3 The sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. 4 And next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired. And next to them Meshullam the son of Berechiah, son of Meshezabel repaired. And next to them Zadok the son of Baana repaired. 5 And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.
6 Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Gate of Yeshanah. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. 7 And next to them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, the seat of the governor of the province Beyond the River.8 Next to them Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths, repaired. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. 9 Next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired. 10 Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph repaired opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah repaired. 11 Malchijah the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of the Ovens. 12 Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired, he and his daughters.
13 Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and repaired a thousand cubits of the wall, as far as the Dung Gate.
14 Malchijah the son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
15 And Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He rebuilt it and covered it andset its doors, its bolts, and its bars. And he built the wall of the Pool of Shelah of the king's garden, as far as the stairs that go down from the city of David. 16 After him Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, ruler of half the district of Beth-zur, repaired to a point opposite the tombs of David, as far as the artificial pool, and as far as the house of the mighty men.17 After him the Levites repaired: Rehum the son of Bani. Next to him Hashabiah, ruler of half the district of Keilah, repaired for his district.18 After him their brothers repaired: Bavvai the son of Henadad, ruler of half the district of Keilah. 19 Next to him Ezer the son of Jeshua, ruler of Mizpah, repaired another section opposite the ascent to the armory at the buttress. 20 After him Baruch the son of Zabbai repaired another section from the buttress to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest. 21 After him Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired another section from the door of the house of Eliashib to the end of the house of Eliashib. 22 After him the priests, the men of the surrounding area, repaired. 23 After them Benjamin and Hasshub repaired opposite their house. After them Azariah the son of Maaseiah, son of Ananiah repaired beside his own house. 24 After him Binnui the son of Henadad repaired another section, from the house of Azariah to the buttress 25 and to the corner. Palal the son of Uzai repaired opposite the buttress and the tower projecting from the upper house of the king at the court of the guard. After him Pedaiah the son of Parosh 26 and the temple servants living on Ophel repaired to a point opposite the Water Gate on the east and the projecting tower. 27 After him the Tekoites repaired another section opposite the great projecting tower as far as the wall of Ophel.
28 Above the Horse Gate the priests repaired, each one opposite his own house. 29 After them Zadok the son of Immer repaired opposite his own house. After him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, repaired. 30 After him Hananiah the son of Shelemiah and Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph repaired another section. After him Meshullam the son of Berechiah repaired opposite his chamber.31 After him Malchijah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired as far as the house of the temple servants and of the merchants, opposite the Muster Gate, and to the upper chamber of the corner. 32 And between the upper chamber of the corner and the Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and the merchants repaired. "
(Nehemiah 3, ESV)
That's a lot of names. A lot of archaic, difficult-to-pronounce names. But for all the challenges, this is a passage with a very timely message.
Back in 1996, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton published a book entitled “It Takes a Village: and other lessons children teach us”; a title inspired by a conglomerate African proverb along the lines of, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Hillary’s socio-political ideology aside - and not even to open the conversation about whether or not you or I happen to agree with the sentiment of the proverb in question - it’s this proverb that came to mind as I was thinking about Nehemiah 3 this past week.
I don’t know if it takes a village to raise a child. But as I was reading Nehemiah I was struck by the conviction that it takes a Church to raise a City. And I think this has some pretty significant implications for us here at The Commons, as we come together and figure out what it means to build a church.
To vastly understate the situation, Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah had seen much better days. Once a beacon and witness to the Creator God and his mission to reveal himself to the world in and through the people of Israel, it was the city of kings, and the city of the Temple where the name of the one true God dwelled in a special way. It was a city where the nations would be drawn to experience and come to know the name and nature of that God. But Israel’s faithlessness and infidelity towards this God - who had called them and sustained them and nurtured them as a people precious to himself - had led them into decline, defeat, and ultimately total desolation. Crushed by Babylon, and now overrun by Persia, Jerusalem was a joke, a byword; with it’s walls torn down and temple laid waste, it was warning to anyone who would consider standing up to the powers of the day.
This a parallel to our own world in many ways. Our world is a beautiful, broken, place, and our communities are beautiful, broken places made up of beautiful, but broken, people. Our world is a place where the memory and the essence of that abundantly good creation that God handed to us to steward and develop into the fullness of it’s potential still clings and cries out. But it is a world wracked and broken by our sin, our faithlessness, our rebellion against life itself. Over and against all that inherent beauty and potential, there is obviously much in our world that simply ought not be; ugly things, broken things, many things too terrible to mention.
The goodness of God is such, however – and the Good News of Jesus Christ is such – that in His great redeeming, rescuing, restoring love, God was not content to simply abandon this people - this world and creation that He had established as a place for His name and His glory to dwell – to remain trapped in death and hopelessness. But that in Jesus our rebellion and brokenness and death were met head on (on the cross) and defeated (in the resurrection), and that hope and life and redemption and restoration have been made possible. And Jesus, subsequently, establishes His Church to be the expression and outworking of this new reality in the world, until that day when he comes again to bring this new creation work fully to bear.
Nehemiah 3 is great passage, as awkward as it is to read. It’s beautiful, because it’s a picture of a church, shoulder to shoulder, rebuilding a broken city, against the odds, for the sake of bringing honor to their God. Every awkward, archaic name in list is powerful, because each name represents a person, as real as you and I. And that’s when it struck me: It takes a Church to raise a City. And I think this is true for any city, any community, but it really comes home when I think about the call it seems that God is placing on us for the Rochester area. Because our city is a city with some scars. Our city is a city that is searching for hope, searching for it’s identity, trying to find vision for it’s future. And I’m convinced that Jesus has something to say to our city. I’m convinced that Jesus is the hope and the that our friends and neighbors are desperately searching for, whether they can name that search or not. Our vision, here at The Commons, is that we might be a hope-embodying, city-building community of Jesus here, in this place.
And I love how practical this story is, too. Because rebuilding a broken city, never mind restoring a broken world, is an overwhelming, daunting task. Where do you start? So much rubble, so much to overcome, so much work to do… It’s too much, to be honest. What would Jesus have us do? I believe He would simply have us be faithful to begin with that which he puts in front of our face. It stands out to me that in Nehemiah 3 there are five specific mentions of individuals or groups who focused on the repairs that were needed in immediate proximity to their own homes. It seems to me that being a people of hope and restoration begins in our own living rooms. It spills out onto the streets where we live. It will come to define our presence at work, in school; in whatever spaces we occupy as friends, neighbors, and citizens. We’re going to be a people who are serious about engaging the brokenness of our world that we find at the end of our own driveways, asking Jesus to give us the wisdom and resources to build a city that honors Him: one brick, one person, one family, and one neighborhood at a time. It takes a Church to raise a City.
Our vision is to be a people who are: Journeying with God to see a world renewed, neighborhoods transformed, and people brought to life by the Good News of Jesus Christ. I'm excited to be on this journey with you all.
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