18

“How do we finish this?” I asked Nehemiah.

He shrugged and shook his head. “That’s not my problem. I completed my great work. You have to finish yours, great or not.”

“But you had a hard time wrapping up your memoir, didn’t you? I mean, you were pretty frustrated at the end of your story.”

“Is that how you read it? I did get a little indignant when I came back and saw what had happened to the people, but I wasn’t frustrated at the end.”

“You’re going to have to help me see that,” I said. “Because you were pulling out hair.”

He smiled. “It made an impression. But you need to look closely at the stories. I was making a point about promises. Let me suggest a pattern for looking at those last three stories. Look for: 1) What was wrong;  2) What I said and did;  3) What I prayed.”

I took a couple minutes to read Nehemiah 13:10-14. And then I said, “Okay, in the first story the Levites weren’t getting their allowance. So you said, ‘Why is the house of God neglected?’ And then you called the Levites back to work, you called the nobles to accountability, and you appointed responsible leaders. You prayed that God would remember you for your service.”

“Good. That one was easy,” he said. “But I want you to notice something. These people were doing exactly what they had promised not to do.”

“What do you mean?”  I said.

“Look back at the promises we all made.^[1] There is great detail in our promises about bringing the appropriate tithes and offerings. We go to great lengths about all the first of every crop stuff.”

“You know, I’m curious. I remember back to a question I asked you when we talked about that confession and commitment. I asked you who wrote it. And you said, if I remember, that it was the Levites. Is there so much detail about the Levites written in Chapter 10 because they wrote the vows? Was it a vested interest thing?”^[2]

Nehemiah sat up very straight.

“I’m not trying to pick on anything,” I said very quickly. “But I notice that in the promises, there is a lot of detail on that part, but not much detail on the Sabbath-keeping or on the marriage to the peoples around. On the other hand, in your last words here, there isn’t much detail about the offerings, but you go into great detail about the other two problems. I’m just wondering.”

He relaxed a little. But he didn’t offer any explanation.

I went on, looking at Nehemiah 13:15-22. “Look at the detail you give about the next problem you saw. People were treading wine presses and filling bags of grain and loading them on donkeys and bringing them into Jerusalem and selling them.  All of these were happening on the Sabbath. And then there were people from the coast who lived in Jerusalem and were running a fish-import business on the Sabbath.”

I started laughing. “I just realized what the detail tells us. When you locked the gates and made the vendors sit outside all night and all day…” I couldn’t stop laughing.

Nehemiah looked at me.

Between laughs I gasped, “The fish vendors. Loads of fish. Fresh Mediterranean fish. An extra day in the hot sun. You were so cruel.”

“I wasn’t cruel,” he said. “I was merely keeping the Law.”

“I know,” I said, settling down. “I understand completely your perspective. As you reminded the leadership, one of the key reasons the people were exiled was because they did not keep the Sabbath.^[3]

“But you acted with such directness. Just like you protected the builders of the walls with your own men, you had your people take action to close the gates; and then you trained the people who were actually responsible to take over. And come on, you have to admit that there is a bit of fun in the way you treated the vendors. ‘Once or twice they spent the night outside.’ If that’s not playing with them, nothing is.”^[4]

Nehemiah finally smiled. “Sometimes you need to accomplish the task. If you wait for people to get motivated, the problem will get worse. And if the vendors ever questioned my commitment, two weeks of bringing fish and fresh vegetables and having to smell it all the way home stopped that.”

“I love your prayer,” I said. “You are talking about God’s compassion and lovingkindness. We don’t think much about God being that way in your part of the Bible.”

Nehemiah shook his head. “I don’t understand that angry God/nice God idea you think about sometimes. My whole life was about watching God have patience, watching God give wisdom and strength to me, a servant of the enemy king, moving me from the palace in Susa to rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. How astonishing is that? How compassionate is that?”

“Is that what made you so upset about the mixed marriages? I mean, you were pulling out people’s hair.”

Nehemiah smiled sadly. “I know. It sounds awful. But I grew up with the stories of the kings moving away from God. I remembered the marrying that happened with Moabites in the wilderness.^[5] I remember the way that Solomon became the third and last of the kings of a united Israel, how the wisest man who ever lived ended up losing track of what he believed because marriage became merely political and pleasurable.

“When I lived, tribes worshipped tribal gods. (I think that’s still true for you.) You protected the reputation of your God with everything. And when your God had brought you out of Egypt, had brought you out of Babylon, you made sure that everyone in your midst worshipped God. So when Rahab and Ruth came into Israel, they made a commitment to God first. They changed tribes.^[6] Ruth said it clearly to Naomi: ‘Your people will be my people, your God will be my God.’^[7] Though both of them ended up married and part of the lineage of Messiah, marriage came after commitment.^[8]

“As I was walking around Jerusalem, I kept hearing the voices speaking the languages of our adversaries. When I looked closer, I realized that it was coming from children, children born since I had been gone. And I knew what was happening. The men were marrying the women from other nations and letting them raise the children in their own language, in that tribe, in that religion. For the sake of sex, our men had abandoned God. And in that moment, I lost it.

“I had no family. I had given up everything for this city, this people, for the rebuilding of the walls and the nation. So yes, I was incensed. I think I felt like one of the prophets. And if you read Malachi, he sounds much the same.^[9] I attacked. I lectured. I made my point.”

I nodded. “You made your point. It feels over the top to me, but I wasn’t there. And the more I think about your closeness to God, to God’s work, to your reading of God’s word, I find it hard to be critical. I’m not sure how to apply it, but I am thinking.”

Nehemiah lifted his coffee cup. “That why my story is here. To make you think. To make you wrestle with how one person lived out his great work for God.”

He drank the dregs and set the mug down.

“You’re not going, are you?” I asked.

“What’s more to say?” he replied. “We’ve covered it all. The rest is for you.”

“But I want to ask you about the end. The woodpile. Ever since I read that a few months back, I’ve wanted to talk to you about it. I have this sentimental picture of an old executive pastor, knowing that the people were going to lose track of their promises and forget to pay the fire bill, loading up extra wood on his way out of office. But that’s not what happened, was it?”

“Nope. You’ve been reading it more closely this time. When we made all those promises back in chapter 10, we divided up the schedule for bringing wood for the altar. And so I was just keeping our word. I made sure that the temple and the priests and the Levites and infrastructure (both of offerings for the altar and wood to fire the altar) were in place and functioning well.

“This isn’t a sentimental ending to the book, as much as you would like to make it so. It’s about continuing to do the work you promised to do, regardless of what other people do. That’s what makes you a leader.”

“And so your last words are just about continuing your work?”

“No, my last words are a prayer: ‘Remember me with favor, O Lord.’”

And he was gone.

And then I cried.