We all know how fairy tales are meant to end. From no age, we’ve heard the stories of Cinderella, or Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty. And they all the same way, with a fairy tale ending. You know how it goes: And they all lived happily ever after. We know how fairy tales end - and we are brought up to have the same kinds of expectation for our own real life stories. But I don’t have to tell you that real life stories don’t always end in the fairy tale way.
Too often we see in others, or experience in our own lives that, actually, things don’t always work out the way we expect, and people don’t always have the happy ever after.
I wonder if you were surprised when you heard the closing chapter of Nehemiah’s story? No matter what way you look at it, this is far from a happy ever after. Just in case you need to be brought up to speed, we’ll do a quick recap. Nehemiah had been cupbearer to the king of the Persian empire. He had been born in exile, far from Jerusalem. He had heard of the state of the city (walls broken down, gates burned with fire), and the people of the city (in great trouble and disgrace). And so he wept, and prayed, and answered God’s call to build up the city and the people - so that, in time, God’s promised Messiah Jesus would come from that nation.
And this book has told Nehemiah’s story - oftentimes like a journal, where Nehemiah records what happened, and also his personal thoughts and reflections on what was happening. And through the first twelve chapters, we’ve seen how God was gracious to him, and helped him and the people to complete the work, building the city wall in 52 days (despite opposition, taunts and threats); and building up the people of God through hearing, understanding and obeying God’s word. A day of repentance brought about a new agreement to follow God’s Law. And last week we saw how they celebrated the dedication of the wall, with much joy and rejoicing. That would have been the moment to end the movie, to roll the credits, and rejoice in all that God had done. And the caption on the screen would have said: ‘All they all lived happily ever after.’
Except, that’s not quite how everything turned out. From the highs of chapter 12, we plunge into the depths of chapter 13. And everything seems to have gone wrong. All Nehemiah’s hard work seems to have been for nothing. And so Nehemiah records what happened - and with it, records a series of prayers in the light of those events, each time asking God to ‘remember me.’
We get the timescale in verse 6. Nehemiah had arrived in Jerusalem in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, and in the thirty-second year and returned to Susa, to the king. Some time later (we’re not told how long), he comes back to Jerusalem. And it’s on his return that he discovers how things have been going in his absence. And to his horror, he discovers that their determination to follow God’s Law has slipped away, and they’re repeating the disobedience of previous generations of the people of God.
So what went wrong? And how would Nehemiah sort it all out? That’s what we see in this chapter. And the first instance is in verses 1-3, where they were actually over-zealous in applying God’s Law. Mostly, when we think of falling away from God, we think of letting things go, not being so strict, of licentiousness, whatever goes. But obedience to God is like walking a tightrope. On one hand, there’s the danger of being casual about things (we’ll see that in the rest of the chapter), but on the other side of the tightrope, there’s the danger of legalism, trying to be more strict than God.
So when the people hear the Book of Moses being read, and they hear that ‘no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God’, the people are over-zealous in their response to the Law. In verse 3, we see that ‘they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.’
But that was an over-reaction. It wasn’t even what God had said! In verse 2 we see why the Ammonites and Moabites were to be excluded. ‘Because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam to call a curse down on them.’ We’re back in the days when God had rescued his people from Egypt. And the Ammonites and Moabites were afraid of the Israelites, so that they refused to help them in the wilderness, and tried to call down curses. God turned Balaam’s curses into blessing).
So with verses 1-3 in front of you, listen to Deuteronomy 23:3, and compare and contrast. ‘No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation.’ Now, how did they get it wrong? By this stage, 1000 years later, they were long past the tenth generation, so any Ammonites or Moabites who wanted to come and worship the true God should have been welcomed; after all, Ruth was a Moabite, and she came to worship the God of Israel, and even ended up in the Messiah’s family line! But also, the short-term restriction of ten generations had only been for those two nations. Not, as verse 3 says, ‘all who were of foreign descent.’ They’re over-zealous, and getting it just as wrong.
But let’s move on to see the opposite danger of letting things slip. We see that from verse 4, with the neglect of the God’s house. Within the temple buildings, there were a number of storerooms, with a priest in charge of them. Now, this priest, Eliashib, he was closely associated with a name that should be familiar - Tobiah. He had been one of the main opponents of Nehemiah. And yet Eliashib allows Tobiah to move in to the large room in the temple buildings. It would be like us sub-letting the Vestry.
With Tobiah moved in, there was no room for the things that should have been stored in the storeroom - the grain offerings, incense, temple articles, and tithes. And so, things had slipped. Verse 7 describes it as an ‘evil thing’ and so it’s no wonder that Nehemiah threw all of Tobiah’s stuff out of the room.
Imagine Tobiah coming home, and finding everything he owns out on the street. The locks changed. And no room to move his stuff back in, because Nehemiah has purified the rooms and moved all the equipment and offerings back into the room again.
So why was this such an evil thing? Tobiah was doing his friend a favour, but he was damaging the worship of the temple. We see that because of the knock-on effect of Tobiah’s occupation of the room. With nowhere to store the offerings, the Levites and singers hadn’t been paid (in the food they were to eat), and so they had gone back home to their own fields. So you turn up to temple worship, you wait for the choir to sing, and there’s no choir. You look for the Levites to do their bit in the worship, and they’re not around either. The house of God is suffering, and the worship of God is suffering.
Remember back in the big agreement everyone had agreed to in chapter 10? What was the last line summary of the whole thing? ‘We will not neglect the house of our God.’ (10:39). Yet now, Nehemiah asks the question in verse 11: ‘Why is the house of God neglected?’
Nehemiah’s remedy is to re-establish the tithes (from ‘All Judah’), and to appoint different men to take charge of the storerooms, men who were ‘considered trustworthy.’ (13). And after that, we get the first of Nehemiah’s prayers: ‘Remember me for this, O my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.’
He’s asking God to remember him, but there almost seems to be a bit of self-pity - he has been faithful, even if everyone else hasn’t been.
In the next section, the problem is the desecrating of the Sabbath. Again, this had been part of the big agreement, that they wouldn’t buy from neighbouring peoples on the Sabbath day. But again, they have slipped away from God’s standards. Men from Judah are treading winepresses, bringing in grain, as well as wine, grapes, figs and other kinds of loads. In other words, they are working on the day of rest. And others are getting in on the act too - the men of Tyre, bringing in fish to sell on the Sabbath. So Nehemiah confronts the nobles of Judah, the leaders of the people, and rebukes them (17). ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing - desecrating the Sabbath day? Didn’t your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.’ History was repeating itself.
The remedy was that Nehemiah ordered the gates to be shut, and not opened during the Sabbath. A few times the merchants came and spend the whole night outside Jerusalem, but Nehemiah chased them. And again, we get the second of Nehemiah’s prayers: ‘Remember me for this also, O my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.’ (22)
He’s still appealing for God to remember him based on his actions, but now he’s asking for mercy, according to God’s great love (or steadfast love).
In the last section, we see the problem of inter-marrying with the surrounding nations. It’s not so much that other nations are wrong in themselves, it’s more that they don’t worship Israel’s God - it’s the not being unequally yoked with unbelievers that we find in the New Testament. But Nehemiah discovers the problem for himself with these marriages - half the children ‘did not know how to speak the language of Judah.’ In other words, they didn’t know and couldn’t understand God’s word and couldn’t worship Israel’s God.
Nehemiah is frustrated by this ‘terrible wickedness’ and takes out his frustrations on some of the men - rebuking, beating, cursing, and pulling out their hair. Why? Because he sees history repeating itself all over again. He points to Solomon, the great king, but he was led into sin ‘by foreign women.’
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that the grandson of the high priest was married to a foreigner, and no ordinary foreigner at that, but the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. Sanaballat had been the one who had mocked the work (2:19), had plotted against the work (4:7), and had tried to frustrate the work (6:2-5). Back in 2:20, Nehemiah had said: ‘As for you, you have no share in Jerusalem.’ Yet now, here he is, the father-in-law of the high priestly family.
So now we get another of Nehemiah’s prayers - the same word, but a different sentiment: ‘Remember them, O my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.’ (29). Remember them, not in blessing, but in judgement. That’s the tone of that prayer. And it comes out of a passion for God’s glory and holiness.
The remedy comes in verse 30 - Nehemiah purifying the priests and Levites of everything foreign, assigning them duties, and making provision for the worship of God in the temple through firewood and firstfruits.
By the end, Nehemiah appears to be demoralised, and disappointed. His efforts for reformation and revival have been frustrated, time and again. So what are we to make of his story?
We see that just trying really hard to keep God’s Law doesn’t really work. None of us can do it. We’ll fall into legalism or licence. And we simply can’t do it.
We see that sometimes, even our best efforts for God don’t seem to make much of a difference - at least not in our lifetime. Yet here we are, two and a half thousand years later, reading the story of Nehemiah, warts and all, something that Nehemiah could probably never have imagined possible.
And we see that while we may not have the fairytale ending in this life, God has prepared something so much better for his people. The book finishes with Nehemiah’s final prayer. A short prayer. Gone are his merits. Gone are his brownie points. And he closes with a simple prayer that goes like this: ‘Remember me with favour, O my God.’ A simple prayer for grace.
It’s a prayer not unlike the other prayer we heard in our second reading. It too came from a man at the end of himself, yet a man who was the complete opposite of Nehemiah. Nehemiah had struggled to obey God’s word, the other man was hanging on a cross, his crimes having caught up with him. Yet he prays a similar prayer that Nehemiah’s: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
There’s no reason why Jesus should remember him. No list of merits, achievements and accomplishments. But none are much of a help. We simply need to come, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. And Jesus, the innocent one, dying on the cross for lawbreakers and sinners, gives this other dying man a great promise - the assurance of salvation: ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’
Jesus answers prayers like that, and prayers like Nehemiah’s last one, because he is the Saviour of religious types and sinner types and all types of people. And what is promised? Much better than a fairytale ending - paradise itself. No matter how things go in this life, or how our lives come to an end, like a fairytale or not, we have this promise of paradise to look forward to, and to enjoy forever.
This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 3rd March 2019.
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