Dear Friends
There’s an unassuming man in the Bible, who’s hardly what you’d call a household name among the general Christian public.
He doesn’t get the ratings which the likes of Peter, Paul or John will usually get – despite being just as bold and influential in his day as they all were. He doesn’t seem to catch the eye of all the modern movie-maker types, the way in which a Joseph or a Daniel seem to do – despite there being no less in terms of colour, faith and drama in the life this man had lived.
And few, it seems, will choose to name their offspring after him. How often do you run across a boy called Nehemiah? It doesn’t even shorten well to anything: ‘Ehem’?
It’s understandable, I suppose, why the guy has experienced such relative obscurity.
By the time you get to the book in the Bible which bears his name you’ve had to wade your way through the long, lugubrious narrative of Israel’s history in the books of 1st and 2nd Kings – and then, of course, through the slightly ‘airbrushed’ ‘re-make’ of that story in the two long books of Chronicles.
Most folk are looking for a bit of a breather after all of that. And for those who faithfully press on through the pages of Scripture, well it’s Ezra they then encounter – with further lengthy lists of names you’ve never heard of, ending with a ‘name-and-shame’ type catalogue of all the individuals who had married foreign women (there were a lot of them).
The Psalms, the Proverbs, or even the most minor of prophets seem an attractive – and, in the case of the Psalms, a close-at-hand – antidote to the headache which you’re worried may be coming on as you stick with this whole long chunk of narrative text.
It’s tempting, and easy, to skip over this guy, in other words. And not being the longest of books, and being tucked right away in the depths of your sizeable small-print Bible, it’s not always easy to find this book, even if you wanted to.
So, yes, I understand why he’s not among the headline-making heroes who spring to mind when talk gets round to all the mighty exploits which the Bible has recorded for our good.
It’s a pity, though! Because the man has a lot to teach us, and the challenge he faced in his day is akin to those facing us now. Not by any means identical, but in all sorts of ways sufficiently similar for us to be able to learn a whole load from the guy.
It’s with building-work that the man is associated. Nehemiah’s the man who took it on himself to see that the ruined walls of knocked-about Jerusalem were solidly re-built: it was no small work, and there was no quick fix.
There are challenges, too, for ourselves in regard to the building we have here at Gilc. The lease which exists at the present expires at the end of this coming March. Decisions will have to be made as to what we are going to do: and the options we have are neither comfortable, easy, nor cheap. But, then, Nehemiah’s options were hardly picnic-in-the-park type things themselves – he just rose to face the challenges there were.
It’s the way that he rose to those challenges, though, which is what impresses me most. And it wasn’t just the building work which created all the challenges back then.
It was ‘gospel’ work in which he was really engaged, and the demanding and difficult practical tasks relating to the city-wide repair of ruined walls (all good ‘gospel’ work themselves) were matched by all the other sort of building work required within the hearts and lives of battered, bruised believers in the place.
And all of that in a context of battle and conflict where every step going forward was contested by the unseen powers of darkness, and expressed in countless bits of under-hand and niggling opposition to the work of God. But that just goes with the territory of genuine ‘gospel’ work, doesn’t it? And Nehemiah was up to the challenge.
Sleeves rolled up and spectacles on (I’m speaking metaphorically of course!), ready to use both brawn and brain as required, he was rapidly involved in a work which was larger by far than what he’d maybe first imagined when he signed up for this unforeseen career-break.
It all began in a season of prayer: most real works of any lasting consequence generally do. As he poured out his heart in fervent prayer, burdened for the glory of the Lord, doors began to open, and a project, which was next best thing to crazy in the eyes of faithless folk, was prompted by the Spirit of the bold Creator God.
And prayer, of course, pervaded it all. When problems arose, it was down on their knees that they went. When critics appeared, it was straight to the Lord they repaired. When war was declared, it was God the Almighty they sought. Prayer. All the way through.
Well, the Lord really, wasn’t it, all the way through: it was His great work from beginning to end. And like most of what He does, it was more by far than this man Nehemiah ever asked or dared to think when first he got involved.
To which we all say a hearty ‘Amen’. Of course we do. We need no persuading of the place of prayer in our lives – as individuals, to start with, but in our life as the people of God as well. Our coming together to pray will always be both the starting point, and indeed the pivotal part, of a singular work of God among us here.
But just how that’s given its best and most helpful expression in our congregational life is the question we’re trying to address. Getting a wise and healthy balance in our living between the ‘gathered’ and ‘scattered’ dimensions of our corporate life is a challenging thing.
We gather each week for our worship, when we bring all our living together and lay it once more before Christ as He speaks through His Word to our hearts; and we want to give the time and space to make this a priority. But, just as important a part of our life shared in Christ, we scatter each week as well, both to learn as disciples of Christ in the context of our localized Community Groups; and to bear witness to Christ where we are in the range of our own local settings – in our homes and our work, spending time with our colleagues and neighbours, fulfilling our calling in Christ in the context of family and friends.
And there is, of course, both a ‘gathered’ and ‘scattered’ dimension to our joining together to pray as well.
The smaller, local setting, first of all – in which we share in weekly prayer for one another and for countless local needs. Our people are supported and upheld before the Lord in all the different challenges they face: and our neighbourhoods are blessed and graced by informed, united ‘local’ prayer which moves the hand of God Himself and sees that hand being laid upon the range of different places where we live and work.
And then as well the larger, central coming together to pray – as we gather up the many different threads of all our ‘scattered’ ‘local’ living for the Lord, and weave those threads together in a great red, rolled-out carpet of united and expectant prayer, down which, as that carpet of prayer is rolled out on a regular basis, our King of kings comes striding into His story across the world in great delivering power.
Giving time and space for both such forms of corporate and united prayer – the scattered and the gathered – without occasioning overload … well, that’s the delicate balance to which we aspire.
So there’s work to be done in the coming months in discerning and determining just how this healthy balance is secured. It’s work to be done together, and we’ll aim to do just that – through our Sunday morning worship, and through our weekly teasing out of how this all might best apply to us, as in our own localities we tackle with each other all the practical implications of God’s life-transforming truth.
Having started in prayer himself, Nehemiah took a good long look at the task in hand … then set the people to work. And something of a little minor miracle took place: the walls were rebuilt, their life was renewed, and the cause of the gospel revived. “For the people,” we’re told, “had a mind to work” (Neh.4.6).
With that sort of ‘mind to work’ among us here, who knows what minor miracles the Lord may again be effecting in the days ahead!
Yours always expectantly in the service of Christ,
Jeremy Middleton