Redeeming Broken and Reclaiming the Least
Nehemiah 3: 12-14
John Wesley was the founder of the people called Methodists. Throughout his more than 50 years of ministry, he traveled more than 225,000 miles on horseback, wrote thousands of letters and preached more than 40,000 sermons. He was an advocate for the poor and marginalized. He named and fought against society’s four great ills,: poverty, ignorance or lack of education and disease and war. He created the first credit union as a way of helping the poor avoid debtors’ prison. He fought against the slave trade and for better conditions in prisons, built schools and almshouses, homes for the elderly poor and indigent. He established free medical dispensaries. He started the first Sunday School, to provide educaion for the children working in the factories six days a week. Today, some 78 denominations with members totaling 76 million -- consider him a spiritual father. Despite all of this, he still struggled in his personal life. Even though Wesley was deeply connected to the heart of God, he was distant in his relationship to his wife. Wesley married Molly Vazeille in 1751 and they stayed together for almost two years. But for a lot of that time, Wesley was on the road traveling from one community to the next checking on his preachers and the people called Methodist. As a result, he and Molly argued so much that he moved out. They tried to reconcile several times and each time it looked like they were going to make it but then he would move out again. They never divorced but they also never experienced Christian marriage as God intended it. Now Wesley excelled in a lot of areas and he was perhaps the most influential man of God since the time of Martin Luther and the Reformation and yet one area was in shambles. Wesley always preached about grace, I think in part because John Wesley was broken and he knew it.
When God seeks to heal brokenness in the world, He uses broken people. Our brokenness is directly tied to our humanness. In other words, if you are human, you have some brokenness in your life. Romans 3:23 says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The good news is that God can redeem your humanness and brokenness and use it for His greater purpose. Because of our humanness, all of us experience brokenness. As a result, God seeks to redeem his children. Redemption comes from experiencing the power of God’s grace. But you cannot experience the full redemption of God if you don’t experience the redemption offered to us through Jesus Christ in every area of your life. Throughout all of Scripture, there is a persistent theme: God uses broken people to restore life, bring healing and giving purpose in other broken people.
That leads us to our first Scripture verse today. You’ve heard the saying, “Dung happens.” Well, sometimes dung doesn’t just happen, we bring it upon ourselves. Verse 14 “The Dung Gate was repaired by Malkijah son of Recab, ruler of the district of Beth Hakkerem. He rebuilt it and put its doors and bolts and bars in place.” The worst assignment in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was the Dung Gate. No one wanted that job and no one wanted to be associated with the Dung Gate. The Dung Gate was just that, the place where everyone in Jerusalem came and dumped their human waste and all of their trash. This was the gate which opened and led right to the city dump so every man, woman and child dumped their waste there day in and day out. Who would want to work on a place like this? The sight, the smell! Any place but the Dung Gate. Who had the privilege to work on this Gate? His name was Malkijah. He was a prominent priest who lived in the city. He was a holy man, someone who was called to follow the law to the letter, to exemplify holiness in the city and to lead others to do the same.
How did Malkijah get assigned to such a crummy job? In Ezra 10:18, 20 there is a list of priests who were convicted of intermarriage with the Gentiles, which was forbidden by God’s law the moment they entered the Holy Land, but even more so for a holy man of God. To marry a Gentile who worshipped pagan gods was not only considered unclean and impure but unholy. Why? The Gentiles didn’t worship and serve the one true God and they didn’t follow the food laws of the Bible. Thus, a Gentile was sure to lead any spouse away from God. So here you have a priest who was supposed to set the standard for holiness during the day but by night he was sleeping with the enemy. Think about that, because God said you shall have no other gods but me. As a result, Malkijah was demoted to a dismal job. But note this: he was still not dismissed from God’s purpose of rebuilding the brokenness which surrounded everyone. Is that the good news? Sometimes you have been demoted or relegated to the worst responsibilities but the good thing about God is that God demoted Malkijah but he did not dismiss him from serving God’s greater purpose in the world.
Our brokenness can disconnect us from God but if you are redeeming God’s brokenness in the world, it is imperative to re-connect to God’s grace. How did Malkijah do that? He repented. To repent literally means to go the opposite direction or do the opposite thing. So all of the priests who had intermarried had to dissolve their marriage to the Gentile women. This is their act of repentance. A sin of commission is where I actively participate in an act of wrongdoing. “I’ve done it, I’m guilty, God forgive me and give me strength to correct what I’ve done and the strength not to do it again.” There are times when we need to take action to get ourselves right with God or back in line with his will. And that is what Malkijah and the other priests did when they dissolved their marriages, because marriage to Gentiles was forbidden. They could not remain a priest or a Jew, in other words, in good standing with God while they were still married to a Gentile. As a result, Malkijah could help rebuild the walls.
All of us have fallen short of God’s expectations but that does not prevent us from being used by God in His work because all of us are justified freely by God’s grace through Jesus Christ when we repent and act. Grace is receiving from God what we can’t earn and what we don’t deserve. God knows grace is the thing that we need most to further God’s purpose in the world. The fact is everyone in this room needs God’s grace and we need it daily in our lives. Grace is released in our lives when we repent of our sin. But we also know grace isn’t prescriptive, it’s progressive. That is to say, grace is not a one-time thing in your life but should be a growing presence in your life as you grow more fully in the person of Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever!” We are to grow in grace and to do that we must continually re-connect to God’s grace. Grace is not a one time experience but a lifetime process. Every day we need to experience some of God’s grace. Everyone needs to not only realize they need God’s grace but to experience it pouring into their lives. God’s grace can redeem you, God’s grace can use you and God’s grace can protect you.
When you realize your brokenness and your need for God’s grace in your life, then God can begin to do amazing things in your life. Once you re-connect to God’s grace, then you can claim God’s passion and purpose for your life which he built within you when he gave you life. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been, God can redeem it and use you for His purposes. Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.” Even though there have been failures and brokenness in your life, God can use it for his greater purpose. The worst thing that has happened in your life, the worst mistake or mishap, the worst thing that you have ever done, God says, “My grace can cover it and I turn it around to be used for my redemptive plan.”
Third, God can use the least. I want to go back and touch on a verse we looked at two weeks ago. Now the first thing we need to do is to realize we hear this Scripture, we hear all Scripture, through our cultural context. Yet, to fully understand it, we must hear Scripture in its original cultural context. Women were thought of very differently in the days of Nehemiah than they are today. They were non-citizens and considered to be property. They had no rights and no liberties. Mike Slaughter tells the story of recently flying to Germany. It was early in the morning and he got up to stretch his legs. There was a group of businessmen who were gathered around the bathrooms which on those flights is usually by the emergency exit and thus has more room to stand. They were all Jewish and had gathered to pray. They put on their prayer shawls with their long tassels, strapped a Scripture to their forehead and then with leather bands, strapped scriptures to their wrists. Then they began to rock back and forth and prayed in Hebrew these words, “Dear God thank you that I was not born a woman or a Gentile.” That prayer reflects the common attitude of Nehemiah’s day.
And yet women played a key role in God’s plan of rebuilding the Holy City of Jerusalem. King Xerxes of Persia was planning the genocide of the Jewish people, not realizing that his wife Esther was a Jew. Esther, living in luxury and the seat of power, had become disconnected from the plight of her own people. So her uncle sent her this note: Esther, “do not think that just because you are in the king’s house, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you are silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.” Esther 3:13-14 It’s doesn’t matter who you are or who you are not, God can use you right where you are. He can use even use the lowest of the low to accomplish his great purposes. Absolutely nothing and no one is going to thwart God’s plan. So if you choose to bypass God’s invitation to participate in His work and plan of salvation, then God will choose another. So if you know of an injustice and you just sit on your assets and not do anything then God is going to pick the person next to you. You know what, this life is my one shot and I want to make it count, what about you? And Esther decided to go to the king and intercede on behalf of her people, saying, “if I am going to perish, I will perish.” Esther 3:15b It doesn’t matter who you think you are or who you have been told you are, or who you think you are not, God can use you if you just yield yourself to him for his great purposes. God will honor that, even if it comes at great sacrifice. If there was just one Esther among you, it would make my ministry worthwhile. Would you speak out on behalf of the poor for affordable house? Would you help keep many of the Mexicans and Latin Americans who are here helping us rebuild our city, from becoming victims of crime? Would you take a stand against racial discrimination?
You can be the voice of God. You can be the hands and feet of Jesus to accomplish his will. But it is one thing to say you will and another to step up in the moment. How do you know you would have reacted in such situations? There’s specific steps you can take. It starts by accepting God’s grace in our lives and realizing no matter who you are or what you have done, God can use you. Second, you have to yield yourself, make yourself available to God’s will and God’s work of justice, righteousness and salvation in the world. That means trusting God. Third, and this is the most difficult, you have to always be prepared and on the look out. You never know when those opportunities are going to come. So you have to remain vigilant. It’s so easy to get so engrossed in your to do lists, your commitments and your activities that you fail to look at the world through God’s eyes. This is one reason why John Wesley found it necessary to set aside time for pray and Scripture reading every three hours of the day Any longer than that, and he felt himself disconnected from God and the leading of His Spirit. You’ve got to remain vigilant and in touch with the leading of God’s Spirit. That way when you see an injustice today, you take a stand, speak out and then begin rebuilding a broken life or situation. That’s what it means to say yes to Jesus Christ because suddenly you become the hands and feet and voice of Jesus. You become a difference maker. Jesus did not come into the world just to save a few. He came to save every person that they might know hope, shalom and the opportunity to better themselves.
Before we leave chapter 3, there’s one other group we need to look at who teach us: if you don’t join in the work, you’re missing out on the blessings of God. Nothing is a greater blessing than being used by God. Now most people worked, but some shirked their responsibility. Verse 5 reads: "The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors." Tekoa was a town about 11 miles from Jerusalem, and while the men of Takoa commuted to the job site; the nobles from Tekoa called in sick. Actually, the text says that they refused to participate in the work of God because they didn’t want to submit themselves to the orders of the supervisors overseeing the rebuilding of the wall. Nehemiah is an using agricultural imagery that describes a "stiff-necked" ox who refuses to be yoked. That was beneath them. They were too important to get their hands dirty. But in reality it was just an excuse.
You’ve heard the excuses. I’ve done my time. It’s time for someone else to take my place in the church. Tell that to 94 year old Leland from Ginghamsburg UMC who intentionally starts spiritual conversations with strangers at the donut shop and invites them to church with him. He’s brought 20 people into church over the last few years. Or how about the excuse, I’m homebound and limited physically. Tell that to Dorothy White of Frazier Memorial UMC who is on oxygen and confined to her home. And yet she is an active member of their Care Team and annually send out more than 500 cards sharing words of hope, encouragement and consolation to those hurting and in need. Or I’m too busy. I’ll serve when I get more time. Tell that to Jim Taylor who is the President of a multi-million dollar company in Little Rock and yet weekly arrives at church at 5 AM for the Raising a Modern Day Knight ministry teaching some 100 men who are gathering to learn what it means to mentor their sons in the faith and prepare them for manhood. This President and CEO who logs more than 60 hours a week sets up the sound and video system, tables and chairs as well as sets out breakfast for those attending. Or I’m too old and tired. Pattye Hewitt, the Associate Pastor of First Methodist Slidell tells the story of having just arrived at the church 6 weeks before Katrina. After the storm had receded and people were let back into town, she was walking through their storm-ravaged sanctuary with two other members when she heard noises coming from the hallway behind the sanctuary. She went back to investigate and found Dale Cavenham, an 86 year old member trudging through the mud and debris of the storm’s aftermath with his walker. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. Pattye said that she knew Dale had left his home which had sustained damaged, and even though he was not supposed to drive, he made his way to church. Her heart went out to him as she asked, “What on earth are you doing here?” And with a quiver in his voice, he said, “I just love this church. Look at this mess. Somebody’s got to start cleaning this up and it might as well be me.”
