“TEARS OVER
JERUSALEM”
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A sermon preached Readings: Nehemiah 1:1-9, Luke 19:41-48 |
Smoke rises over Baghdad.
Photograph: Jerome Daley
“They said to me
‘….. the walls of Jerusalem are in ruins
and its gates have been burnt down.’
On hearing this, I sat down and wept…”
(Nehemiah 1:3-4)
“TEARS”
During communion the choir will sing
Thomas Tallis’ “Lamentations of
Jeremiah”.
It’s a piece terribly relevant for today –
all about the tears of the people as they witness
the destruction of their beloved city Jerusalem by enemy
forces.
In our Old testament lesson, we read of
Nehemiah.
He is writing much later, in exile.
He sends for news of Jerusalem, and hearing of its continued
plight,
he too sits down and weeps.
Then our New Testament lesson –
we move on in time again and find Jesus himself, coming
– as it were –
round a bend in the road
– and seeing there
laid out before him in the valley below the city.
Jerusalem rebuilt physically now, but still a spiritual ruin –
and like Jeremiah and Nehemiah and so many before him,
Jesus weeps over Jerusalem.
I’ve been at a conference this week,
and periodically we gathered solemnly around the TV screen
to
get the latest news.
As we watched armaments raining down on Baghdad,
the fellow next to me sighed and said
“It just makes you want to weep, doesn’t it?”
Jerusalem or Baghdad – like Nehemiah of old
we hear news of the destruction of the city,
and we are moved to tears.
So – against the backdrop of our current cares and concerns,
Let’s reflect on Nehemiah’s tears over Jerusalem
“PRAYER”
“… I sat down and
wept; and for some days I mourned,
fasting and praying before the God of
heaven” (Neh
1:4)
Nehemiah’s tears lead him at once to fasting and prayer -
In Lent few of us fast any more.
Having lived in the West Midlands and worked and lived
alongside many committed Moslems
who fasted rigorously throughout Ramadan every year,
I suspect we may be the poorer for that.
But if we are going to abandon the fasting,
we need to keep up the praying.
And praying – whether by us or by Nehemiah -
doesn’t have to mean telling God how to solve the problem –
indeed with the great problems of the world
that may be beyond us –
but it does mean taking our tears and our griefs
and our concerns and our anguish
and placing them in God’s presence –
seeking to align our hearts and minds with the
heart and mind of God -
so that we might
·
see
with God’s eyes
·
and
work with God’s hands
·
and
suffer with God’s heart –
this is what intercessory prayer is about.
And it is the prayer which so often leads to penitence and
commitment –
which was just what happened for Nehemiah.
“PENITENCE”
Nehemiah weeps and prays and ends up confessing his sins:
“I admit the sins of the Israelites
which we have committed against you. (Neh 1:6)
Amidst the horrors of the Iraq war,
there only seems to be one thing our leaders
seem to agree on –
it basically isn’t their fault.
When tragedies occur, it is easy to blame other people –
and certainly Saddam Hussein has a huge amount on his conscience.
But we have to confess our failings too.
It is not often that I quote Sir Teddy Taylor,
Tory MP for Southend,
in a sermon.
Indeed I could safely say that this is a
first.
But in last Tuesday’s debate on Iraq,
Teddy Taylor made a very powerful speech.
He quoted a horrendous list
of chemical and
biological agents in Saddam’s armoury –
including anthrax as well
as
“clostridium, which is the source of a toxin;
histoplasma, which causes a disease resembling tuberculosis;
brucella, which damages major organs;
another material that causes gas gangrene;
E. coli; and seven others.”
And he went
on,
“Those
materials were not produced by Iraq,
but provided and sold by the western
powers.
We should
show a little humility and decency,
and say that part of the problem came
from ourselves.
(see Hansard 18 March 2003,
col 852)
When Nehemiah hears of the devastation of Jerusalem,
how easy to blame the Babylonians – but he says to God:
“I admit the sins of the Israelites which we have committed
against you.
Both I and my father’s house have sinned;
we have acted very wickedly towards you …”
(Neh 1:6).
Yes we do wish to condemn in the name of the Lord
many of the acts of the Saddam regime –
but to misquote the old adage, “penitence begins at home”
–and we need to recognize that as a people
we have connived and benefited from a world order of
economic greed and arms trading and political
self interest
which has contributed to the crisis of
Iraq.
To take but one issue out of many,
our rhetoric about concern for the people of Iraq might sound
better
had we been showing real love and concern for Iraqi asylum
seekers
in this country over recent years.
“action”
So Nehemiah weeps and prays –
that leads him not only to penitence but also to action –
that is to say (to cut a long story short)
he discovers that God wants him to go back to Jerusalem
and oversee the rebuilding of the city.
And what of us and our ruined world – full of
·
the
Babel towers of narrow minded nationalism,
·
the
crumbling temples of selfish commerce,
·
and
the swirling sands of environmental vandalism??
When we have prayed over the ruins of our world,
and confessed our complicity in the ruins,
God calls us too to rebuild.
There is no time here to unpack that entirely –
and anyway that would get us into detailed political debate
about exactly what is needed –
and that needs discussion round a table,
not pronouncements from a pulpit..
So I want just to offer some headings
under which we need to work to rebuild a just
world order –
We need to work towards:
·
A
genuine international community where vetoes and cruise missiles
are superseded by genuine multilateral decision making
and genuine international justice
·
A
world where the corporate greed of arms traders,
drug barons and transnational companies
is replaced by a concern for the poor and the needy
·
A
world committed to sustainable sources of energy
to replace the fight for oil.
·
A
world where refugees and asylum seekers
are welcomed as sisters and brothers and
fear is replaced by compassion.
Of such building blocks is the New Jerusalem to be built.
“Christ weeps over jerusalem”
And in looking at our sad broken world,
remember how not only Jeremiah and Nehemiah,
but our Lord himself wept over Jerusalem –
offering his prayers, recognizing her sins,
and above all, giving himself to be used by God –
For when God saw the ruins of his world,
he did not send a telegram,
he did not send a paratroop of gun
toting angels –
he sent his son,
to weep, to pray and to suffer alongside the needy –
to give his all.
“Time and talents”
And now Christ turns to us, his body in the world,
and asks us to follow him and also give our all for a broken
world.
In just a few minutes now we will be saying our prayers and
making our offerings to God as we dedicate our
Time and Talent forms.
Thank you to everyone of you who
has thought and prayed and returned these forms –
As they are brought forward and offered to God,
please use the moment as a time to rededicate your life to God’s service.
We live in a dark and broken world –
not only in Iraq and Washington but also here in Exeter
And how do we rebuild that world? –
One brick at a time!
By building up the Church,
serving the community,
sharing the gospel,
using whatever time and talents we can offer –
·
weeping
with those who suffer
·
working
at prayer to align ourselves with God’s will
·
showing
compassion – suffering alongside the needy
·
straining
every sinew to rebuild the broken lives and ruined relationships and crumbling
world in which we live
This is what it means to be a follower of Christ,
to offer him our time and talents –
It is not just about filling in a form,
it is about
·
giving
ourselves to God
·
becoming his builders in a broken world.
·
And trusting him to guide us to that final day,
when in God’s grace
shall come the New Jerusalem,
when at long last the weeping will cease,
and, praise God,
“he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes”
(Rev 21:4).