Second City Sermons

This Advent and Christmastide we are looking at the ancient "O Antiphons" and considering what they teach us of what we long for and what we are given in the gift of Jesus. The first stanza speak of Jesus as the "Wisdom from on high". Wisdom is something that is sought the world over and what the Bible tells us is that it is found in Jesus. Wisdom, after all, is skill in the art of godly living, living as God made the world. It's for this reason that the Bible tells us in Proverbs 8 that Wisdom was present at creation and John 1 and Colossians 1 catch on to this and say that Jesus is that Wisdom made flesh.O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, Who orderest all things mightily; To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in her ways to go.

We come to the end of Nehemiah and sadly what we find is the people are going against the Lord in the very ways that they had said they wouldn't! The book ends with Nehemiah calling people back to the Lord and doing so in dramatic ways - pulling hair! But this chapter is about grace. This Nehemiah community lives not in its own ability, but in the Lord's! We are left at the end of the book having no doubt that their success in the wall and in the rebuilding of their community has nothing to do with them, but only to do with the grace of God.

As we near the end of the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah once again gives a list of who is around. Recording who has come to do the work, who has stuck around through the internal and external conflicts, and who exactly has decided to give themselves to this community is an important part of this book. Here near the end though not only is the variety of the community highlighted, but the fact that what unites this people is that they are a community of thanks. They are a community that gives thanks to God, which is to say that they are a community of worship and praise!

Nehemiah 9 is almost all a long prayer of confession. The people have settled into the land, heard the Word, celebrated, and now they are confessing. But what is confession? Confession, maybe more than anything else, is confessing that we have not responded to God properly, to his work, to his ways, to his history and his grace. The problem then is not sins (that's just a pharisaic / fundamentalist take on sin); the problem isn't sins, it's sin. The problem is our response to God.

During His famous sermon of the mount, Jesus directs the listeners to notice the difference between the two ways of life, one is through and broad gate of one’s own making that leads to death, or by a narrow gate that is made of Jesus which leads to life eternal.Jesus also warns against false prophets that act like sheep but really are ravenous wolves, but they can be identified by their actions and words, the fruits of their lives. So, take careful notice because only good trees (lives) can produce good fruit, and bad trees (lives) can produce bad fruit. All people can be recognized by their fruit.

What forms a community? What makes it what it is? Nehemiah 7 and 8 show the people settled in the land, but gathered around the Word of God. Preaching, teaching, confession, sharing. And what happens when the people do this? The fear that has been so present in the book turns towards joy, the greed of chapter 6 turns towards generosity. The returned people are a word-shaped community.

In Nehemiah six the wall is completed, and the work is done in record time. Even so, the chapter is full of fear, or the life of fear and the attempt to instill fear. That forces the questions: Who are you afraid? Who do you stand in awe of? But also, related to all of this is who is part of the community of faith? And what does it mean to be a Christian? The wall may be up, but the work isn't done.

Sandwiched between two chapters that highlight the external opposition that Nehemiah and the people who were rebuilding Jerusalem faced, chapter 5 shows us that often the greatest hindrance to the work of the church is not those on the outside, but those within. Usury, the charging of interest, plagued these people and it ate them alive to the extend that they “were forcing their sons and daughters to be slaves”. It’s the Corinthian problem in the Old Testament; division that detract from the message of the beauty of Jesus. But it’s also in this mess that we see the loveliness of the gospel; God loves the unlovely.

Nehemiah 4 is a history of opposition. One might think that with the blessing of a powerful king and a commission from the King of Kings that all would go easy for Nehemiah. But, no, mockery and opposition wait for Nehemiah in Jerusalem, even as the people band together to repair the walls. Nehemiah 4 provides a guide for dealing with opposition.

Nehemiah 3 the work of rebuilding the wall that was placed on Nehemiah's heart in chapter 1 and whose risks were overcome by God in chapter 2. Though Nehemiah may be the great leader, what is clear is that everybody is to lend their time, their treasures, their talents. Everyone is called to be "All In!" since there is no bench-warming in the Kingdom of God.

Nehemiah has a mission, a calling. Like our own callings, it’s fraught with opportunity and challenge. But when God calls someone to do something, he always provides, even sometimes through the most unlikely means.

The book of Nehemiah begins with a broken situation and a heart that breaks for the world to be right. Nehemiah sits in the mess, in the trouble, the shame and the sadness of it all, but he isn’t alone. God meets him there and from there we get the glimpse of what God might do through him.