Sermon 11th May - St. Paul's Annual General Meeting

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches - based on the book of Nehemiah.

Today being AGM Sunday means that everything needs to be cut short. Yes, that even includes the sermon-starting joke. But that’s especially appropriate on this day: well, after all, we are talking about the man who’s remembered as being the shortest in the Bible: knee-high-miah, of course!

Now, I very much hope that by time this short talk is done you will have many good and positive reasons to remember (and thank God for) Nehemiah. Whatever his stature, he was a true spiritual giant. Above all, Nehemiah shows just what a healthy dose of Godly determination, mixed with focused prayer, and a willingness to use your skill-set, can accomplish. Under his leadership the walls around Jerusalem went from being a pile of torn-down rubble to a solid defence against all-comers. It might not have been what we would call a big city – but that wall had no less than 10 gates in it. The job itself was done in very short order too: in just 52 days. And the archaeological evidence for the truth of that being what did actually happen is still in the walls for all to see.

Now I’d imagine that if the name ‘Nehemiah’ did ring any bells in your head, they would probably be about walls. Chances are that you might be more vague about when this rebuilding was done, though; and also about what else he accomplished. The only way to address the latter is to read this whole book for yourself – as I hope some will now want to do. For further reading, I’ll also point you to the blog for last week’s sermon (if you missed it). That gives at least something of the context of this amazing story, though even in a full-length sermon it did all have to be somewhat abbreviated.

Today all I’ll do is give the year that this story began: 445 BC. This marks the 3^rd, and final, part of the return to Judah after a 70-year exile in Babylon. It’s about this time that what we call the Old Testament stopped being written, because this was when the age of prophecy ended. God’s people had gone back home, just as He had promised; the Temple was rebuilt (as we saw last week); next, as we’ve just heard, it was the walls; and finally it was the people who were put right before God. That story is what’s told in the second half of this short book. We learn there that it was a combination of Nehemiah and Ezra who accomplished it (which is why these 2 are 1 book in the Hebrew Bible.) All was then ready for God’s Messiah to appear; and so the waiting began ...

It’s when it’s set in that context that we can see what a big deal Nehemiah’s achievements were. What’s perhaps most amazing was that he was ‘just’ an ordinary person. Most of the people who did great things for God in the Old Testament were prophets, priests, or kings, usually ones who’d been singled out by/for God. At the start of this book we read about someone doing an ordinary job in exile (serving his foreign emperor). He was the one who heard about a problem that really grieved him – unrepaired walls back at home – and he then pleaded with God to be allowed to fix it! Nehemiah gave up a relatively comfortable and safe life (as a cup-bearer), because he knew that he could do the job that was required.

If there sound like several sermons in there alone, that’s about right. The learning from Nehemiah is worth a series of its own; so there’s more reason to read and learn from this book – as we all can do. Yes he clearly had gifts; but what stands out above all is Nehemiah’s Godly determination, mixed with focused prayer; and those are virtues that anyone can choose to apply, to whatever their circumstances. It’s certainly what Nehemiah did: after persuading the Persian emperor to let him take a group with him, he arrived in Jerusalem; first he defined the scale of the problem; then he got on and fixed it; involving as many others in the work as he could; and he didn’t let anything, or anyone get in the way of that!

You’ll have to read the detail of that for yourself: but it is both impressive, and instructive. His plan to get people to work on the wall by their homes was a master-stroke! And that’s only the 1^st half of this book! If anything, what follow is even more impressive and instructive. Having got the Number 1 priority job done, against all sorts of opposition, external and internal, Nehemiah didn’t stop! The next stage of the Godly process was to start ensuring that the work would endure – by re-populating Jerusalem. At the same time, in partnership with Ezra the priest, he reminded people what it’d all been about in the first place. So there was an extended public reading of the Law, with invitations for people to sign up to live by it. That was set in the context of a big party, at the heart of which was God. Confession and repentance was big part of that; and it all culminated in a rededication of the rebuilt walls, at sound-levels that were apparently heard for miles around!

And there is still more to Nehemiah: lots more! There isn’t time even to headline that now, though, because we need to get specific about this has to teach us in Herne Hill. As I said last week, this series is about 2 things: first it’s ensuring that we have learned the lessons which we think we have in getting to where we are now; and second it’s asking what God is saying to us about where we go from here. The AGM is well timed, then, because it should help us to do all that (even in mid-May!)

Last week we began with simple lesson from Ezra: God must come, and be 1^st. My suggestion for today is another simple one: we’ve got to keep on going! Yes, we can – and we should – celebrate where are now. But God has got to be at the heart of that celebration too. We must also protect where we have reached, by putting the right walls around it. All who worship here are invited to contribute to that process, with God at the forefront of our minds. Whoever we are, we can all be determined to persist; to pray; and to do what we know we are able to do. Amazing things can, and will, happen, and more quickly than may believe – if we do each learn, and apply, these Nehemiah lessons. The key question for each of us of course is: will we? Let’s pray that we do ...