It’s 500 B.C. The middle of the Babylonian Empire. Mighty King Artaxerxes sits on the throne, and you are his cupbearer, his right hand man. He rarely makes a decision without consulting you. You are wealthy, powerful, esteemed…and in mourning. See, your brother and some of his friends came back from a visit to relatives back home, and when you asked them how things were at home, they did not have a good answer for you. The land is wrecked. People live in caves, and bicker amongst each other. Where once there was a great civilization, now lay a bunch of ruins. This is disappointing and discouraging news. See, several hundred years ago, the city had been destroyed during a war, and all the people – all of your ancestors—had been taken as slaves to Babylon, among other places. Which is how you came to be born here, and to rise up into the position you are in now, as a mighty official of Babylon. But you grew up on stories of the homeland – of Israel, especially of the once-mighty city of Jerusalem, and its tragic fall. And you were nursed on hopes that it would be rebuilt – seems that just before you were born, a mighty leader had led some of your people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the nation. Jerusalem would be great once again. When your brother went to see how things, were, you were hoping for stories of a mighty city being rebuilt, a glorious nation rebirthed. Instead, he tells you of disorganization, infighting, fear and shame. The pilgrimage back home had failed. Your people, your culture, were slowly disappearing from the face of the earth. So what do you do? Well, if you’re Nehemiah, (and you are,) you cry a little, you fast a little, and then you pray. And then you do something. I want to read to you Nehemiah’s prayer. It’s at Nehemiah 1:5-11, if you want to read along. (Read it out of YOUR bible) Soon after, the King sees Nehemiah’s distress, and asks him what’s wrong. Nehemiah quickly prays then tells the king, and asks him if he can go and restore Jerusalem. I’m not even going to dive into how big a request this is. But by God’s power, the king permits Nehemiah to go. So Nehemiah pushes it a step farther. He asks for supplies from the king, to rebuild the city. And the king says yes. God is with Nehemiah. Now I’m gonna move a lot faster. Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem. He encounters much opposition – disorganization, enemies who ridicule and sabotage, injustice among his own people, and extreme poverty. And every step of the way, Nehemiah prays, then acts, then prays again. And he manages to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in only 52 days. What others couldn’t pull together to accomplish in some 90 years, by partnering with God, Nehemiah accomplishes in 52 days. It’s miraculous. I think Nehemiah knew a thing or two about partnering with God. And now for an intermission (here I had two wonderful swing dancers come in and dance in front of the group.) Ask the questions. Of the girl: so when you dance… he leads, yes? Is he a good leader? Do you know what he’s going to lead you into before he does it? No. It’s kind of a give and take as you go, right? Of the guy: so you’re the leader. You decide what happens, right? Every move you decide to do. You’re in charge. Could you dance it without her? What, even though you’re in charge, you still need her? Huh. Thanks, you guys. I think what Nehemiah knew how to dance with God. He knew that partnering with God isn’t like a business partnership, where “I get my part done and you get your part done and it all works out” so much as it’s like a dance – you lead, I respond, you respond to my response and lead some more, and we dance. I want to go back to Nehemiah’s prayer to see how to dance with God. What does Nehemiah ask for? Well, he asks that God will hear him. Then he confesses the sins of his people. Then he asks God to remember the promises he’s made. So far, he hasn’t asked God for anything amazing or miraculous yet. Then – here’s the kicker – he asks God to grant him favor in the eyes of the king. Nehemiah already has an idea of what he wants to do, and what he needs to do it, and he asks God for the first step in that plan – favor from the king. Then, as soon as an opportunity arises for God to answer that prayer, Nehemiah, in spite of his fear, takes it. And God answers the prayer. So let’s set up the dance here. I’m going to conjecture a little bit: God leads: He breaks Nehemiah’s heart for Jerusalem when he hears his brother’s news Nehemiah responds: prays and fasts and mourns for Jerusalem God responds and leads: He gives Nehemiah a plan to restore Jerusalem (this is mentioned in v. 12) Nehemiah responds: he prays some more, and asks God for favor with the king in order to begin the plan God responds: Nehemiah gets favor with the king, probably more than he’d hoped for. Nehemiah responds: he goes to Jerusalem. This is the way Nehemiah partners with God through the whole work of rebuilding the wall. I encourage you to read it; it’s pretty amazing. My friends, I identify with Nehemiah when he is weeping for Jerusalem. I love Whitman College, and I see much hurt and brokenness here. I know that it breaks God’s heart to see his children hurt without Him; I know that He is the answer for their suffering and brokenness. I want to do something about it. I want to dance with God and bring his Kingdom to our campus. But I mess it up most of the time. Let me show you some ways that we mess this up by stepping back into the Nehemiah story. So your brothers come back and tell you how deserted and desolate the city is, and it breaks your heart. You understand that it breaks God’s heart as well. You decide that something should be done about this. So you head to Jerusalem and start to rebuild the city, stone by stone. You do your best to organize the people, the fight off the enemies, to fight injustice and poverty, and to build the wall. But it’s a lot of work. And the people don’t really want to organize. They’ve been here a lot longer than you have, and they kind of resent your new energy to do something. You get frustrated because things aren’t moving as you planned. Finally, you give up. You rationalize that the people don’t seem that unhappy themselves, and when they decide that they want to rebuild the wall, you’ll be there to help them, to lead them even. But until then, you settle down in a cave with them and start growing corn. Maybe this is what happened to the original group who went back. Or, maybe it goes this way: Your brothers come back and tell you what a terrible wreck the city is, and it breaks your heart. You cry out to God to do something about it. You believe that He wants to, you believe that he has the power to, He only has to decide to rebuild the city and it will be done. You stay in Babylon and pray every day that God will rebuild His city. And nothing happens. And you get frustrated with praying and seeing nothing happen. In both, we aren’t dancing. Ether we try to do it on our own, or we ask God just to do it without us. You know, I think we can even do both and make a mistake. I know I’m guilty of this – of praying, “God, save our campus. Come in power here and change people’s hearts. God, do marvelous and miraculous things.” And then I go and hang out in Lyman, and try to do it on my own. Like God and I are working on different sides of campus, or at different times. Let us learn how to dance with God. Let us look for him to lead us, and then look for how to respond to his leading. Let us ask him, like Nehemiah did, to answer our specific prayers as we give ourselves to dancing with him. Like the line in that song, let us be dancers who dance upon injustice. Again, I want to return to Nehemiah’s prayer. Let’s pray it with him this time. I’m going to read it out loud, and then I invite you to make it yours. Ask God to hear you. Confess the sins of Whitman to him. Ask him to keep the promises he’s made to save his people. And ask him to dance with you. If you know what the plan is, then ask him to grant you the next step. If you don’t know the plan yet, ask him to give you a plan. God wants to dance with us. Let’s take His hand. Let’s pray. |
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