17 October.Week 2 - ‘…. Prayerfully’; Rev Andreas Sistig at P&J

1.    Introduction

·         Today is our 2^nd Stewardship Sunday this year.

·         We will be comparing the efforts of Nehemiah rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem with the situation in our church – the Stewardship campaign and all that goes with it, such as the building programme, 7-day church activities etc…

·         There will be 5 readings throughout the service, each describing a unique stage in the rebuilding process of Jerusalem’s city wall – after each reading I will explain a bit about the situation in Jerusalem and briefly relate what we have heard to the situation in our parish. They are quite short, with the first one being the longest.

2.    Nehemiah’s prayer (Neh 1, 1-11)                   

The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa,  Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.  They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”  When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.  Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you.  We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.  “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’  “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.  O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favour in the presence of this man.” I was cupbearer to the king.                       

                       

a.       Nehemiah

                                                            i.      In the year 605 BC the Egyptians lost control over Israel and Judah. The Babylonians beat the Egyptian armies in Carchemish and took control over large territories, formerly under Egyptian control. One of those areas was Israel and Judah. As was customary, the occupied areas had to pay taxes to their new rulers, but – and I am cutting a long story rather short – after a few years of doing so, both Israel as well as Judah refused to pay taxes to king Nebuchadnezzar. The result was that Samaria, the capitol of Israel as well as Jerusalem, the capitol Judah, were largely destroyed and the population deported to Babylon and its surrounding cities. This period in the history of the Jewish people is therefore called the Babylonian exile. A few generations into this period the book of Nehemiah and the story of the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s city walls takes place.

                                                          ii.      Nehemiah, a Jew serving as the cupbearer to the king at the Babylonian court in Susa, asks a fellow Jew, just returning from Jerusalem about the situation there. The answer devastates Nehemiah.  

                                                         iii.      Nehemiah then prays to God, confessing the sins committed by the people of Israel that led to God’s punishment and remembers that God had promised to reunite and bring back those faithful remnants that vow to live according to God’s laws from now onwards.

                                                        iv.      Nehemiah decides to take action (though at this stage we are still left in the dark as to what he’s got in his mind) and asks God for help when he, Nehemiah, will speak to the king of Babylon.

b.      Parish

                                                            i.      The Old Testament leaves no doubt about the reasons that lead to the Babylonian exile – the disobedience of God’s people and their refusal to live according to the law.

                                                          ii.      While I wouldn’t go as far as saying that the situation in our church, with a +50 000 pound annual deficit is a punishment from God for sins we have committed, I think that it is certainly true that we have not been as good stewards as we could and should have been. – This applies to both, our leadership, of which I am one, as well as every single member of the congregation. What do I mean by that? The parish had been given generous legacies amounting to more than 500 000 pounds, which we have not been able to use quickly enough for the development of our facilities. This resulted in steadily decreasing financial offerings from all our members, resulting in the situation we are in now – enough money for the capital development, but with an annual income-expenditure deficit of over 50 000 pounds.

                                                         iii.      In our context, the message given to Nehemiah, could read something like this: “Those who have survived the side-effects of the legacies and are still in the church are in great trouble and disgrace. The parish is almost broke and we’ll soon have to turn the lights off.”

                                                        iv.      The “prayerful element of our Christian Stewardship” means for me that we open ourselves to the possibilities God holds in stock for us and are brave enough to invite him in. It takes a lot of guts to do that and there are lots of people whose lives have changed completely – to the better – once they have done that. Just think about:

1.       Abraham, Moses, Jesus, or any of the saints  - St. Francis, son to a rich textile merchant, St.Ignatius a soldier and womanizer, St. Paul from Christian persecutor to great apostle.

2.       What would happen if I would ask you know how many of you have experienced a substantial change in your life after you’ve asked God to take control of your life?

3.       That is the prayerful element not only to Stewardship but to Christian life itself.  Open oneself to God and handing control over to him – difficult but rewarding.

4.       That is what we need to do as individuals in terms of our own personal life, but also as a community in terms of our church.

5.       Missed opportunities, I think we can call them sins, mean that we have not listened to God’s guidance for us properly and therefore fallen short of that which he was willing to give us – it’s like driving a car in first gear all the time or standing before God with him telling us – you should have just asked! (Hell is the moment we are shown by God how we have fallen short of what would have been possible).

                                                          v.      Let us confess our sins now, those sins that might have contributed to our financial problems, and our unwillingness to listen to God’s guidance for our parish as well as those sins that have hurt others we have come into contact with.

 

3.    The rebuilding of the wall (Neh 2, 11-18)

I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and re-entered through the Valley Gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work. Then I said to them, “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.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work.                                                         

 

(children “assess” the wall)

 

a.       Nehemiah

                                                            i.      Nehemiah assesses the problem carefully without making a great fuss of it. He quietly looks at the city wall and identifies that problem and what has to be done. Then, after he has got a plan, he makes it public and asks for support.

b.      Parish

                                                            i.      That doesn’t sound too different from what we have done and are doing now. We have assessed and analyzed the problem, which is the fact that our expenditure far exceeds our income. We know that the only way to further reduce our expenditure significantly would be to let go of one of our clergy or sell one of our churches – either of those options is not at all desirable.

                                                          ii.      We also know that the average giving in our parish is way below the average giving in the diocese, despite the fact that our town is among those with a well above average income.

                                                         iii.      So, after having analyzed our situation, we have decided to rebuild “our city wall” by:      

1.       Spending the legacy money on the upgrade of our facilities, which will enable us to do more and exciting things – 7 day church!

a.       AS: lights, new community centre

b.      P&J: extra room for small meetings, crèche, extra toilet and a new audio visual system that will enable us to use the church in different and exciting new ways, both during as well as outside of church services.

2.       To ask for your financial support by contributing towards the running costs of our churches – with the aim of balancing our income and expenditure. The work that the parish does is not just the work of a few, but the work of all of us who belong to the parish – if we want it to continue, if we think it is worth it, we have to resource it. We have to build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live…

 

4.    Completion despite opposition (Neh 4, 1-6; 6, 15-16)     

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, “What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?” Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, “What they are building—if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!” Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders. So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.

 

(children build a new wall)

 

a.       Nehemiah

                                                            i.      Nehemiah’s neighbours Sanballat and Tobiah who were Persian officials in neighbouring cities ridiculed Nehemiah’s efforts as a waste of time, money and energy!

b.      Parish

                                                            i.       I am going to be brutally honest with you – there are people in our parish (though NOT in the leadership as in PCC or Ministry Team) who think that we should get rid of one of our churches and therefore also one of our clergy (because we would not have a single church with two paid clergy). But those people look to me more like these fellows – “Sanballat the Horonoite” and “Tobiah the Ammonite” who could not grasp the vision God had given to Nehemiah and the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the city wall and to live, once again in harmony and unity under the law of Moses.

                                                          ii.      In our parish we have two unique congregations, comprising of people with unique gifts, talents and a passion for God’s work in this place. We have two distinctly different church buildings and we serve our town on two different geographical areas – in two different ways. The P&J-way and the All Saints-way and despite the fact that we are uniquely different we know that we belong together, complementing each other in our common mission to welcome all in our community into the love of Christ.

                                                         iii.      Let us be still for a moment and bring prayers for the world, our friends, family and neighbours as well as our heartfelt desire for the rebuilding of our parish before God.

 

5.    Repopulation of Jerusalem (Neh 7, 4-6; 66-68)                 

Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return. These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. The whole company numbered 42,360, besides their 7,337 menservants and maidservants; and they also had 245 men and women singers. There were 736 horses, 245 mules,435 camels and 6,720 donkeys. Some of the heads of the families contributed to the work. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 drachmas of gold, 50 bowls and 530 garments for priests. Some of the heads of the families gave to the treasury for the work 20,000 drachmas of gold and 2,200 minas of silver. The total given by the rest of the people was 20,000 drachmas of gold, 2,000 minas of silver and 67 garments for priests. The priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers and the temple servants, along with certain of the people and the rest of the Israelites, settled in their own towns.                                     

 

a.       Nehemiah

                                                            i.      The purpose of rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem was obviously not just an end in itself. It was a means to an end, the end being the repopulation of the city of Jerusalem so that God’s people could live, once more n peace and unity together under the law of God.

b.      Parish

                                                            i.      That purpose again is not altogether different from the purpose of our Stewardship, building and 7-day church campaign.     

                                                          ii.      We also don’t see this Stewardship campaign and the building programme as an end in itself. It is a means to an end – the end being to be able to reach out to all in our community and to draw them into the love of Christ. To be able to be a place of love and laughter, of fellowship and teaching, of worship and prayer. For the old and the young, the sceptical and the searching, for singles, families the bereaved and lonely. A place where Christ is in the middle of all we say, do and plan.

                                                         iii.      If we manage to let that vision of Christ in the midst of all become more and more of a reality we and the people who come into contact with us will be filled with that deep joy of knowing that the Lord is God and we are his.

                                                        iv.      During the next hymn we will also take our collection.

 

6.    The dedication of the wall (Neh 12, 27-30; 40a; 42b-43)

At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. The singers also were brought together from the region around Jerusalem—from the villages of the Netophathites, from Beth Gilgal, and from the area of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem. When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall. The two choirs that gave thanks then took their places in the house of God; The choirs sang under the direction of Jezrahiah. And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away.                         

 

a.       Nehemiah & Parish

                                                            i.      I pray that in the days and weeks ahead of us we will begin to grasp the possibilities God holds for us in this parish. That each of us will be able to share in the vision of rebuilding our city wall, of making our parish a place for all people in our community and that, each of us will consider how he or she will be able to financially resource our ministry to the people in Fleet.

 

Amen.

This entry was posted on 17/10/2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Funding our Future, Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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