Text: Nehemiah 1:1-6b
The Book of Nehemiah is set during the reign of the Persian Empire and after the Babylonian exile. The people of Judah were in exile for 70 years as of their officials and leaders were been taken from the land. There had been a time when Israel was united and powerful and growing. But there had also been a time of conflict as their kingdom divided in two. The northern kingdom, Israel, fell in 740 to the Assyrians… the tribes scattered to the winds.
The oldest among the exiles remember what it was like before the Babylonians took over Judah. They remember what it was like before Jerusalem fell. They remember but they often wonder… Will things ever go back to the way they were? Will we ever go home? Will we ever return to our former glory? Is this our new normal?
That is a question that I’ve heard sometimes in the walls of this church. The pandemic has been a difficult time… of change, of loss, of frustration and conflict. In some ways, it has felt like an exile and there were moments we wondered if it would ever end. We find ourselves in a place kind of like the people of Judah did… maybe at the end of something, but unsure of what is coming next. And when we think about getting back to what was… well, some parts of this world seem to have shifted back to how we remember… stadiums for sporting events are full, for example.
But other things have changed and might never be the same. We might never truly “go back.” We shop more online, our workplaces have changed, we spend a more time in our own households instead of out socializing. Some of those changes we celebrate as we think about how it has created accessibility and better balance in our lives. But we should also think about how these shifts have impacted us in negative ways. What are the ways that our world has broken down? What are the things that need to be repaired and restored?
When the Persian Empire, led by Cyrus, defeats Babylon, there is a shift in the policy of the oppressors. Those leaders who had been taken by force from Judah are allowed to return home. The Persians are still in charge, but there is a greater degree of freedom and governance. There is a group of folks led by Zerubbabel who head back to rebuild the temple. Then another wave of folks return with Ezra and introduce some religious reforms.
The book of Nehemiah starts around 445 BC… nearly 100 years after those groups first start to go back. So realistically, this is about 150 years after Jerusalem fell. Nehemiah is serving as the cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes… which means, he has the King’s ear. And he gets word from his brother, who has just returned from Judah about how things are going there.
The news isn’t great. Those who survived exile and those who returned were struggling. Jerusalem was still in shambles. For nearly 100 years, people have been able to start rebuilding, but progress just wasn’t being made. The community was falling apart and when Nehemiah heard this, he wept.
Which led me to think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Developed in the 1940s by Abraham Maslow, this pyramid describes different needs that drive our behavior in the world. At the very bottom level, we all have bodily, or physiological needs for things like shelter, food, and clothing. Basic needs, we call them. The next level up are our needs related to safety. We all need stability, structure, freedom from fear… which can come from laws or work or property.
And the truth is, unless these fundamental needs are cared for in a person’s life – they simply cannot think about worrying about any of the needs farther up the list. In the same way, when you no longer can care for needs higher up the pyramid, it begins to impact the needs below it. A person who is starving is not focused on their reputation. A person who has no employment or safety begins to struggle to provide for food or shelter. Someone living in fear cannot work towards self-fulfillment. Someone who lacks a place to sleep is not spending their day working to build friendships. For 150 years, the people of Judah were simply trying to survive.
Over these last couple of years, so much of our lives have been refocused on some of the fundamental needs in our lives. We cut back only to what was essential. We focused on our health and embraced masking to keep ourselves and others safe. We adapted practices to make sure we could purchase basic needs online. Schools and businesses put up plexiglass and changed their air filtration systems. Everything in our lives has been focused on those bottom two levels of the pyramid.
Friends, we, too, have been in survival mode. And we needed to be in survival mode. We did what we could to keep our heads above the water and that was all we had the energy and capacity to do. And that is okay. The ways we adapted to better care for ourselves was a good and holy thing.
So, what does all of this have to do with community? Well, you can move both ways up and down this pyramid. We are discovering that a lack of social connections can also have a great impact on our health. You see, we also have a need to belong. Dr. Richard Slatcher at the University of Georgia writes, “we humans are engineered by evolution to crave contact with other humans.” Studies have shown significant connections between loneliness and mortality and morbidity. And yet, these needs related to love and belonging are higher up the pyramid. Connection. Friendship. Respect. Growing in Faith. We aren’t able to really focus on them unless we can first care for our physiological and safety needs.
Nehemiah turns to prayer and fasting and hears a call to respond. He confesses all of the ways that he and his people have turned their backs on God and asks God to listen to his prayers. He believes in the promises God made… that God will gather up the scattered people and put them back together.
And the thing he believes will be the start of this action is to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. That is the nudge in his heart. That is his calling. And I think part of why this is so important is that because it is only when the people can live in safety… only when they are protected… that they can start to think about other needs – like their need for connection and community.
Yes, he embarks on a building project… but the goal is ultimately to rebuild the people of Israel. It is about the restoration of God’s people. It is about a return to the faith. It is about remembering who they were and getting back to what it means to care for one another.
Friends, we don’t have a physical building project before us today… but I do think that we have some rebuilding to do as a community. The world we find ourselves in is increasingly disconnected from one another. Students are less engaged in our schools. Our social circles have become smaller. “The Great Resignation” isn’t just about the workplace… we are seeing less people showing up to volunteer and give of their time to one another and their communities. We are more isolated than ever.
And as I have been praying about where to start and what to do, one of the things I keep hearing is that we need to start right where we are. We need to strengthen our relationships with each other. We need to work to better care for one another. We need to take the time to pray together, to talk with one another, to listen and to share… And so, we challenge you to step up, join us as we study Nehemiah, and help us rebuild our community.
But friends, there is one more essential component. When I first turned to the Book of Nehemiah, I was sure that I had found a perfect resource for this task. After all, the whole focus is about how Nehemiah brings all these people together to accomplish a great project, refocuses their faith, and everyone rejoices! But as I kept reading more of the details of this story, the more complicated it got.
The Book of Nehemiah starts with a man in tears… but it also ends with Nehemiah in tears. In the end, they build the wall, but he isn’t really successful at transforming the people. And that’s because Nehemiah is missing something that we aren’t… The love and grace of Jesus Christ that transforms our heart and the power of the Holy Spirit that truly can change this world.
As we will sing at the end of our service today:
Come set Your rule and reign in our hearts again
Increase in us, we pray, and unveil why we’re made.
Come set our hearts ablaze with hope, like wildfire in our very souls.
Holy Spirit, come invade us now.
We are your church. We need your power in us.
May it be so. Amen.
