When I was a kid I wanted to have faith the way it seemed biblical heroes did. They seemed to have perfect confidence in God’s deliverance and acted with the same complete confidence. In the story of David and Goliath David seems completely certain he will take down Goliath. Goliath was reportedly a huge warrior. He is strong, skilled, and well-armed with both offensive and defensive weapons. By contrast David is a boy so puny and weak that when they put armor on him he couldn’t walk because of the weight. So David sets it aside. He grabs his sling and five small stones and goes to face Goliath. Goliath disdained David for his youth but David says to him, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand…” (1 Samuel 17:45-46a) Then David walked towards him, puts a stone in his sling and with one shot takes Goliath down with a hit on his forehead. David prevails.
Or Daniel in the lion’s den. Daniel is a Jew living in Persia who has arisen to great power. But a plot is hatched against him by those jealous of his power, and his punishment is execution by lions. He’s thrown into a den of ravenous lions and sealed in by a stone. The next morning, the king, who didn’t want Daniel to be hurt but had no choice because of the nature of the plot, checks on Daniel. Daniel is perfectly fine and says, while still in the midst of the lions, “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him.” (Daniel 6:22) He seems to not be anxious at all, knowing that God would supernaturally protect him. And if he did have any doubts, it is clear that he is blameless before God. Again, a great example of faith.
Or Abraham, who at 70 years of age is called by God to pack up and move to an unknown place to be revealed in the future. And so, without any real doubts or questions about details, Abraham packs up his belongings and takes his whole family to move who knows where.
There are many more such stories; people who seem to have absolutely perfect confidence in God and trust God completely and without doubt. They seem completely unconcerned about insurmountable problems or deadly situations. They go in holding their head high and without a drop of sweat on their foreheads.
Yes, I wanted to have faith like that. I thought all the people in the Bible had faith like that. Or at least all the good people in the Bible. For the bad people lacked faith and bad things happened to them pretty quickly. In the case of Daneil in the lion’s den, immediately after Daniel is pulled out those who plotted to have him killed are rounded up. They are thrown into the den of lions and the lions kill them before they even reach the ground.
Somehow I never heard the story of Ezra that we read today. Ezra is described as deeply faith-filled man. Our reading of Ezra 7 said he was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given. (Ezra 7:6) He is later described as, “…having set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10)
You probably know that the statutes and ordinances are lengthy and tedious. Many people commit to reading the Bible. They start in Genesis and get through it okay. Exodus gets a bit tedious but people plow through. Then they reach Leviticus and Numbers and they give up. This is the stuff that Ezra seems to want to dwell with. So I’d say he is a person of impressive faith.
We learn that he feels called by God to leave Babylon and return to Israel. He will lead a large group of others to do the same. It appears that not all of the Jews held captive in Babylon left the moment they were allowed. Some did. Some stayed permanently. But there were several waves of people who migrated back over time. Ezra led one such bunch.
Given Ezra’s faith and commitment I’d expect him to lead with the certainty of people like Abraham, Daniel, and David. He’d just take charge, and knowing that God was with him, would confidently lead people on the 900-mile journey back to the Promised Land.
But he does something that feels much more like the kind of faith I’d be likely to have. He trusts God. He believes he’s doing the right thing. He’s not so afraid that he doesn’t act. But he’s not 100% perfectly confident either. We read him saying before they set out, “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might fast before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and cavalry to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king that the hand of our God is gracious to all who seek him, but his power and his wrath are against all who forsake him.” (Ezra 8:21-23)
So, Ezra’s at least a little anxious. He knows God’s promises. He wants to trust God, and he ultimately does, but he’s still unsure. If he asks the king for protection, then is he not trusting God fully? …especially after he’s assured the Persian king that God would protect them. So his faith in God has back him into an uneasy situation. He wants to fully trust God, but he’d also really like to have some earthly protection with him too.
I think our faith can relate to feelings like these. Perhaps people like Abraham, David, and Daniel also felt the same way. The Bible doesn’t say. But at least some of the biblical heroes reveal they had some faith struggles. We aren’t alone, and we aren’t lacking in faith when we feel the way we often feel. We want a bit more certainty from God.
Ezra had additional reason to be worried. He not only was responsible for safely leading what was presumably a large group of people on a 900 plus mile journey. He also had enormous wealth entrusted to him. The text of Ezra says 650 talents of silver and one hundred silver vessels worth an unspecified number of talents. Plus 100 talents of gold and 20 gold bowls worth a 1000 darics.
Assuming you don’t regularly do business in currency like talents and darics, let’s make a translation. The amounts work out to 19 tons of silver and 3 tons of gold – all intended to be used to adorn the temple. At the current price of these metals, I calculate that to be $35,872,000 in silver and $389,592,000 in gold. That’s a grand total of $334,464,000 worth of value Ezra is responsible for safely transporting on a 900 plus mile trip on foot. No wonder he was thinking it would be best to have an armed guard with him!
Now, every biblical scholar I consulted says these amounts must be hugely exaggerated, or else the amounts are erroneous. There’s no way the Persians were going to send a bunch of Jews out of Babylon with 22 tons of precious metals. They may have been allowed to take some, but nowhere near that much. Regardless of the actual amount, it is a significant enough sum that it had to be kept secret. The group of travelers would be a target for every band of marauders and thieves in the region.
All of this adds to the stress Ezra felt as he kept his trust in God alone.
Do we sometimes find ourselves willing to trust God in something, but wishing there wasn’t so much value on the line? We may easily be willing to trust God in many things. But when it’s a life and death situation, or when the lives and futures of other people are on the line, we may tremble at the prospect.
And how many times have people prayed to God in near terror for the life of a loved one who has been injured or who needs delicate surgery? How many times have our hearts and motives been absolutely pure and selfless as we come to God with things, and find those prayers are not answered?
Forget asking for supernatural protection, how many times do we ask for something good and reasonable and well within the normal processes of life, but they don’t work out?
Things worked out for Ezra’s journey. But he appears to have been anxious ahead of time. We should not feel bad or weak when our fears creep deeply into our faith.
One of the things about faith that Martin Luther would bring up is the constant battle we face with doubts and a lack of trust with God. Luther would say that the ability to trust God at all is an act of grace, and that there is no way whatsoever that a human can actually trust God on the strength of his or her own will.
God is not stingy with things like love and like inspiring trust in him. But there are many things that surround us every moment of every day that challenge that trust. We shouldn’t feel bad when we fail. We know that God’s grace continues to come to us.
Next week we’re going to find Ezra doing something that we’ll think is truly wrong and offensive, but Ezra thought it was essential for faithfulness. No matter how hard we try, our faith will not be perfect, and we will not be in perfect agreement with other people of faith. But the point is to keep turning to God in trust, and trusting that God will continue to hold onto us.
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