Starting Again. Again.

Introduction

We have been working through a series of messages on restoration and failure. And grappling a lot with the failure part. So maybe it will be a bit of a relief that today is the final message on this topic. We began with personal failure and restoration and the example of Peter who denied Jesus before being restored to relationship and leadership. Then we considered failures and conflict in community and some Biblical instructions on bearing with one another as the Church. Then, last week, we looked at the failures of leaders using the example of the prophet Samuel who led Israel with integrity for a lifetime, in contrast to the most of the leaders who came before and after him.

We’re exploring failure because it is part of life and because the Bible is full of it. How we respond to our failures and the failures of the people and systems we’re connected to plays a big role in our ability to experience peace and happiness. Our healthy response to failure is also a way we can show ourselves to be set apart as followers of Jesus.

And we’re exploring failure as we worship a God of restoration, renewal, and reconciliation. One of the best parts of faith in Jesus Christ is that we are not defined by our failures, mistakes, or sin. Jesus gave His life for us so that we can be defined by the new life He gives us. Our God is a God of second chances, third chances, and thousandth chances!

But the thing about second chances, third chances, or thousandth chances is that picking yourself up and starting again can get harder with each failure, or set-back, or struggle. Starting again usually isn’t easy. Starting again, and again, and again can be especially difficult.

That’s what we’re looking at when we consider the Old Testament figure of Nehemiah. To appreciate the challenges Nehemiah overcame we need to know a bit about his story and the world he was living in, so I’ll start there.

The Return to Jerusalem

Last week I mentioned that the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah weren’t faithful to God and their reigns were full of idolatry, injustice, and corruption.

Ultimately this led to God allowing His people to be conquered, with many of them being deported to Babylon after their capital of Jerusalem was destroyed along with God’s temple there.

But God didn’t abandon His people. They were able to survive and even thrive in exile. They clung to their faith and heritage and established a system of worship in local synagogues. Then the Persian empire took over and some of its rulers were interested in establishing a presence to the west, where Israel and Judah had been. God worked in this to allow many of his people to return to Jerusalem.

Think about this for a moment – the Jewish people had been living in exile for several generations now and many of them had done well for themselves. They had homes and business and extended families in Persia. But, when the opportunity was given to them to return to the home of their ancestors tens of thousands of them went back to a city that had been smashed and burned to the ground. And they were not welcome there. Many of the people in the surrounding area did not want to see Jerusalem rebuilt – that was a threat to their own power and influence.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that this wasn’t an easy process. When they first arrived they rebuilt the temple altar and offered sacrifice there again. They started rebuilding the temple. But by the next year that work stopped for the another fifteen years! Then some new leadership arrived and they started again, again. Four years later they finished the temple, and it was a bittersweet moment. It was a triumph to have a new temple. But the new temple wasn’t nearly as impressive as the original, which caused the returnees some sorrow.

Then, almost a generation later, a priest named Ezra returned to Jerusalem and found that the people’s faith also needed rebuilding. They were not being faithful to many of God’s commands and didn’t even know much of what their scriptures said. Ezra tried to kindle a religious awakening.

Another decade passed and then we meet Nehemiah. He was a trusted official of the King of Persia at the time and heard that things still weren’t going very well in Jerusalem. They had many problems, but Nehemiah was focused on Jerusalem’s walls which were still in ruins almost a hundred years after his people had first returned to rebuild. Without the walls Jerusalem would never be the safe and prosperous city it had once been. So Nehemiah traded his cushy job in the King’s court for a commission to go to Jerusalem to get things moving.

That’s where we get to the chosen scripture lesson for today from Nehemiah chapter 2. It tells us what Nehemiah did when he first arrived. On his first night in Jerusalem was there, before anyone in the city knew what Nehemiah’s mission was, Nehemiah went out with a few people he trusted to personally assess the situation. He looked at all the walls and gates that had been broken and burned to see what needed to be done. Only then did Nehemiah meet with the officials and priests in Jerusalem and convinced them to do something about the situation.

“Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” And they agreed. They would try and finally secure their city.

And do you know how long it took to rebuild the wall and repair the gates – work that had been neglected for the past hundred years?

Two months. Two months to re-establish these defenses which paved the way for Jerusalem to become an influential city in that region once again. And that’s not disputed by historians and archaeologists, by the way, the accounts of Ezra and Nehemiah are widely viewed as reliable.

This feat is even more amazing when you read through the book of Nehemiah and see the challenges they faced. Rival officials and groups in that area tried to discourage and demoralize the people of Jerusalem. There was the threat of attack which required the people working on the walls to also be armed and ready to fight off raiders at any time. There were threats of assassination against Nehemiah, as well as slander to try to discredit him and disrupt the work. And there was the exhaustion that came with pushing ahead day after day on this massive project.

Nehemiah’s Tips and Tricks

So a really good question for any reader of this book is “how did he pull that off?” Why did Nehemiah succeed where others had failed, or where they had not bothered to even try? I have a few answers to that I’ll share that will connect to doing the hard work of starting over in our lives and in the life of our church.

So, why did Nehemiah succeed? These aren’t all the reasons, but here are a few:

1. He was called by God and asked for God’s help at key moments. Nehemiah didn’t run off to Jerusalem because of a strong opinion or because he sensed a good opportunity. When he was told that things weren’t going well there he was grieved and his first act was to pray and ask for God’s help in making a way for him to go and restore Jerusalem. And at other key moments Nehemiah also turned to prayer. He tried to follow God’s leading.

2. He chose “we”. Nehemiah could have come in with his papers from the king and said “Listen up, you failures! Since you can’t do anything right I am here to fix this mess so let’s get to work!” But that’s not what happened at all. When Nehemiah first prayed to God about going to Jerusalem, before he asked for God’s help, he asked for forgiveness for his people, his family, and himself: “I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.’” This was why Jerusalem was in ruins.

We have sinned. Not “my stupid ancestors have sinned” but “we” – my people. We see this again when Nehemiah talks to the leaders of Jerusalem. “You see the trouble WE are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire. Come let US rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and WE will no longer be in disgrace.” Nehemiah didn’t separate himself from the people or the problem. He chose to own what had happened, and made himself part of the “we” who could do something about it.

3. He planned carefully. Before even trying to get the officials to agree to his rebuilding plan Nehemiah went and checked on everything for himself. And once he convinced the people to start work he demonstrated some very shrewd planning. He assigned people to work on sections of the wall that mattered the most to them personally. Some people worked on the sections of wall that would protect their own homes once they were complete. The priests repaired gates that would be used to bring in animals to the temple for sacrifice. A variety of clever decisions helped speed up the work and make it successful.

4) He persevered. Despite mocking and slander and threats of violence and assassination, Nehemiah kept going and inspired others to do the same.

5) Lived and led justly. Last Sunday we studied the leadership of the prophet Samuel who actually asked people to name any bad thing he’d done as he stepped down as Israel’s leader, and nobody could think of anything. Nehemiah also led with integrity. He got his hands dirty, he overturned oppressive practices to help the vulnerable, he told the truth, and when he was later appointed as governor he didn’t take advantage of all the perks that would have let him enjoy the high life while everyone else struggled. Because of this people trusted him – trusted him enough to work hard and face danger as they started over again.

Rebuilding in 2023

So, despite various failures and setbacks Nehemiah managed to rally the people of Jerusalem to rebuild their city. I want to consider what this can say to us in our lives and the life of our church.

Let’s talk about rebuilding church. We’ve put out some highlights of our Mission Edge action plan today and there will be a presentation about it next week along with a request for the congregation to affirm the overall vision and goals. It’s not unlike Nehemiah saying “Come, let us rebuild!” and hoping for the response he would get where the people agree “Let us start rebuilding!”

The Mission Edge Church process was our assessing and planning – looking at where we are in 2023 and seeking a vision of where we could go, God helping us. But we’ll need a few more of those Nehemiah qualities to move forward to a brighter future.

If you’ve been here a long time, you might need perseverance most. It’s not easy to have been part of something when it was bigger and worked better in certain ways and then gear up to try to rebuild again. And again. But if you stay part of any church long enough, even one that avoids failures, like church splits, or challenges like a pandemic, there are still cycles of growth and decline, and times when rebuilding must occur. The people who’ve lasted through those things have history and experience that can greatly help everyone else if they are able to persevere. They can be a steadying and encouraging presence, reminding us that God has been with us through many ups and downs, and will be with us in whatever comes next.

If you haven’t been with us very long you can be a source of energy and life, because you’re not worried about what hasn’t worked in the past! We gain so much from those who come in with fresh eyes and new thoughts. But you might need to take a lesson from Nehemiah in deciding to choose “we.” The way I see it, if you chose to join yourself to a church you chose to start using “we” instead of “I” and “them.” You have just as much stake in the community as anyone else.

Nehemiah’s example is a good one here. He came into Jerusalem saying “I am one of you. Your failures are my failures, your problems are my problems, and your successes will be my successes. Let’s work together.” Choose “we”.

Now, despite all that we have in the works rebuilding as a community that fits with Nehemiah’s story, I also want to end with how this might connect to rebuilding on a personal level.

Lots of things can happen to a person that require rebuilding, or starting over. You can be forced into a major career change, or go through a divorce, lose a family member, or suffer an injury or illness that upends your life. Or the cause can be internal – a realization that you can’t carry on living the way you’re living, or a crisis of faith where you call everything you believe into question.

Confusion and suffering and loss are part of life, and sometimes they require us to rebuild or restart. I don’t know many people who haven’t had moments where they were left with the choice of either giving up or starting over in some way.

Here Nehemiah offers some encouragement. He must have been tempted to give up at times. When his work was being mocked, his people exhausted, his enemies were trying to lure him into a trap, he didn’t know who he could trust, and he was accused of plotting a rebellion, that had to be a rough few weeks! That’s probably why just about every chapter of the book of Nehemiah includes a prayer. Sometimes they were lengthy prayers, but most times they were very short and they repeat the same request: remember me.

Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people.

Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.

Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.

These prayers keep coming back to this – “God, I’m trying. I’m trying to do what’s right. I’m try to make all of this work for your sake and the sake of these people. I’m working as hard as I can, and as skillfully as I can. Remember me.”

Is that you some days? I’m trying as hard as I can. I’m trying to do what’s right. But it’s hard today. I find it encouraging that there is also a “remember me” prayer in the New Testament. It was prayed by the criminal crucified beside Jesus. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus didn’t ask anything else of him or from him. He received this request based in faith and said “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

I can’t speak to every circumstance or the best way through it. Whatever you may be needing to rebuild, however you might have to start again, there probably aren’t any easy answers. But there are reasons for a Christian to have hope.

You are not alone. God is with you. He remembers you. He sent His Son to give His life for you and join you in your new life as a follower of Jesus. An eternal life.

And God will give you people to walk alongside you. You may need to pray for them to come to you. You may need to do the humble and awkward thing and tell them you’re struggling and ask for their support and companionship. But they are out there.

It matters that you’re trying – trying to get it right, trying to do the right thing, trying to please God. And if you fail, God will still love you. If your rebuilding doesn’t live up to your hopes, you will still inherit the kingdom of God because you are a child of God.

And you never know when a breakthrough will happen. A hundred years in ruins and Nehemiah got that wall rebuilt in 52 days. When God moves things that seemed impossible become possible. Make the best plans you can. Persevere. Do what God says is right. And pray to the God who most certainly does remember you. He can help you, and help us, start again and build lives and a church that will glorify Him.

Let me leave you with a prayer taken from Nehemiah’s prayer in chapter 9:

Lord God, blessed be your glorious name. May it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. You are the Lord God who chose Abram, rescued your people from slavery in Egypt, made known your commands through Moses, sustained the life of your people, and was patient with them even when they rebelled. You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. You don’t give up on people. You gave your people a new and good land. When they were disobedient you gave them into the hands of their enemies, but when they were oppressed you heard their cries and delivered them. In your great compassion you rescued them and let them start again. And again. Now, mighty and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love, in all that has happened, you have been faithful while we acted wickedly. Continue in your faithfulness. Help us to rebuilt what must be rebuilt. Help us rebuild our lives in the face of failures and hardships. Help us rebuild our faith in the face of apathy or doubt. Help us rebuild our church after set-backs. Help us rebuild the reputation of Jesus-followers, who are often not seen as being very much like Jesus. Help us rebuild our passion for you, that we might experience joy and confidence as we live out each day you give us. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit I pray. Amen.