Building a Great City (Through Seeking Justice)
- Sep 12, 2010
- Series: Building a Great City
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Neh. 5—Building a Great City (Through Seeking Justice)
Mid-City Sept. 12, 2010
We’re in a series where each week we’re looking at different things that are involved in building a great city here in San Diego & Tijuana because, from our inception, that has been our conviction, that we as a church are to function as an alternate city that is so committed to loving Jesus and neighbors and neighborhoods that we are making the city of San Diego/Tijuana great in every way. Nehemiah did this with Jerusalem, and each week we’re thinking about a different component that is required to build a great city through his life and this week we’re going to talk about our call to seek justice in the city.
Nehemiah: Let me tell you his story. 587 BC the Babylonians come in and destroy the city of Jerusalem. The city lay in ruins for 141 years. Nehemiah is one of those exiles living at the end of this 141 year period in the capital city of Susa and he becomes King Artaxerxes wine-taster. He gets all excited because the King supports a rebuilding effort and Nehemiah is hopeful, then, in ch. 1, we learn that Nehemiah’s brother, Hanani, comes back and tells him that his boss, King Artaxerxes pulled the plug on the rebuilding effort. Nehemiah is devastated, he begins fasting and praying with his community and ultimately senses God’s call to lead the rebuilding effort.
But there is pretty significant opposition to him living out this call. (1) he is a slave, (2) He is a wine-taster; (4) He has no experience in construction or politics. (4) No money. (5) He will be killed if he asks to leave his post. He pitches it to the King, and the King says, “Sure.” Nehemiah says, “Now I know I am called by God and he tells the Israelites when he gets there how the gracious hand of God was upon him and they see all these miraculous doors God is opening and they all say, at one moment in ch. 2, “Let’s Get It On.” You never thought you would hear the words of Marvin Gaye in church, did you. MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, now Marvin Gay—only the people didn’t have sex in mind, they were talking about getting busy on the wall. So chapter 3 details how they actually got it started, and it lists the people and what they started doing. Then, in chapter 4 they face opposition from the Sinister villain Sanballat who acts like a bully with his little brother Tobiah. Then, in chapter 5, we see that he faces more opposition, only this time the problem isn’t an external villain, but it comes from within. Nehemiah has trouble within the ranks. He has morale problems.
V1: “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers.” You better look out, b/c momma ain’t happy. And when momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy. The old saying, “Happy wife, happy life.” The wives, in this case, are hot and bothered. “Honey, get out of the lazyboy, turn off Sportscenter, stop watching NFL reruns, and do something about this.” Well, what is the problem. What has stirred the pot of the women in the community enough to get their hubbies mobilized? Well, you are going to see 3 different groups that are facing problems.
Working Poor (V2): “Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.” These people don’t own a home or land. They are renters and they are living paycheck to paycheck. They have taken off time from work to volunteer in building the wall and missing work has put them on the verge of destitution. Moreover, we see in v3 there is a famine, which has made food much more scarce and expensive. Their in a recession and here is the bottom line: They are about to be panhandling.
Middle-Class: (v3) “Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.” So here is what they are doing. They are taking whatever equity that they had in their homes or business and they are going to the bank and borrowing money on it to eat. And they have no more credit. The bank has closed their line of credit. They don’t have any other options and they are ticked.
Upper-Middle-Class (v4) “Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.” So this group had food to eat, but they couldn’t afford to pay Uncle Sam, which was, in their case, Nehemiah’s boss, King Artaxerxes. So they did the same thing—went to the bank and borrowed against their equity to pay their taxes. So Nehemiah’s troops who are volunteering their time and money are without food, leveraged to the hilt, guido keeps knocking on the door with his baseball bat, their horse and cart has been repoed, their house is either in foreclosure or headed their. And they aren’t happy.
How Bad it Got (desperate times, desperate measures) v5: “Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.” To pay their debts, they sold their kids into slavery. Now this was a relatively common practice in the ancient world known as indentured servitude. See they didn’t have bankruptcy, nor did they have credit cards. So what they did is they made a promise, “My kids will work for you to pay off my debt. That way I can keep working as well to keep the family afloat, and when my debt is paid off, I will get my kids back.
Unfortunately some of the slave owners began to make this form of indentured servitude look and feel more like we think of modern day slavery. Notice 5b zeroes in on the daughters only, and the Hebrew word that is used there for enslaved is a word that carries sexual connatations, which you see in Est. 7:8 where Haman is trying to molest Esther. So what you have is fathers and mothers selling their daughters into sexual slavery. This is how bad things are.
You know, right, that this is happening all over the world. My wife and I did some work with IJM and went to India and Thailand and saw women being sold into sexual slavery. And as we walked down through the red light district in Bangkok, do you know that the vast majority of faces we saw coming out of the brothels were American men. This is why so many women are trafficked into the US now and the problem is so severe right here in our own city.So, what will we do about it in our city. Maybe get Susan Munsey stats…Well, let’s learn from Nehemiah.
Angry: V6 “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.” He was fuming, livid. Nehemiah hears about sexual slavery and insane interests being charged and he loses it, in a sanctified sorta way. So many of you think that Christians shouldn’t get angry. Not true. Listen to Ex. 34, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger…” Slow to anger, not never angry. It takes a whole lot to tick God off, but thank the Lord that he gets angry over injustice and evil. He hates it.
But I don’t want you to think that is just OT stuff. Eph. 4:26, “In your anger, do not sin.” See it says don’t let your anger lead you into sin. But there is nothing wrong with getting angry over a woman being raped; get angry when you see or hear about kids being molested; get angry when kids test scores are as low as they are in our community. Get angry, but just don’t get even on your blog. Just a quick facebook post and I will feel so much better. No--don’t let you anger lead you into sin.
Ponders: v7 “I pondered them in my mind.” I don’t know what his pondering here was. Maybe he did a little yoga and took some deep breaths, maybe when he down to the beach and took a walk, got a massage. Knowing Nehemiah, I guarantee you he prayed. Much like Mary pondering the words of the Lord in her heart in prayer, this is what Nehemiah does. Ponder in prayer.
Pleads: Member our previous sermon where he prayed and posted a guard. Same thing here: ponder and pleads his case “and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen! So I called together a large meeting to deal with them and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!”
Nehemiah says, “You have got to be kidding me. A number of us got together, raise money, and did what Lev. 25 called us to do, which is function as a kinsman redeemer for these children who were enslaved. We bought them back from the foreigners and gave them back to their moms and dads and were getting them involved in the mission of God in building a great city, and now you are selling them right back into slavery again to our Jewish brothers and sisters. Do you really think this is any better? Jewish slavery vs foreign slavery. Now you’re just doing what God absolutely deplores by creating a 1st class status of Jews who are free and a second class status of Jews who aren’t. Slavery is slavery, whether you are a Christian or not. Stop it!
Marc Driscoll made a great point about how we see this happen today, not only in extreme cases of sex trafficking, but actually in a host of ways today. He gave the example of a young woman involved in abusive relationship with a loser of a boyfriend. So he moved in with her, was using her for sex, he was physically and emotional abusive with her. She meets Jesus and becomes a Christian and takes the risk of sharing her life with her community group and she tells them that she feels trapped. She can’t afford to get out and leave him, but she can’t afford to stay either. They people in her community group say, “We’ll help. You need to get free, get away from him. She says I can’t afford to move out and get away. But then she starts dating a guy in the community group who professes to be a Christian. She is starry-eyed and thinks this is going to be so much different. But next thing she knows he is pressuring her to have sex with him and to move in with her and he begins to treat her horribly, all while taking her to church. Right back in same slavery, but at the hands of a Christian this time. Horrible. ??Me: Day laborer getting slaves wages, we hire, and pay them Christian slaves wages
Looking down at shoes: v8b”They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. Guilt as charged, and they know it.
On a roll: v9 “So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? Nehemiah isn’t postmodern, is he. He doesn’t believe that truth is socially constructed. He doesn’t subscribe to a theory built around whether or not it works for you. He says, “I don’t care if what you are doing is working for you financially—it is wrong. The God of the universe determines what is right and wrong and he says we shouldn’t be putting people into slavery and charging our brothers exorbitant interest. Stop it. It is wrong.
Repentance: v10 “I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop!. Remarkable. The governor himself comes out and says, “I am guilt myself. We have been charging interest on our loans and we were wrong to do so.
This is the first chink in Nehemiah’s armor that we see. Up until this point, he has been so Jesus-like in his leadership. Now, we see that Nehemiah, just like everyone of us, needs Jesus. He is a sinner too. And he says, “I am going to stop, and so must you.” If you want to be in relationship with God, if you want to grow spiritually, it starts here—ongoing, regular repentance. That is the mark of true, Biblical leadership.
Justice: v11 “Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them.” Nehemiah isn’t content with mere repentance. He wants justice, and he will stop at nothing less. He says, “It isn’t enough for us to just to say that we are sorry. We must do everything in our power to right the wrong that we have caused, and in this case that means actually giving back the property and the interest that we charged them. Justice means writing wrongs.
We will (12)/prophetic illustration (v13): And then the people say, “We will seek justice in this city. We’ll right the wrong we have caused. And then Nehemiah gives them this prophetic object lesson in v13 to help them give them just a little extra incentive to seek justice. If you don’t make it right, God says I’ll do it for you. I’ll shake your possessions from you and that will show me that.
Friends, this has huge implications for us, personally and corporately as a church. Personally, it means that we must seek to make right the wrongs we cause. If you harm someone’s character and say things about them that are inappropriate or untrue, it isn’t enough to say that you’re sorry. “Look, I told them I am sorry and God forgives me.” And then you throw a little Bible verse on the end—there is non condemnation for those in Christ. No—right the wrong. Go to every person that heard what you said and tell them that you lied and you want to make sure they know that Cindy or Randy didn’t do what you said and isn’t the type of person you made him out to be. (ski boat?)
But think with me. This also really matters for us as a church. We’re called to be about seeking the justice of our city. Nehemiah was leading a group of people in corporate repentance together and he was saying, “Let’s all think about how we can, together, right the wrongs of our city. We need to raise money to get these kids out of slavery, we need to redistribute property. We need to right the wrongs in our city together.
Let me show you how this plays into our future here at Harbor Mid-City. I spent this week with our team at a Christian Community Development Conference that was founded by John Perkins (known as CCDA). We visited one of the most remarkable community development works I have ever even imagined. It was like pouring gasoline on the fire of my dreams for this community. It was explosive.
See here is what I saw. I saw a church full of Nehemiahs called Lawndale Community Church that was in an inner-city African-American community. They did exactly what Nehemiah did in v6, “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.” When I heard their outcry. See one of the 8 core convictions of CCDA is that of community listening. You listen to the community so that you aren’t just doing what you think is best for the community, but rather you empower the community to do what is best for it by listening to them and raising them up to right the wrongs in their own community.
See Nehemiah listened. Wayne Gordon, the pastor of Lawndale Community Church, led his church in listening to the community. And as they became so enmeshed in relationships, they began to form one non-profit as dream upon dream upon dream was birthed. The community needed affordable housing, so they started the Lawndale Development Corporation that began buying and developing and rehabbing homes all over the neighborhood. The community needed a safe place to wash their clothes, so they started a little Laundromat. The community didn’t have affordable or quality health care, so they started Lawndale Christian Health Clinic. The community needed a place for young artists to develop healthy artistic and musical expressions rather than just a string of expletives that were demeaning to women and promoting violence, so they turned an old firehouse into the Firehouse Community Arts Center and they are coming alongside these kids to promote musice, dance, culinary arts, and photography. The youth in the community were constantly ending up in jail and they didn’t have access to the quality legal help they needed that would come alongside them in a redemptive fashion, so they started the Lawndale Christian Legal Center. The kids didn’t have safe places to play or be, so they started the Lawndale Community Center. The community needed a full service restaurant, so guess what they started—the first full service pizza joint serving outstanding deep dish pizza. They had a fitness center, they had a Christian Day Care, and on and on and on. They literally owned a couple city blocks.
See here is what they were doing. One couple relocated into the neighborhood and started doing what Nehemiah did in v6. They listened to the people. They were in relationship and they heard their cries and they got angry. They pondered and prayed and then they began to seek justice. To write the wrongs of the neighborhood together. And they have been doing it for 40 years in the same community. What if we became a community of Nehemiahs committed to seeking justice in City Heights for the next 40 years. We’ve only been here 3 and look at all that we have seen Jesus do. What if we loved our neighbors so well and listened and heard their cries and got angry and began to come alongside them and empower them to right the wrongs in this neighborhood. Community centers, schools—that is just the beginning if we’ll dig in for the long haul, listen, ponder, get angry, seek justice, and here is the big one—trust Jesus.
Nehemiah is a great model, but he can’t empower you to live a life like this. But Nehemiah was really just a pointer to another man who would come a little over 400 years later whose name was Jesus Christ. Like Nehemiah, Jesus heard the cries of his people, he listened to them, and he came down and took on flesh. And he got angry. He saw the injustice going on in his father’s house and he flipped over the tables of those who were taking advantage of others. But unlike Nehemiah, he wasn’t in on the scheme. At long last, a man with no need of repentance—a man who was right with God, a man who was God, a man who, in the words of Micah 6:8, came, doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly all the way up Calvary, carrying the cross for all those who would trust him. And then 3 days later, God issued his verdict with through His resurrection. The just judge had been satisfied. Amazing grace--The death of one righteous man was enough.
Friends,--need closer sentence.
So now
Modern Day Nehemiah’s going to rise up and seek justice:
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Pay Day loans
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Residents in City Heights who are currently suffering injustice—you’re going to be the ones. This suffering is preparing you as a leader. John Perkins
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Lawndale
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Maybe use Lion King/Jeremiah
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Close with gospel
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Generate Hope
V1----Honey, do something. Get out of the lazyboy. Stop watching football.
--some of you are suffering under injustice and you have got to take the courage to sound the alarm. Move out. Tell your community group that you need help. You can be the next John Perkins. Tell his story and what God has used his suffering to create. of
-The problem of the poor
-Nehemiah acts priestly. Doesn’t allow prophetic cause to crush the people. There are needs and we must take care of them.
-Brown describes really well on pg 87ff
-See also notes in Study Bible
-The anger of the liberator
-Jesus overturning tables; in your anger do not sin
-See Brown pg 89. He looks at how Nehemiah engages the emotion, will, & mind to create change. Not enough to just get people mad.
-The action of the liberator
-Systemic Justice
-v8 (see Brown pg 90). Emphasizes Jubilee
-v9 “What you are doing isn’t right.” Isn’t POMO. “I am glad it works for you; I am glad it is true for you.”
-Appeal to Bible (see Brown 93) and Levitical laws against charging interest to Jew and enslaving a Jew
Driscoll
Greatest threat to the health of Christianity is us. Prob in Neh. 5 is external, but internal, not strangers, but friends, not pagans, but Christians. Think about Jesus—Judas was big threat. Acts 20 to Ephesians elders—real problem that you will face is with people within the church.
Root problem is money. Love of money is the root of all evil. Jesus speaks of it more than 25% of his time and Scripture 800 times. Mt. 6—Jesus says you can’t serve both God and money. Second, your treasure follows your heart. If you want to see where your heart is, then see where you spend your money. “I love you God, but I don’t give to you. I love you kids, but I don’t provide meals for you. I love you wife, but no affection.”
V1—women are freaking out. Strategically choose when to freak out. Hank, get off the couch.
V2ff—(1) Famine, financial crisis. Great recession here. (2) Have leveraged everything (borrowed to the hilt). Take all equity out of home and business to pay mortgage and feed family. (3) Taxes were super high. So they would put up their own children as slaves. Indentured servitude. In our day, you declare bankruptcy, rack up credit card debt. No credit cards in those days, but they said, “If I can’t pay off my debt, you can have my kids and they will work for you for free,” and when they pay off the debt, then I’ll get my kids back. Working to rebuild the city and church and volunteering to build God’s mission. You have a fiscal conflict.
Think in terms of righteousness and unrighteousness. Not just 2 kinds of people in Bible (rich/poor), but 4. In Bible, there are:
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Righteous rich people—Earned money in a righteous way, distribute it in a way righteous way. Generous, tithe.
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Unrighteous rich people—get money in the wrong way, and when they get it they are greedy, don’t pay taxes, don’t tithe.
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Righteous poor people—widows, orphans, single moms. Working hard, spending money wisely. Not in sin, just poor. Jesus was working class poor.
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Unrighteous poor people—at casino, in bar, strip club, lazy, won’t work. Want get rich quick scams. When get money, it is gone. Couple days after pay day they are broke.
Me: Rich good, poor bad (democratic theology); rich bad, poor good (repub)
OT—if you are going to loan money to a brother, don’t charger interest.
Pay day loans—These are total shell games. WE’ll give you a loan. OK. Here is my check. We’ll hold it til payday. It is a 100 check and we’ll give you 27 bucks. What is other 73—fees and interest. It is like a billion percent interest. Bible says don’t do this.
God told him not to charge interest to your fellow Christians; don’t sell them into slavery.
Jubilee—they were disobeying God. They were charging exorbitant interest and selling into slavery.
How does Nehemiah respond? Very angry. Ticked. Christians believe in anger. Bible says more than 800 times that God has wrath—that is God’s anger over evil/injustice. Ex. 34—slow to anger. God has a long fuse—not just moody high school kid looking to scrap.
Yeah, but that is God of OT—those were his junior high years, .
Jesus looked at people with indignance; another financial scam and Jesus overturned tables.
Eph. 4—in your anger do not sin. Child is molested—feel angry. Woman raped—get angry. Injustice/evil. Question is what you will do with anger? Eph. 4 says your anger will lead you into sin. Email/voicemail—shouldn’t have done that. Anger is a good, powerful, motivating force—don’t get rid of it. Question isn’t how do I suppress, but how do I channel in the right direction. Women get angry, Nehemiah says, “I agree.” But he doesn’t just rush off, fire off emails.
He takes counsel—we don’t know how long he took. He says, “OK, now what am I going to do.” Then he brings charges against the nobles/officials. He brings charges against rich, powerful people. They aren’t, as Tiger said, above the law (Tiger analogy is me, not Driscoll). He holds a meeting. This is church discipline in the OT. Pt is to compel them to repentance. People who want benefit of the church but take advantage of everyone in it. Not many churches practice this, but we do.
Christian brothers/sisters enslaved, we raised money to buy back, they are getting a fresh start and helping build the wall, and you have reenslaved them, and the only difference is you have enslaved them to Christians. Not progress.
Today: gal in abusive relationship with jerk of boyfriend. Living with, sleeping with, physically abusing her, using her for sex. She meets Jesus and Christians say that you need to get free, get away from him. She says I can’t afford to move out and get away. People say, “We’ll help,” then she comes to church, and a guy who says “I love Jesus,” starts doing the same thing. Maybe this guy is in her community group. They move in together and he starts having sex with each other and he is doing the same thing but in the name of Jesus. Right back in same slavery. Horrible.
Nehemiah says—“They were silent.” Yeah, this is wrong. He says, “Don’t you fear God—you’re going to stand before Jesus.” What are you doing? Also, remember, all non-Christians are watching and they want to see if Bible is true and God is worthwhile. The city has a little city within it called the church and they want to see how well we’re treating one another. They will know we are Christians by our love.
V10—Nehemiah was guilty of same sin. He was taking advantage of poor people by lending money and he publicly repents. People don’t expect leaders to be perfect, but they need to be able to trust, and you learn to trust by humble repentance. Nehemiah is publicly declaring that he is guilty. Leads boldly and repents humbly.
V12—People respond to repentance.
V13—cursed of God if you don’t repent. They actually stopped their behavior. Go and sin no more. Can’t say, “Hey, sorry I ripped you, again. God drunk and drove car and wrecked it.” Stop. By God’s power and grace, you put to death your sin and go live differently.
Make Resitution: Drive buddies car and put a big dent in it, and you can’t just say, “Free in Christ (me: there is now no condemnantion for those in Christ). When you lie about someone, you gotta go to them and everyone who heard it. You busted up their reputation—you broke it, so you must fix it. You gotta make amends. You can’t leave a big mess—clean it up.
They could be gracious to forgive debt, but that is their choice. When people say, “I ripped someone off. Should I repay.” Dads who made life a living hell. I was horrible, gonna pay for counseling, love and serve you, and make restitution.
