Monday, July 21

Monday

Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.  For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.”  There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards.  Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”  - Nehemiah 5:1-5

As we continue in our series through the Book of Nehemiah, we’ve learned that Nehemiah confronted a different challenge in each chapter:

• In chapter one, he was faced with a personal challenge. When he heard about what was happening in Jerusalem, he sat down and wept and then broke out into prayer.

• In chapter two, his challenge was political. When the King asked him what he needed, he prayed a “popcorn prayer” and boldly made his requests.

• In chapter three, he confronted an administrative challenge by positioning the right workers in the right place for the right reasons.

• In chapter four, he dealt with the challenge of discouragement. The workers were afraid of the enemies and convinced they couldn’t work anymore. Nehemiah rallied the troops to come together under pressure.

As we come to chapter five, this same community is starting to self-destruct because of some festering grievances. The workers now face a new enemy who is harder to conquer than the previous ones. The timing could not have been worse because the walls are almost done! Nehemiah has to put down his hard hat and turn his attention from the construction of the wall to the walls that were being put up between his workers. While their external enemies helped to rally the people, internal conflict threatened to divide and destroy them.

Most of us remember well the terrible devastation that Hurricane Katrina brought to the gulf coast.  After the storm we got a glimpse of the greed of some people. While there were many who reached out to help, there were others who saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of those in need by price gouging and stealing. That’s similar to what we see in our text. The city of Jerusalem lies in ruins and people are powerless to help themselves. Taxes are high and because of a long drought there is a bad famine. Most everyone has been working with all their hearts to build the walls but there are others whose alarming acts of greed resulted in widespread poverty and injustice.  Hard times can bring out the best and the worst in human nature.  God’s people (both then &now) are to be marked by His grace and generosity. 

There is a direct correlation between the effectiveness of our mission and how we treat each other!

We must be the church before we can build the church. We must care for one another before we can hope to reach this community and county for Christ.

Jeff Frazier