This week we are looking at Nehemiah 3:1-2. At this juncture, Nehemiah begins the work to which God has called him.

As some of you may know, for four long summers beginning in 1968 or 1969, I laid track for the Frisco Railroad. Our day began about 7:00 a.m. when we met in small shack about 200 yards east of the main building housing the management and civil engineers of the Frisco. (The year before Mom died, Tim and I went down to see if we could find that shack. It had been torn down. I was very disappointed to lose this memory of my youth.) I was never early for work, so that by the time I got to work there was coffee ready to drink. Eight or so of us would sit around until about 7:30. Eventually, the phone would ring and the boss at the main building would tell us where we were going for the day. Most of the time we were replacing a crossing, correcting some problem with a line of tract, or working around the yard on a switch. By eight o’clock, had packed our tools onto the truck and were on our way. The easy part of the day was over.

When we arrived at the work site, we would yank out existing railroad ties, take out the existing tie plates and rails, dig a new foundation, put in gravel or other materials, replace the ties and rails, and perhaps cover what we had done with new blacktop. Every piece of rail we lifted weighed over 600 pounds. That means that four people would be lifting about 125 pounds each. Nearly every tie weighed between 200 and 300 pounds, often requiring two people to free from the soil. I weighed about 118 pounds at the time. It was really miserable work. Every day.

We would take a half an hour or so for lunch and work again until the job was done. I often felt fortunate because frequently we could not get the job done in eight hours, and so I often got an hour or so of overtime. That came in helpful when I returned to college. What I most remember about those days is how tired and sore I was, every single day. It was misery, three months of misery—and I now regard it as some of the best and happiest days of my life! I also remember with pride some of the work we did.

The Work Begins.

            Nehemiah began his work with an extended time of mourning, praying, fasting, thinking, and planning how to rebuild the Jerusalem wall. This was important. It’s good to remember, however, that at some point there’s work to be done, and work is hard. This morning we’re thinking about beginning of the building the walls of Jerusalem.

Our text is from Nehemiah 3.

Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work and rebuilt the Sheep Gate. They dedicated it and set its doors in place, building as far as the Tower of the Hundred, which they dedicated, and as far as the Tower of Hananel. The men of Jericho built the adjoining section, and Zakkur son of Imri built next to them. The Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah. They laid its beams and put its doors and bolts and bars in place. Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, repaired the next section. Next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs, and next to him Zadok son of Baana also made repairs. The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors (Nehemiah 3:1-5).

 Eternal God who we are told created the world in seven days of hard work before resting, we come to you today asking that you would allow us to consecrate ourselves to the hard, long work of rebuilding our nation and our culture. In Jesus name, Amen.

How the Work was Done.

Nehemiah 3 describes the beginning of the work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and how the work was accomplished. If we were to read the entire chapter, we would see that the pattern set by the first five verses is repeated over and over again. Basically, people in the same profession, families, people from surrounding communities, and residents near certain portions of the wall, took responsibility for rebuilding a particular portion of the wall.

Nehemiah was a shrewd organizer. He also was good judge character and of how people best work together. He knew that people who already knew, respected, and had worked together in the past would find it easier to undertake an unfamiliar task, like rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. Therefore, he relied upon pre-existing relationships in building work teams. In other words, the priests already knew one another and had worked together in the past. The men of Jericho and Takoa knew one another and had already worked together. Basically, Nehemiah built on existing relationships in organizing the work.

It’s as if we wanted to do something that would involve the citizens of Tennessee and North Mississippi to rebuild a part of Memphis. Instead of recruiting people from all over and putting them into new work teams that would have to get used to one another over time, we might let all the citizens of Memphis who wanted to work together, work together. The citizens of Brownsville or Horn Lake who wanted to work together, would work together. The airline pilots for Federal Express who wanted to work together, would work together. The teachers from the Shelby County school system might work together. Work done by people who are  already familiar with one another and know how to work together goes faster and better. This was wise.

Second, I bet Nehemiah took advantage of the natural rivalries that might exist between various groups. I’m from Texas, and if you wanted to build a wall around Houston, one really good idea would be to give half the wall to the graduates of the University of Texas at Austin and half to graduates of Texas A&M. It would not be long before the A&M graduates would be trying to prove to everyone that were the best engineers and the best builders. In response, the University of Texas graduates would be trying to prove that they were the best engineers and builders.

I imagine that the citizens of Jericho, Takoa and other communities had a little friendly rivalry going, each one trying to prove they were the best. You can bet that the priests were trying to prove that they were not a bunch of softies. You get the idea—the way Nehemiah organized the task took advantage of human nature and made sure that the work went along as fast and as organized as possible.

Finally, many people were working on sections of the wall close to their homes. If you took me to Chickasaw Gardens (a Memphis subdivision) and asked me to build a wall around Chickasaw Gardens to help keep people safe, being a good person I would probably do the job. On the other hand, if you asked me to help build a wall around Riverwood Farms, where I live, I would certainly work even harder! By placing people near their homes, Nehemiah assured himself that the work would go faster, and the wall would be better built!

This has a practical value to each of us. Each of us should probably work to rebuild our culture in ways we are familiar with. For example, it would not make much sense for me to work in the area of renewing the musical culture of America. David Shotsberger (our music director) would be a far better choice. David chould better recruit the choir, the praise band, and local musicians to help because he knows them. Each of us has a talent or ability of some kind. The challenge is to use our talent and ability and our friends and colleagues to make our nation and world a better place.

The People Who Did It.

This brings me to the subject of people. I’m sure you that noticed there were a lot of unpronounceable names in the passage for today. If we were to read the entire chapter, we would find many, many unpronounceable names. We don’t like to read these names out loud because they’re hard to pronounce, but they are important. Sometimes, we make statements like, “the Jewish people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.” This masks the fact that it wasn’t an anonymous group of people who rebuild the wall; it was a group of very specific people who rebuilt the wall—and they need to honored and remembered.

Last Sunday night, Kathy and I watched the national Memorial Day concert that is held each year near the capital in Washington DC. This year, on several occasions, the performers honored our Vietnam veterans. Naturally, the cameras would pan off to show the audience the Vietnam War Memorial whenever the Vietnam War was mentioned. For those who have not been there, the memorial consists of black slabs of granite upon which 58,195 names have been inscribed. The Vietnam War was not fought by nameless entities which we call the “United States Armed Forces.” It was fought by real human beings, 58,195 of whom gave their lives for our country. They need to be remembered and honored.

This reminds us that, if we want to renew our country, we can’t rely upon other people to do our work for us. Individual Americans, just like you and me, have to make a decision to make things better. I kind of like visiting war memorials. My father is buried in the Veterans Cemetery in Springfield, Missouri. It’s moving to walk down row after row reading names and ranks, the service they were in, and a little information about them. Of course, I never go without seeing Dad and his best friend, Robert Schmidt. I see other names I recognize from my youth. I don’t want to forget Dad, Bob, and the others in that cemetery. Their names and what they did are important.

I read a lot of military history. As fun as it is to read about admirals and generals, the work of war is done by many nameless men and women whose names are known primarily by those who loved them. The work of renewing our culture will produce some famous names; however, the work will be done by many people, most of them people like you and me. We may not be famous or remembered–but our families will know what we did and hopefully follow our example. The best place for each one of us to help to rebuild our society is by using the interests, abilities, talents, gifts, and relationships we already have and can further develop. Every little bit of work, every stone in the wall, matters.

The Building We Need to Build.

Last week, I spoke about capital campaigns. Churches need somewhere to meet. Therefore, there will always be a need for church buildings. However, some pastors spend too much time building buildings. Sometimes, I think it’s true of me. When I think I may not be doing the right things, I am reminded of the passage from the apostle Paul. We read a part of it earlier. In First Corinthians 3, Paul says this:

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames (I Cor. 3:10-15).

Paul’s words remind us that we are all building a Christian life. Our work is not done when the foundation is laid. Becoming a Christian is not the end of the Christian life; it’s the beginning. All of us are building on the foundation of our faith every single day. It matters what we do with our time and talents.

Paul indicates that the quality of our workmanship and the quality of the materials we put to work matter. On the Judgment Day it will matter whether our life is made of gold or straw. It’s not a matter of salvation. Paul indicates that believers will be saved. However, when we come before the throne of Jesus, we may not be happy with what we’ve done with our lives. When we get to heaven, we may wish we had been a little less selfish.

Renewing our culture is really a matter of getting out of our selfishness and self-centered desires, and putting our talents to work for Christ. It means getting out of our imaginations, our foolish pride, our mistaken ideas, and taking a good look at who we really are and what we are doing with the talents God has given us. Then, we need to put those talents to work as best we can.

I don’t want to over complicate what it means to renew America. Every time a parent shares their faith and sings a bedtime song with a child, they are renewing a culture in which many parents never put their children to bed or read them a song. Every time we treat a coworker with wisdom and love, we are making America a better place. Every time we reach out to share our faith with others, we are making America a better place. Of course, there are big jobs to be done; but, first we just need to repair the wall next to our house.

We may  not think that these small efforts at personal renewal, family renewal, neighborhood renewal, and the like, matter much. But, they do. Consider Jesus. No one has made a bigger difference in the renewal of the world than Jesus. What did he do? He did not lead an army, run for office, manage a big business, write a lot of books, or anything big at all. He loved people, healed those he could, trained twelve disciples, and died on the cross. In the end, however, he changed the world forever. We can do the same if we are willing to be like Jesus.

Copyright 2016, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved