Egyptian pharaoh during what was meant to be a diplomatic meeting.  Josiah’s sons would not be like their father, and this is when things really got bad for the Kingdom of Judah.

First came Jehoahaz.  He reigned only 3 months before the pharaoh imprisoned him and replaced him with another of Josiah’s sons.  Demonstrating his power over Judah, the pharaoh even changed this son’s name; Eliakim became Jehoiakim.  Jehoiakim, of course, was deeply obligated to the pharaoh.  Even more problematic, he was not a chip off the old block.  He rebuilt Manasseh’s idols, he found himself serving Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in addition to the pharaoh, and when he tried to rebel against Babylon he was killed.  The next king, Jehoiachin, was no better, and he was in really deep trouble, because Judah’s onetime protector—Egypt—had lost all of its eastern territories to the growing empire of Babylon.  Having abandoned God’s help, Jehoiachin truly had no one to turn to, and in 597 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon sacked Judah’s treasure and hauled Jehoiachin off to Babylon as his prisoner.

Initially, Nebuchadnezzar replaced Jehoiachin with his uncle, Mattaniah.  Like the Egyptian pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, too, demonstrated his power by changing Mattaniah’s name, to Zedekiah.  Zedekiah’s religious habits resembled those of his nephew, and he was utterly dependent upon Babylon, but—do stupid people bother you?—a few years into his reign he decided to rebel.  In return, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem.  In 586 Babylonian troops breached the walls of Jerusalem and utterly destroyed both walls and temple.  Zedekiah’s sons were killed before his eyes… and then his eyes were gouged out.  Most of Jerusalem was carried into exile, though the poorest of the poor were left to work the land.  The Kingdom of Judah was at its end.

Or was it?

Was this truly the end of the story?

Never again would we see a truly independent Judah.

But.

God had not given up on God’s people.

In the 37^th year of Jehoiachin’s exile in Babylon, a new king, the intriguingly named Evil-merodach, came to the throne.  Evil-merodach released Jehoiachin from prison.  He spoke kindly to him.  He gave him a seat above the seats of the other kings living with him in Babylon.  Jehoiachin dined regularly in the king’s presence and received a regular allowance the rest of his days. 

Jehoiachin had been a bad king.  The people of Judah had failed to keep the examples of Hezekiah and Josiah and follow God’s word.  But God had not given up on them.  The respect Evil-merodach mysteriously showed Jehoiachin would provide a place for the Jews, despite the fact that they remained under the control of first Babylon and then Persia.  Life under Babylonian and then Persian rule would be full of adventures, and sometimes near disasters.  These were the years that saw events like those that brought Queen Esther to the Persian throne—and allowed her to save the lives of her people from the murderous Haman.  (See the book of Esther if you’d like to know more!)  The Jews were allowed to exist and sometimes even flourish, despite recurrent dangers and the trials of existing as a conquered minority.

One hundred forty-one years later Nehemiah will enter our story as cupbearer to the king.  This was a position of tremendous power in the ancient world.  After all, as we have amply witnessed in this romp through Judean history, the world was not a peaceful place.  If you were a king, someone—probably many someones—would really prefer you dead.  Today’s political world may seem fractured and contentious, but honestly, it’s not as if John Boehner is going to slip a little something into Nancy Pelosi’s coffee. To carry the king’s cup was to be granted the very highest level of trust—and Nehemiah had earned this trust, even as a Jew. 

The story we will study this summer does not represent the total release of the Jews from outside control.  Nehemiah will achieve remarkable things.  He will convince King Artaxerxes of Persia to let him return with fellow Jews to Judah.  He will organize the reconstruction of Jerusalem’s wall.  He will reform how Jews live and work and interact with their world, bringing them back to God’s Law.  He will undertake re-reformation when he finds them backsliding a few years after his initial efforts. 

This is not a one-step process, and Nehemiah does not bring about utopia.  There are two reasons for this.  One, the Jews are not truly independent.  Being given permission by Persia to rebuild the city is different from being granted full power and control.  Second, and much more to the point, actual people are involved.

People make mistakes.  People sin.  People become mired in all sorts of bad stuff, from greed to pride to envy to laziness... and so on.  Nothing on this earth will ever be perfect, because none of us is perfect.

What the story of God’s people does demonstrate, however, is that God does work in this world when we respond to God’s call.  The people of Jerusalem under Nehemiah’s leadership do experience renewal, reformation and revival.  They do rebuild the city wall.  They do restore Jewish religious practices.  They do unite to accomplish great things.  And even when they make mistakes, they reform; they respond to God’s call once again.

If Nehemiah had waited for “perfect” conditions he’d still be waiting.  2,458 years is a long time to wait.

It’s easier to make excuses than to do, to become hung up blaming others than to focus on what we can do ourselves.  It’s easier to delay until conditions are just right, or x or y happens, or someone leaves, someone comes, something changes or other things stabilize… but you know?  Utopia—paradise—is what we experience after we spend our lives doing our part to share God’s love here on Earth.

Thanks be to God for the opportunity to learn through history.  I look forward to seeing where our Nehemiah journey takes us!  Amen.