Reading from the Hebrew Scripture, Nehemiah, Chapter 2, verses 17 & 18 (NRSV):
Then I, Nehemiah, said to them, "You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace." I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me, and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then they said, "Let us start building!" So they committed themselves to the common good.
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| Rebuilding the Walls of Jerusalem by C.F. Vos |
Ladies and Gentlemen, member institutions of Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith and guest institutions, elected officials and citizen leaders in our communities…
Today you see the trouble we are in! Unlike Jerusalem of Nehemiah’s time, the trouble we are in.. is not wild animals entering the city through burned gates. It is NOT a lack of walls to protect us from marauding enemy tribes.
Rather, today the trouble we are in.. is threats to the availability of affordable health care for all.
Today the trouble we are in is public education that does not prepare too many of our children for college or the workforce—even when they finish high school.
Today the trouble we are in is rising college tuition rates, even as our institutions of higher education struggle to survive deep and devastating budget cuts by cutting middle class jobs, and courses and programs our city and state need to produce the workforce of the future.
Today, the trouble we are in is more and more of our youth stagnating in jail instead of contributing to the common good.
But, my friends, TODAY Northern and Central Louisiana Interfaith says, Let us start building!
And let us do it in much the same way Nehemiah did. Do you remember how that went?
Nehemiah did not go off and hire or enslave a huge labor force to do the job for the Israelites. He didn’t use the power and wealth of the king to force a solution or throw money at the problems.
Rather, Nehemiah organized. He understood the Interfaith ironclad rule: Never do for others what those others are able to do themselves. He knew that the people and the clergy and the elected officials were able—and therefore needed—to do it themselves.
And so he showed them that the self-interest of each of them was interconnected to the self-interest of everyone else. That’s what he meant by “the common good.”
“The common good” happens when people recognize that whatever their differences in background and style of worship and vocations and interests, some things are too big for individuals and families to accomplish on their own.
Things like building walls and educating children, making sure that none of them fall through the cracks and that all of them get what they need to achieve their potential—that’s a job that requires everyone working together.
So Nehemiah set the Isrealites to building the wall, each person and group contributing as able. Chapter 3 begins with the high priest and his fellow priests rebuilding the Sheep Gate. And next to them, the men of Jericho. And next to them a family….
And on and on it goes for 30+ verses—Nehemiah naming the groups of clergy and the elected officials and the tradesmen and families and ethnic groups—all working together to rebuild the wall, “each opposite his own house” Nehemiah tells us in Chapter 3 verse 29.
And they had to have been talking and listening to each other all the while they were building because—lo and behold—they didn’t end up a bunch of wall fragments, a tower here and a gate over there, scattered across the landscape.
No! They ended up with a perfectly interconnected, seamless wall, each piece joining with the next piece. And in celebration, the Israelites broke into two groups, walked in opposite directions along the top of the wall—all the way around the city, until they met again over the sheep gate, and there they sang and worshiped and dedicated their wall.
Let us get our kids out of jail and off the street and into a classroom or a living wage job so they can become citizens and tax payers!
Healthy children do better in school. Let us make sure that families—all of our families—can get the health care they need without financial ruin.
This city and region needs nurses, accountants, teachers, communicators, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs. Let us make sure our institutions of higher learning have the resources they need to educate our people for the jobs and the economy of the 21st Century!
And the people all said… AMEN!
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