Human nature gives satirists endless material to work with. When Will Rogers was asked what is wrong with the world he replied, “I don’t know. I guess it’s people.” Another time he said, “God made man a little lower than the angels. Man has been getting lower ever since.” And Mark Twain once said, “Man is the creature made at the end of the week when God was tired.”
Indeed we humans are usually our own worst enemy. Though we tell ourselves that we are good and honorable and upright, a look at history shows us quite plainly that the things humans seem to do best is to mess things up! Injustice, violence, wars, unfaithfulness, undependability, environmental degradation, and on and on can go the list. Sometimes I wonder why God bothered to want to save us in the first place! Sometimes I think God should have just evolved some more superior creature and decided to act with salvation for them! But, that is not what God has done. God has chosen us humans, prone to failures and mess ups as we are, to save.
It is no surprise when we look at the Jewish people returning from the exile in Babylon that things did not go well. Given the centuries of struggle and tribulation they went to in order to protect the city of Jerusalem we’d expect them to return rejoicing and hurriedly set about rebuilding it and restoring the temple.
A superficial look at the biblical book of Ezra could give us just such and idea. But a closer look shows that not all is well. Judaism was not a monolithic group all hauled off to Babylon in the early decades of the 6th Century B.C. You’ll remember that while many of the nation’s elite were taken to Babylon many people were left. Some of them stayed for awhile but eventually left to become refugees in Egypt. And some, the poorest of the lot, just stayed in the wasteland of the nation.
Decades went by. A whole generation grew up away from Jerusalem and the Promised Land. Around 538 B.C. Babylon was conquered by the Persians. Under Persian rule the Jews were allowed to return home. But as I said, a generation grew up away from Jerusalem. They’d been away for 40 years!
Following the prophet Jeremiah’s advice they had settled in and built homes. They had families. Although they remained generally faithful to their beliefs they did not all keep a burning desire to return to Jerusalem. They discovered that the centrality of Jerusalem its temple were not essential. Plus Jerusalem and the “Promised Land” weren’t really all that great a place to live; especially since it all had to be rebuilt from ruins.
So, some Jews do leave Babylon to return. But many stayed. The Jewish community in Babylon existed for centuries afterward. Even after Jerusalem is destroyed again by the Romans in 70 A.D. there was a sizeable Jewish population in Babylon. They had developed their own schools of thought. Very importantly, they did not see themselves as secondary to the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem.
It is also likely that some of the Jews who had fled to Egypt returned. Similar to Babylon, some Jews stayed in Egypt and developed their own permanent communities and schools of thought.
Finally, some of the Jews never did leave the area. They stayed and struggled on; maintaining faith without Jerusalem and the temple in their own way.
The main thrust of the Bible’s story line is about those in Babylon who do decide to return. Two whole books of the Bible are given over to the story – Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra was the priest in charge. Nehemiah was the governor appointed by the Persians to be in charge. Remember, just because they get to go back does not mean they are an independent nation again. They are controlled by the Persians who decide to let them redevelop the homeland.
As we’ve been looking at the kings of Israel and Judah we’ve stuck pretty much to the accounts in 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings. I’ve said before a similar story is told in 1st and 2nd Chronicles but they read more like propaganda than history. You get the feeling that the author is on the payroll of the leadership. Critical biblical scholarship shows that Ezra and Nehemiah are also from the same source as the Chronicles. And propaganda they are! We didn’t read it as one of our lessons, but Nehemiah 11:1-2 gives us an insight into the political speech. It reads, “Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem; and the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in the holy city Jerusalem, while nine-tenths remained in the other towns. And the people blessed all those who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.”
Now think about that for a minute. Did that actually make sense? There are leaders in Jerusalem but no population. Why? Probably because no one wanted to live there! Many Jews returned from Babylon but they settled in many places. One of the places is pictured on our bulletin cover. Apparently the majority of people did not want to move to Jerusalem. If they did they wouldn’t have to have had a lottery to select who would be forced to come. And then notice the quick twist in language, “And the people blessed all those who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem.” Um, they didn’t want to come in the first place else they would have come on their own. And none of them actually willingly offered to come. They were chosen in a lottery and forcibly moved to Jerusalem. But the official language is they “willingly offered”. Such is the twisting of politics!
We read only Ezra 3 as our first reading and just that chapter makes it seem like the rebuilding of the temple was pretty straightforward. In the interests of time we did not read into chapter 4. There we discover that not everyone wanted the temple rebuilt. The picture is too complex to get a clear answer but it appears as if those who had been living there all along aren’t too keen on these outsiders moving in from Babylon, who claim both divine and political rite to move in and take over and shove others aside.
The temple is eventually reconstructed but it takes time and some political maneuvering. The same goes for the city walls of Jerusalem. Overall, the story of the return is not a great and glorious one, even as presented in Ezra and Nehemiah.
We would want the story to go something like this: after centuries of disobedience God finally destroys the nation and sends its people into exile. There they learned their lesson. They understood what it meant to be God’s people. They came to understand God’s nature and God’s will more fully. Then, after time, they were allowed to return to Jerusalem and the Promised Land. The people returned from many places. They rebuilt the ruined temple. They rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls and buildings. And this time they worked together. They lived as God wanted. They were faithful. They were better, wiser, more loving, and more grace-filled people.
In truth the return from exile was a mess. It took political manipulation and forced resettlement to make it happen. Many opposed it. All the old habits were right back. Nothing was learned. As we Christians move the clock forward 500 years we see that in the time of Jesus the old habits were deeply entrenched.
The Bible tells us the story of what happened through human eyes and a human perspective. The Bible is a human book. But ultimately it is God’s story. The story of the kings is one of human failing and unfaithfulness over and over again. It is God trying and trying again. It is God being kind, God being stern. It is God sending them into exile and hoping that if they have to learn the hard way they will at least learn. But even that didn’t work.
God stays faithful to an unfaithful, failure-prone people. We may think ourselves better but it is wise not to. As soon as we think we’re better than them then we’ve fallen into their trap. It is better to recognize our tendency to do anything but what is right, and then acknowledge God is staying true with us.
Ultimately salvation does come, but it is not from humans getting it right. It is the love of God shown through the crucifixion and death of Jesus that does it. God’s work. Not ours. Ours is to rejoice and share the good news that though it is impossible for us, God’s work does save.
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