When It’s A New Year And You’re Already Tired
Nehemiah 2:11-20
Dr. Virgil Gulker, a 1969 graduate of Grand Valley State University, calls himself a serial social entrepreneur. He was a social worker and outreach coordinator in the Grand Rapids area in the late 1970’s, so he was well aware of the challenges the poor face, and he was deeply committed to helping people who were trapped in the cycle of poverty. He is also a deeply committed follower of Christ. And he knew from talking to numerous pastors and Christian friends that there were many, many people who felt the same compassion for those in need, but they didn’t know how to help.
In many cases, he knew of people in need of help who lived in the same neighborhoods as the people who wanted to help. People who could repair a broken furnace for someone who couldn’t afford a repair man. People who could build a handicap ramp for someone who’d had a stroke and couldn’t afford to have one built. People who could band together to help cover the rent for someone who’d just lost their job and was seeking another, or for someone who had been diagnosed with a serious illness or disability and could no longer work. People who could fill in the gaps that so many others fall through. And so, in 1977, he founded Love In The Name of Christ, Love INC. for short, an organization committed to helping those in need find the help they need, and those willing to help find those in need of help. They do that by mobilizing local churches to work together to tackle the challenges of homelessness and hunger and poverty in ways that no one church or follower of Christ could do alone. It’s a centralized place, aware of all of the various resources in the community, that people can call when they’re in trouble.
Love, INC., still based in Jenison, MI near Grand Rapids, quickly grew with chapters forming in communities all over the country. At one point, we had one in Traverse City. We still do, although it operates under different names now. In 2008 LOVE INC mobilized over 300,000 volunteers from 9,000 churches to respond to over 1,000,000 people in need just in the United States, and was active in two other countries.
Well, as Love INC. grew, Dr. Gulker turned his attention to a related but distinct challenge – the challenge of at-risk children. He knew the statistics: Every 4 minutes a child is arrested for drug abuse; every 8 minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime; every 5 hours a child or youth under 20 commits suicide; 1 in 3 children are a year or more behind in school. Those were the statistics in 1993. That was 30 years ago. The numbers aren’t better today.
And so he gathered input from sociologists and social workers, law enforcement, health professionals, educators, and child development experts, and then he asked these professionals a provocative question: how can churches have the greatest impact on America’s children? One response to his question appeared at the top of everyone’s lists: Fill the relational voids in kids’ lives. Again, Dr. Gulker looked at the problem, and then he looked to the body of Christ. And in 1995, Kids Hope USA was born – an organization committed to sending adults to meet with children who need relationships with reliable, caring adults, in the schools, starting with the earliest grades. Again, Kids Hope USA has been active in Traverse City. I served as a Kids Hope mentor for a young man at Eastern Elementary School for several years. I can still remember when he asked me what Kids Hope staff simply call “the question.” “How many other kids in the school do you meet with?” “I don’t meet with any other kids buddy. I’m here just for you.” “Just me?” “Just you.”
Dr. Gulker has also started a program called “Love Our Kids” that provided mentors for inner-city children in 3 major US cities; a program called “Love Our Children” that provided mentors for children whose families were registered with the federal W.I.C. and Head Start programs; and he administered the first two-year college education program in the United States to award academic degrees to inmate students in a maximum-security prison. This took place at Attica, New York’s Correctional Facility with assistance from Batavia Community College.
Dr. Gulker doesn’t run FROM society’s biggest challenges. He runs TOWARD them. Actually, it might be more accurate to say he runs right AT them, and he throws the body of Christ at them, knowing that it is there that he will find the people who won’t back down from an intimidating challenge.
Nehemiah knew exactly what that feels like. Turn with me to the Old Testament historical book of Nehemiah 2:11-20. Babylon had overtaken Israel and Judah, destroying Jerusalem in the process. The best and the brightest of the Jews were taken to live in exile in Babylon, and people from other lands were sent to live in and around Jerusalem with the Jews who were left behind. And then Babylon fell to Persia.
Nehemiah was a Jew, living in exile in what was now the Persian empire. And he was clearly a man of obvious intelligence, charisma, and talent, because he had risen to the position of cupbearer to the emperor. A cupbearer was an high ranking officer whose job was to pour and serve the drinks at the royal table. Kings and emperors were often in constant fear of plots and intrigues such as poisoning, so a person had to be regarded as thoroughly trustworthy to be cupbearer. He would guard against poison in the king’s cup, and was sometimes required to swallow some of the drink before serving it. His confidential relationship with the king often gave him a position of great influence. The position of cup-bearer was greatly valued and given only to a select few. And Nehemiah, a Jewish layman and obviously wise and gifted leader, was cupbearer to Artaxerxes I, ruler of the Persian empire.
And at one point he asked his brother, who had traveled back and forth between the city of Susa, the Persian capital, and Jerusalem, how things were in Jerusalem, and how the people of God who had been left behind there were doing. And his brother’s answer broke his heart. Look back at Nehemiah 1:3. Enemies surround the city on every side, the city walls are in ruins, and morale is low. Nothing is good there. And that answer broke Nehemiah’s heart completely. Look at V. 4.
Nehemiah is completely broken by what he hears. He knows he needs to do something, but … what? He had a good life in a powerful ruler’s court. He was wealthy and important. And he was 900 miles from Jerusalem. 500 miles as the crow flies, but that was across a barren desert. No one went that way. So it was 900 miles via the roads. It was so far away. And yet, it was the people of God, and the city of God. His heart wanted to do something. Anything, to help. His brain said, “Yeah, what? What can you possibly do? One man, 900 miles away? Just keep your nose to the grindstone here. Don’t let something happening so far away get to you.” But he couldn’t shake the images in his mind of the city of God in ruins, the people of God a laughingstock, depressed and downtrodden, struggling to survive. He couldn’t shake those images because God wouldn’t let him shake them. For four months Nehemiah fasted and prayed and mourned, wondering what he could do. It was an overwhelming challenge.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the challenges we face in this world, isn’t it? The non-stop news cycle, brought to us in real time on social media, can lead us to the brink of despair, can’t it? Ukraine and Russia. Israel and Palestine. North Korea and China. Iran. An unending barrage of conflicts in many African nations. Wild fires. Deadly storms. Volcanoes. The opioid crisis. Shootings in schools. In peaceful neighborhoods. It all just gets to be … to much, and we shut down. We go numb. Or worse, we get calloused to it all.
Maybe you look at all of the needs right here, around us, in our neighborhood. The people in need of food and meals and attention. The people who have needs we just can’t meet. People who come through our doors with special needs and special circumstances. And you look around you on Sunday morning and you think, how can WE, this small church, meet these needs.
Or maybe, for you, it isn’t overwhelm from what’s happening globally or nationally, or even right here in our community. Maybe its what’s happening in your own life. An addiction you can’t shake. A broken relationship or a series of broken relationships. A broken family. A lost job. Failing health. A broken body that doesn’t allow you to work full time anymore. What has you, standing on the cusp of a new year – 2024 – already feeling exhausted as you think about the challenges we will face, might face, could face, this year?
When God turns your attention to something – a challenge in our own life that he wants to overcome, or a challenge in your community, or in our nation, or in this world, you would do well to pay attention, because God is not in the business of letting things go. And “What can someone as insignificant as me possibly to about this?” isn’t an answer he’ll accept. You see, if you follow Christ, you are a citizen of the Kingdom of God, and you were made to have a real, lasting impact. It may not be felt around the globe, but whether its in your own house, or your extended family, or your community, or around the world, you were made to have an impact.
You are deeply loved by God, and Jesus died in your place, so that your sin could be forgiven. But Jesus also loves the people around you who are struggling. And because he loves you AND them, he invites you into the process of bringing his love and grace and mercy and life to those around you. You were made to have an impact in the Kingdom of God, and for the Kingdom of God. So when God places something or someone on your heart, you would do well to pay attention. Even if it seems overwhelming, because while our resources are very limited, God’s are not, and if God brings you to it, God will help you do it.
Now, notice what Nehemiah did first, after he got to Jerusalem. Look at V. 11. After he convinced the most powerful man in the world to let him make the trip and rebuild Jerusalem, and then made preparations for the trip and for his stay there, which would be a very, very long stay … years, and then made the 900 mile journey itself – that’s what he had to do just to get himself into position to do what God was asking him to do – after all of that, when Nehemiah finally got to Jerusalem, he rested for 3 days. Yes, God’s resources are unlimited, but ours aren’t and we need to rest SO THAT we can work. God built a cycle of rest one day in seven for the Jewish people. He built the same cycle into their culture for land, which was to be rested one year every seven. We are wired by God to operate on a cycle of activity and achievement followed by rest. Before tackling the problem, Nehemiah took the time to replenish his resources. The problem was no less urgent. In fact, it was now in his face. But he knew that before he faced the problem, he needed to rest, to replenish himself physically and emotionally.
Athletes have learned that how they recover from exertion is just as important as how they exercise and practice. That’s true of all of us. We need to allow for smaller periods of time daily, longer periods of time weekly, and even longer periods of time annually, to rest. Getting away from the problem or challenge for a bit sometimes gives us new perspectives on it. But some of us can’t get away from the challenge, because it’s right there in front of us, even when we’re resting. An addiction. A child with a disability. Our own disability. A broken relationship. When that happens, when we can’t take “time off” because the challenge is a part of our lives, we need to give ourselves grace. Permission to find a caregiver every once in a while to help. Permission to call a friend. Permission to cry. To mourn. To laugh.
But no break in the action lasts forever. After his long and grueling time of preparation and travel, and then three days of rest, Nehemiah went out at night to take a look at the city. To see for himself, up close, what was really going on. And it wasn’t good. Look at Vv. 13-15. At one place, there wasn’t even room for him or his donkey to get through, the pile of rubble was so massive. He was in the Kidron Valley where it runs through Jerusalem at that point. It’s a place where the building were terraced down into the valley. And when the Babylonian army destroyed the walls holding the terraces in place, all of those buildings, levels upon levels built into the side of the hill on both sides of the valley, came tumbling down into the valley. All of those buildings came tumbling down the slope on top of one another. It was wholesale devastation. It would be a challenging clean up for a modern crew with cranes and bulldozers and excavators. They were going to be doing this by hand and by horse. The task may have seemed huge from 900 miles away, in the king’s dining room. It was even bigger as he stood there, literally staring it down in the dark of night. But difference-makers force themselves to stare the evil, the challenge, the task God has for them in the eye. They don’t shrink from it or hide from it or pretend it isn’t there. They face it.
Because they know they aren’t facing it alone. Nehemiah had already spent four months praying and talking to God about this task God was placing before him. When Nehemiah heard his brother’s report about conditions in Jerusalem, his heart broke and he fasted and prayed and cried for days, pouring his heart out to God. And God heard him and guided him. And when opposition arose and discouragement started to set in, God sustained him. Look at Vv. 17-20.
Three opponents, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, seek to thwart Nehemiah and the work he is raising up the people of Jerusalem to do. Geshem was an Arab who controlled business interests in the region. Sanballat is a Babylonian name. He was likely descended from the people sent by Babylon to live near Jerusalem and intermarry with the remaining people when they deported the best of the Jews to live in Babylon. He was a political leader in the region. And Tobiah is a Jewish name. He was another local governor in the region under the Persian king. His problem was likely his ego. How dare another Jew come in here and try to fix things without talking to ME about it first. And they all stood to benefit from keeping Jerusalem just as it was – a pile of rubble. Materialistic interests, political objections, and religious sensibilities all united in opposition to what God was doing through Nehemiah in Jerusalem.
When you seek to tackle a problem, whether it’s inside you or in your family or your community, there WILL be resistance. There will be those who say it cannot be done, or it should not be done. Whether you’re fighting your own addiction or seeking to heal a broken family or fighting poverty or homelessness or hunger, there will be voices that say, “It can’t be done. It shouldn’t be done.” And if you can silence those two voices, you’ll hear another one saying “Who do you think you are to take this on? You aren’t enough.” When that happens, do what Nehemiah did. Tell your challenge, your problem, your task, and Satan, “I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God. All I know is that this is something God wants done. I know it is a big challenge. But God is bigger. And God hears me. God guides me. And God will sustain me. He has brought me to it, and he will help me do it. To God alone be the glory.” Let us pray.
