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Hello, my Walking with Jesus” friends,
GREED is one of the most powerful, motivating forces for harm in a person, a marriage, a family, a business, leadership and especially government, local or national. Do you agree with that statement? Have you or your family ever been taken advantage of or wounded by GREED? Can you look honestly into your life history and identify times when YOUR greed motivated you to make decisions which hurt either you or others?
Join me again in Jerusalem in the summer of 445bc as hundreds of city residents are working feverishly to clean up the rubble and rebuild the Jerusalem protective city wall. I left you yesterday in Nehemiah 4:23 where Nehemiah had implemented a courageous strategy of combining construction with armed self-defense protection for the workers! The work was progressing, but everyone was wearing out, for they were living on the edge of physical exhaustion and fear of terrorism at all times.
The task Nehemiah was attempting was nearly impossible, yet progress was being made. Suddenly another unexpected problem arose which caused Nehemiah to step away from his Construction Manager role and step into a new role of Political and Judicial social leadership. What was the problem? Nehemiah reports it like this: “Now the men and their wives [working on the wall] raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews. Some were saying, ‘we and our sons and daughters are numerous, in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get food.’ Others were saying ‘we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and even our homes to get grain.’ Still others were saying, ‘we have to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards…” (Nehemiah 5:1-5) Do you recognize the problem my friends? GREED!
In every community of people, every place in the world, in every generation there is a disparity economically among the people. For a wide range of reasons some have more financial resources than others. In some places the economic gap between the rich and poor can be extreme, even in a fairly small people group. I’m sure you’ve seen this, maybe you’ve been affected by it. In 445bc Jews had been returning to rebuild Jerusalem and that region of former Israel for about 90 years. As they came, they brought their financial worth or poverty with them. Yes, some Jews had actually profited and grown their net worth while they and their families were in exile in Babylon!
The region of Jerusalem to which these exiles returned had been devastated by multiple invasions of the Babylonians more than a century before. Oh yes, the devastation included the demolition of homes and businesses, but it also included intentional damage or destruction to water wells and vineyards and both crop and grazing fields!!
The rebuilding process required would include every conceivable aspect of life and livelihood. Huge capital investment was needed, but these were exiles and there was no ‘FEMA’ nor any other government subsidy or assistance programs. Therefore MOST Jewish exiles found themselves borrowing from their fellow Jews who had sufficient resources to meet their own needs and extend loans to others. Of course, almost all loans, then and now, require repayment of the loan with interest. Nehemiah was shocked to discover a ‘loan shark’ business had developed and some unscrupulous Jews were lending at unreasonable rates.
Of course, to exacerbate this economic problem, Nehemiah had urged every able-bodied person to join the Jerusalem wall rebuild project and that meant people had to leave their businesses and farm fields to build the wall. Therefore, within a few weeks the economic infrastructure in Jerusalem was in danger of collapsing and everyone was suffering, everyone except the ‘loan sharks’. Remember, Nehemiah had been a slave ‘cupbearer to the king’ and he couldn’t imagine the greed of former exile Jews causing such harm to their own people!
Nehemiah records this response in his account of these events: “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials…’You are charging your own people interest!’ So, I called together a large meeting to deal with them…” (Nehemiah 5:6-8) After accusing these greedy, wealthy Jews of near criminal abuse of their fellow Jews, Nehemiah said: “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?” (Nehemiah 5:9) That statement was at the very core of this matter, and most matters of injustice, greed and sin.
In fact, 500 years after this a Christian man named James, the 1/2 brother of Jesus, wrote a little letter to the Christians of the first century and he made this Spirit led statement: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want so you quarrel and fight…” (James 4:1-4) James went on to say: “If anyone knows the good they ought to do but doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” (James 4:17)
Oh that my friends, is what Nehemiah was saying! These wealthy Jews knew it was not right that their greed for more would push them to take advantage of their fellow Jews who had no options but to borrow to survive!
Let’s pause right here and reflect… do you and I ever NOT do the right thing that we know we SHOULD do? That’s the sin of OMISSION! Do we sometimes take advantage of a situation? How often is our motivation for NOT doing the right thing SELFISHNESS or even worse, GREED? Now don’t rush past those questions my friends, and I urge you to ask the Holy Spirit to help you think of other penetrating, helpful questions!
If our best life purpose is to honor God with every day, every choice then this is one of the vital areas we need to conquer with God’s wisdom, spiritual maturity, and self-control, right? In our refusal to do the right thing are we living in rebellion against the Holy Spirit who is trying to guide us? What if we could get this right for the rest of our lives, by making sure honoring Jesus is our priority? Here’s a worship song to help us think about these things, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow…
Today’s Scripture: Nehemiah 5:1-9.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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