The Wall of Jericho, the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall. I remember going through Checkpoint Charlie in 1981 as the Berlin Wall separated Eastern Germany from the West. Even Wall Street, the financial capital of the world, started as a real 12 ft. wall to keep out the natives. Walls play an important part of history; dividing countries, providing a defensible barrier, offering security. Our nation just ended a 35 day of the government shutdown over a wall. This standoff was crazy and painful, interrupting the lives of millions of people. It has taken a real toll on the families and communities hardest hit. So, when the commentary said, “The book of Nehemiah narrates Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and its wall” I thought I’ve got to preach on this.
In 25 years, I have never preached from Nehemiah. Ezra and Nehemiah are a pair. Ezra tells the story of rebuilding the Temple and the Jewish community after generations in exile. The influential and skilled people were captured and taken to Babylonia, and the unskilled and unremarkable people were left behind to fend for themselves. When the children and grandchildren of the exiles return to Jerusalem, they rebuild the temple and the wall and unification of culture and worship is the task at hand.
Do you have a fence around your yard? Most do. It can be decorative, offer privacy, establish property lines, or help keep the kids and pets contained. Could someone get over your fence? Probably. When we live so close together, fences help us to know where one parcel ends and the next starts. In a way they are symbolic. A fence in your back yard or a wall along the border have something in common: they separate us from them.
We seem to be doing that a lot right now: immigration, racial struggles, politics, the haves and the have nots.
One of the ways we see the separation between us and them is through globalization. Brexit and our increasing nationalism are a response to globalization. Globalization is the fact that the world is more connected through commerce, banking, travel, and treaties. Think of NATO, NAFTA, the EU and world markets opening like China. Globalization is the way we are all interrelated. By contrast, globalism attempts to understand all the inter-connections of the modern world. Globalism is a belief and comfort level we should be internationally connected and inclusive. Globalization is inevitable but feels uncomfortable, foreign to some. After thirty years of rapid globalization, we see the push back. We like cheap clothes, but we do not like the human costs: jobs outsourced, horrible work conditions, the trade imbalance. The wall is a symbol against globalization and a return to nationalism.
Nehemiah was seeking to reinstate the Jewish national identity but doing so through worship and a return to God, not through isolation. Yes, they built a wall around Jerusalem, but each community built a section near their gate, it was a joint effort right alongside the restoration of the Temple and worshiping their Lord. The wall was not about us and them. It was about how do we become “we” – a people of God after having been people of haves and have not and those who forcibly migrated and those who stayed during the exile. It was about how do you knit God’s worshiping community back together.
The question for us is how do we put America back together?
Where being American supersedes political affiliation.
Where America is true to its greatness; WE ARE a nation of immigrants.
Where a strong economy starts with a strong middle class. This shutdown over a wall denied the massive human costs and the American identity.
Identity is the focus of our gospel lesson as well. Jesus walks into the synagogue in his home town and reads from Isaiah, defining his very identity. Three things to note. His identity is based in the Holy Spirit. During his baptism and temptation, Jesus depends on the Holy Spirit. Now he is filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord is upon him.
Secondly, Jesus came to help the poor, release the captives, set the oppressed free. Jesus is tearing down walls, social barriers, not erecting them. He sees no distinction between the haves and the have nots. His purpose is to be inclusive and create unity much like Nehemiah did: where women were included, along with those who could hear with understanding. It wasn’t based on class, gender, or those who migrated; it was unity for God’s people.
Finally, it is important to note what Jesus left out. Reading from Isaiah, essentially declaring himself the Messiah, Jesus leaves out the last part of the verse (61:2). He leaves out “the day of vengeance of our God….” Jesus interprets who he is with what is written and chooses to not be a person of vengeance, rather a Messiah of inclusiveness, healing, justice, and love.
Our society can get so caught up in vengeance. You do something bad to me, and I will do something worse. Just think of name-calling and bullying. But Jesus says no. He focuses on the year of the Lord’s favor, on Jubilee, when crushing debts are forgiven and slaves are freed. I think the 800,000 workers will feel like it is Jubilee once our government finally pays them what they are owed; no longer slaves working for nothing just to keep their jobs.
I realize that is only one interpretation. But interpretation matters. Jesus interpreted his Messiahship without vengeance, excluding vengeance. Ezra, the priest, read from God’s law “with interpretation” They gave the sense so people understood the reading. (v. 8). So how we frame this discussion about the wall matters. We have two different worldviews at play here. Politically we are “us” and “them.” It almost feels like the two groups of Jews where one group lives for generations in another land with different customs and norms and then when it is time to come home and reunite as God’s people, we have no idea about how to do so. How to compromise, find common ground, unite behind shared beliefs and principles. But we were never conquered, our world was never destroyed, but we have the same struggle for unity. Nehemiah has lots to teach us about coming together again as one people.
Speaking to a friend about walls, she said walls make her think of “fear and separation.”
I thought about that. We put feared criminals behind walls to separate them from society.
We create gated communities to keep people we fear away from our homes.
Heck, we lock the gate to our church parking lot! So, is this fight for a wall an expensive way of addressing our fear and keeping us separate? Might there be another way? Jesus’ way. The way of jubilee. I don’t know.
Maybe we need to address our internal walls, the ones that say that everyone different from me is a threat.
The emotional walls that say I have been hurt too many times to let something else bad happen. We all want to protect ourselves. I get it!
But maybe we can hear Isaiah with Jesus’ words in new light.
Maybe Jesus came to help us with our captivity to fear, our need to be separate.
Maybe he wants to give us sight when we have been blind to the needs of others.
Maybe we can be freed from our slavery to fear and prejudice so that we can live in the light and love of God.
Jesus wants to tear down those walls. Jesus wants us united as a people, not so we can keep others out, but so we can be leaders in the world and faithful to God.
“Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’) (lifting up their hands”) (v. 6). As you know, Amen means “so be it.” When we offer a prayer, we end with the affirmation of Amen, “so be it.” In essence saying, if God is willing, make it be so. May we say Amen the shutdown ended. Say Amen when we are united as a people. Say Amen when Jesus frees us from the slavery of fear and separation. Let all God’s people say Amen!
