preached today...

August 4, 2013: Nehemiah and the power of teamwork

Laura Gifford

(Nehemiah 3, Romans 12:1-8, Luke 10:1-11)

            Those of you who are most familiar with me may have observed that I’m a bit type-A.  As my mother puts it, I prefer my ducks in a row, swimming in unison.  This quality has always made teamwork a bit of a challenge.  I’m sure many of you can recall experiences when “working together” has in practice meant “doing it all yourself.”  It can be a struggle to rely upon others.  It can be a struggle sometimes to be relied upon.

               I will always remember the first time I felt part of a team that truly functioned—a working group in which I could rely upon others to do their bit, and when our combined efforts forged something far bigger than any of us could have managed on our own.  I was a high school senior, and my school was participating in a Model Presidential Nominating Convention held every four years, coincident with the real election cycle.  We were assigned a state—we had a big group that year, so Madison High School was “Texas”—and we carefully studied the nomination process and the dynamics of Republican Party politics in our state (to make things more interesting the model convention always covered the party out of power, and this was 1996).

            For much of the year, things followed the pattern I’d come to expect.  I was put in a group representing a district down in the southern part of Texas.  I researched and sent off letters trying to learn about our part of the state; not everyone in my group was so diligent, at least from my 16-year-old perspective (though it could well have been that I wasn't very good at delegating).

As the convention approached, however, I joined other classmates in trying to forge a movement for then-Senator Phil Gramm, our Texas “favorite son”—and something interesting happened.  Friends took on responsibilities and carried them out.  We researched positions and organized meetings.  We curried favor with other delegations and followed through on commitments.  We gave complimentary speeches before the gathered delegates at the Memorial Coliseum and organized floor rallies.  We secured Phil Gramm as the vice presidential nominee for 1996.  (Too bad for him we weren’t organizing his real campaign.)

It.  Was.  WONDERFUL.  Never before had I felt such exhilaration from working with other people.  None of us could have accomplished this task alone.  We needed each other; we relied upon each other; we were successful because we both trusted and made ourselves worthy of trust.

Today’s reading from Nehemiah introduces some very similar ideas—and the stakes are much higher for our man and his Jerusalemite friends.  As Andrea pointed out last week, Nehemiah has planned and prayed.  Now, we see the fruits of his organization and prayer coming to fruition. 

Nehemiah’s first priority is to see Jerusalem’s wall rebuilt.  As we’ve seen already, Nehemiah is not a man to fly by the seat of his pants.  He’s a careful organizer and his connection to God is real and deep.  His chosen plan is something that will have passed muster with the Lord.  And he chooses to recognize that everyone has a role to play.

Priests and perfume-makers, sons and daughters are assigned sections of the wall for repair.  In some cases folks are literally reconstructing the walls in their backyards; in others, people are called to rebuild gates.  The pieces in question may not always be the most glamorous portions of the fortifications—one can surmise that the “Dung Gate” was called the “Dung Gate” for a reason—but enemies could pour in through the “Dung Gate” just as easily as they could anywhere else.  Everyone was called to band together, everyone was trusted with the work to be done, and lo and behold, everyone did it!  That wall was rebuilt in 52 days.  Using people from all walks of life—and 5^th century B.C. building techniques.

Nehemiah trusted that the people he called upon would do their jobs.  That took courage.  It can be really hard to trust in the work of others.  Perhaps they don’t do things just like we would.  Their habits or their schedules might be different.  If there’d been photography in the 440s B.C. I’d imagine we’d see that each section of the wall looked a little different.  Jerusalem’s fortifications no doubt represented both the power of working together and the individual ingenuity of each family or group of people working on a given section.  It wouldn’t have been perfect—but it would have been so much stronger for the personal connection each citizen felt to that important ring of masonry.

For their part, the people of Jerusalem proved themselves worthy of trust.  They followed through on Nehemiah’s instructions.  They did what they were asked to do—using, no doubt, their own unique skills and talents as they did so.  It’s safe to assume that not every single member of each family personally laid brick on top of brick, but this work could not have been done without people to construct the bricks, care for those who were hurt in the building process, mind the children, fix the meals, maintain the homes and continue to grow the food (animal and vegetable) necessary for sustenance.  The successful rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall was a story of teams within teams, with everyone doing their part.

The result, of course, was a wall strong enough to repel Jerusalem’s enemies.  This wasn’t something any one family could have accomplished on its own.  Banding together, however, produced something greater than its individual parts.  From many pieces came one wall.  There’s an acronym for TEAM, for those mnemonically inclined, that proclaims Together Everyone Achieves More.  Another word for this is “synergy.”  While “synergy” is one of those boardroom bingo terms that you hear a lot in business, the underlying principle is as old as Nehemiah’s wall.  Together, the people of Jerusalem achieved synergy—achieved more. 

What can we learn, then, from Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem?  First, we can learn that we need to trust.  We need to place faith in those around us.  We need to avoid the damaging judgment that can get in the way of our appreciation for the gifts others bring to the table.  Nehemiah appreciated his people in all their diversity and he respected their gifts.  He was willing to let go in order to grant others the freedom to make things happen.

On the other hand, we also need to prove ourselves worthy of the trust we have been given.  Trust cannot flourish when we drop the ball.  As Paul makes clear, in Romans and elsewhere, we have been granted a wonderfully diverse array of gifts.  We are speakers and writers, builders and organizers, pray-ers and teachers, cleaners and fixers, cooks and healers, growers and comforters.  No one of us is all of these things, but if we use the gifts we have been given our team—our congregation—will benefit from the full range of talents we bring.  In the Gospel reading for today Jesus tells the disciples what to do when they encounter people unwilling to be used for God’s mission.  They are to shake the dust of those places from their feet. 

I don’t think we want to be those people.

Trust.

Be worthy of trust.

Will we be perfect in this mission?  Heck, no.  We’re human.           

God knows this—God sent Jesus for a reason.

All we can do is the best we can do.  And God calls us to do our best.  We cannot create a perfect Kingdom of God on earth, but we are specifically charged to do our part to care for the least of these and to love our neighbors.  We are charged, as Micah puts it, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.  We have been given gifts and we’ve been given a mission. 

This can seem like a tall order.  It is hard to trust and to be trusted.  The important thing to remember is that the power to do all this comes from the captain of our team: God.  Jesus tells us that when we ask, our needs will be met.  We do not face life’s challenges alone.  The unique gifts we each have been entrusted with—there’s that “trust” word again—come from God, and God empowers us to use them.  As we learn these lessons of trust we can rest in the comfort of knowing we trust, above all, in the One who will never, ever let us down.

How will we respond when charged with building our part of the wall?