FIND YOUR STRENGTH IN ONE PLACE
Nehemiah 8:1-10
Pastor Jeremy Mattek – January 27, 2013
This past Tuesday, Dean Parrish, who lives in Oregon, was preheating his oven to heat up his enchilada for lunch. He was also watching his grandmother’s dog while she was out of town. The dog’s name was Kudo, a Chihuahua-miniature pincher mix. Dean was about to put his lunch in the oven when he stopped to check on the dog. When he reached his hand into the kennel, the dog bit him. So Dean, who says he has “anger issues,” punched the dog in the head several times and tried to strangle it. And then, remembering that the oven was hot, he decided to put Kudo in the oven and close the oven door. And that’s where Kudo stayed for a number of minutes until Dean’s brother walked in, realized what his brother was doing, grabbed Kudo from the oven, and took him to the veterinarian. The oven didn’t kill him, but it did severely burned three of his legs, and he’s going to have trouble walking for a long time.
Kelly Clarkson came out with a song a couple years back called “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The song made her much stronger financially. A lot of people like the song because they like to believe their worst moments are only strengthening them. But if everything that didn’t kill us made us stronger, then quite frankly, we’d all feel pretty strong right now; or, at the very least, we’d always feel like our lives are moving in the right direction. But that’s not true for everyone. That’s certainly not true for a dog thrown into the heat of an oven. But it’s also not true for someone trapped in the heat and pain of an abusive relationship. You don’t feel strong when you’re exhausted from a schedule that’s too demanding. You don’t feel a relationship is strong when you can’t agree on anything, and a fight comes from every conversation. You don’t feel strong when someone walks out on you, when your health is deteriorating, when your parents still treat you like a little child, or someone says you’re good for nothing.
Someone told me this week about a man who’s been married nineteen years. He said his marriage of nineteen years has made him happy for three months. His marriage doesn’t make him feel strong. According to him, it makes him feel dumb. Now, you might feel any number of things from any of those situations. You might feel nothing. You might feel numb. You might feel drained. You might feel discouraged. You might feel rejected. But you don’tautomatically feel strong. You know what that would look like. And you know you’re not always looking at it.
In the Old Testament, Nehemiah was looking at something that obviously was not strong. He was looking at Jerusalem’s walls, or really, he was looking at the rubble that was left over from their destruction. 140 years earlier, the Babylonians came into Jerusalem and destroyed everything – their homes, their lives, their families, children, and the large walls that had protected them. And in the 140 years since then, nobody successfully rebuilt them; and the mess that remained was a sad reminder of something very important - that strengthcan be lost. But the book of Nehemiah shows us it can be found again.
Nehemiah believed that what died 140 years earlier could come back to life again, and he wasn’t just talking about the walls of Jerusalem. He was talking about the people’s hope and confidence that died along with it. Nehemiah led the rebuilding of those walls, and they finished in just 52 days. Our sermon this morning takes place right after the walls were finished. But as you know, it’s pointless to have a strong security system if there’s nothing on the inside that’s worth protecting. And inside of you is something important. It’s your hope, your confidence, and your strength. And for those times when you feel you’ve lost them, today Nehemiah & Ezra take us to the one place you can always find them again.
(1) All the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel. (2) So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. (3) He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law. (5) Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. (6) Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. (8) They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. (9) Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. (10) Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
This section reminded me of something our Congress recently started doing. Back in 2011, members of Congress thought it would be a good idea to read through the entire Constitution at the beginning of the Federal calendar year as a reminder of our country’s basic principles and as a way to have everyone, whatever political party they represent, start the year by all agreeing on something. They did this for the second time just a couple weeks ago. They read through the entire Constitution and every Amendment to it. It took 66 minutes.
God’s people in Jerusalem kind of did the same thing. It was a new beginning, a time to start fresh, a time to forget a lot of historic pain, and they wanted to celebrate it the right way. So they asked Ezra to bring out their founding document – all the available books of the Old Testament. And he read through the whole thing. It didn’t take 66 minutes, though. It took 5-6 hours. But they didn’t seem to care. In fact, they did a lot of things that showed they cared very much about every word he was reading.
Verse 5 says that when Ezra opened the book, they all stood up out of respect. And the only times they stopped standing were when they got down on their knees and bowed down to the ground. They also responded to what Ezra said with shouts of “Amen! Amen!” The word “Amen” means “truth,” which means they were saying that they believed that what Ezra was reading was absolutely true.
You may have noticed that some of these things are still done in churches. There are times we ask everyone to stand - for the Creed, or the reading of a sermon text or Scripture lesson. We get down on our knees on communion Sundays when we confess our sins. We say “Amen” at the end of every Scripture lesson and sermon, and many of you respond by saying “Amen” right back at the person. But there’s one other thing the Israelites did that day as Ezra was reading. They wept.
You might remember a couple years ago something a West Virginia doctor noticed about the standardized test scores reported by every state. He noticed that all 50 states claimed their student test scores were above the national average – which, of course, is impossible – for everyone to be above average. But that’s still what every state reported. General Electric did an employee survey a number of years ago asking their employees to rate themselves. The average employee placed themselves in the 77th percentile. In other words, the average person viewed themselves as more productive than 76% of the other employees. Only 2% rated themselves below average. That reminds me of a place called Lake Wobegone. The author Garrison Keillor invented a mythical town called Lake Wobegone where “All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” In our minds it’s where we all like to live. But when the Israelites heard the Word that morning, they realized they were far from it.
For 5-6 hours, they were reminded of a lot of things. They were reminded that just one sin, one little piece of forbidden fruit, destroyed the lives of Eve and Adam. They were reminded that God is no respecter of persons when it comes to sin. The waters of the flood filled the lungs of even the smallest children whose parents did not teach them everything God had commanded. They were reminded that God expects every person to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength;” that we’re supposed to find our greatest joy in him. And they were reminded that they hadn’t. Even though they had just finished building a strong wall around God’s city in only 52 days, they couldn’t help but think of the 140 years during which they did absolutely nothing.
What better defines the real you – what you’ve done for 140 years, or what you did for 52 days; what you do six days out of the week, or for one hour on Sunday morning? Some would say it’s what you do most recently that matters. But that’s not true. The things we say matter to us in a moment of enlightenment or rededication often pretty quickly become old hat. This was the second time Congress read the Constitution from beginning to end. In 2011, 137 Congressmen and women participated. Two years later, only 74 did. The guy who has happily married for 3 months out of 19 years - guess when those three months were. They were at the beginning; right after he made a new promise - to love his wife more than anything.
There is a time when almost every person here promised to love God and his Word more than anything. It’s called your Confirmation. And if you had to rate where you stand in relation to how well you keep that promise, where would you fall? What percentage would you give yourself – not compared to other Christians, but compared to what God is expecting? Or, to ask it another way: Where do you find your greatest joy these days?
What do you say when someone asks, “How are you doing?” Many people answer every time by saying, “Fine,” even when they’re not; which means many people find their joy in hiding; in building up walls around them so that no one gets too close to finding out where they really struggle, where they really feel weak, or the true weight of their burdens. Others find joy only when things are going well for them, when life is comfortable or enough people are listening to them. Others look for joy by taking on as many projects as possible so they can show they’re strong enough to handle anything. And still others know they’re trying to find joy in all the places they shouldn’t – habits, addictions, and sins. But if they never look in the mirror, if they successfully avoid those parts of the bible that list all the different people who will never inherit God’s kingdom, then they won’t have to think about it so often. They’ll never have to feel like weeping. But sometimes you can’t avoid it.
Two men named Dennis and Valerio host a Dutch television show called “Guinea Pigs” in which they are the guinea pigs, the ones who try out all sorts of things most people wouldn’t. In a recent episode, they decided to hook themselves up to a machine that simulated labor pains. They wanted to see how long a man could last through something women have had to endure since basically the beginning of time. Dennis and Valerio like to think they’re pretty strong. The average labor lasts 12-14 hours. But they lasted only two, and they both cried like little babies when it was done. Some have called that proof that women are stronger than men. Maybe so, maybe not. I see it as proof of something else – of how strong a person can become when they feel it’s going to be worth it in the end. Neither Dennis nor Valerio had the same motivation to keep going as any woman in labor. Neither one of them was looking forward to the first time they would hold in their arms a child they had been bonding with for nine months. For a woman in labor, the joy of holding a child in her arms is what gives them so much of their strength. How else could someone last through 12-14 hours of labor pain?
And how else could an innocent man last through 40 lashes of a whip digging into his skin? How else could a fragile human keep himself still while they pound nails into him? How else could a man strong enough to stop the wind choose to not stop his own crucifixion? And why else would he choose to be pierced, ripped, and stabbed for someone else’s transgressions - unless he knew he was going to be able to hold in his arms something so precious and valuable when it was all done? What gave him strength was you. You were his joy; the joy of knowing that what killed him made you stronger– because it gave you something to look forward to. It gave you heaven. It gave you a forgiveness you can hold in your heart right now and believe in. And it gave you a strength that can only be received by those who know how much they need him.
Didn’t you hear him in our Gospel lesson? He didn’t come to save those who think they’re strong. He came to save those who know they’re not; to proclaim freedom for those who know they’re imprisoned by weakness, recovery of sight for those who know they’re blinded by sin, and release for all who know they’re oppressed with burdens far too heavy for them. He came to proclaim the Lord’s favor in holding the most fragile and vulnerable among us “always, to the very end,” so that in his arms you can find joy in the middle of any pain, and know what it’s like to have strength that not even death can take away. “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” Nehemiah said. And there’s only one place we find it – in his grace, the strong fortress to which we should never stop coming to protect the things that are truly important.
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