Every new building endeavor has enemies without and enemies within. Nehemiah won against the enemies from without by ignoring their taunts and persevering with the task at hand. The enemies from within are often harder to overcome. They represent compromise and neglect. In this case, the poorer members of the community of Jews that had returned home were being taken advantage of by the more wealthy landowners. The wealthy were getting rich off the interest they were charging the poor, forcing them, in extreme cases, to sell their own children back into slavery after having first secured their freedom in returning home.
“We have had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes,” they told Nehemiah. “We belong to the same family as those who are wealthy, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others.” (5:4-5)
Nehemiah was furious when he heard this. “We are doing all we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners, but you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them?” (5:12-13)
How often must Jesus die because we must keep this grace to ourselves and sack others with the sin and judgment. It took only one good Friday to do it. Only one Black Saturday. Only one splendid Easter morning to seal the deal. To make it so there is nothing but grace to announce and hand out to everyone. Like Paul Clark sings, “Tetelestai” — “It is finished” — “Paid in full.” Yet people come to Christians and find out they have to change to be accepted. Grace is not for everybody; it’s just for those who fit the mold. White, heterosexual, Christian, never had an abortion … you’re in. Do those people who don’t fit in need another redemption? “How often must we redeem them?” cries Nehemiah. Only once. Thank god, only once. One cross, one Easter, for everybody.
Remember that this weekend. Don’t just confess your own sins on Friday and rejoice in your redemption through the resurrection on Sunday, but rejoice in it for everyone — even those who have hurt you, or those different from you, or those you hate, or those you routinely judge. Take it all the way out. If you can’t turn grace out for everyone, you must face the fact that you haven’t taken it in fully for yourself. I have to remind myself of this repeatedly, because I am so quick to judge.
And when Monday comes, instead of cursing going back too work, or honking at the guy who cuts you off in traffic, our feeling disgust at the first rainbow flag you see, decide that Sunday’s grace goes out to everyone. No questions asked. Grace goes out to all the undeserving — me first, and then everyone else. Christ does not need to die again. And then see others and treat them with the grace given you.
Keep Christ in our head, we’re dead. Its only symbolic unless we make it real, and we make it real when we step out of ourselves and into someone else. Grace can function fine without us but we’re the losers if we don’t turn it out. In Nehemiah’s story, the rich were lording it over the poor, laying heavy burdens on them and getting richer because of it. We may not be rich in money, but we are rich in grace, and yet to keep it to ourselves and hand it out sparingly is to completely miss it’s meaning.
What a sobering question: “How often must we redeem them?” Nehemiah’s question cut the nobles and landowners to the quick. It will do the same for us unless we make this Easter an opportunity to turn grace outward. Let’s make this Easter an Easter for everyone, and not just “Easter for me.”
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