Feast, Share, Rejoice: A Sermon for our Annual Meeting

​Today is our Annual Meeting, and I’ll come to that. But I want to begin with a passage I have never preached on: our reading from Nehemiah. Out of curiosity, I checked to see how often Nehemiah comes up in the lectionary, our three-year schedule of readings, and this is it. Nehemiah comes up just this once. And I have always neglected Nehemiah in favor of the more obviously relevant readings from Paul and Luke.
 
But our reading from Nehemiah is perfect for Annual Meeting Sunday. Indeed, Nehemiah describes the Old Testament version of an Annual Meeting.
 
As usual with the Old Testament, we need to start with a little context.
 
When the events of our reading happened, the people of ancient Israel were having a bad century.
 
At the beginning of the sixth century BCE, their kingdom was conquered by Babylon. The Babylonians devastated the countryside, destroyed much of Jerusalem, including the Temple, and forced the Israelite leadership into exile. That’s how the century began.
 
At the end of the century, Israel’s new overlords, Persia, allowed the people in exile to return to the Promised Land and rebuild their shattered institutions. That sounds great.
 
But rebuilding proved difficult. Partly it was a problem of limited resources. When they laid the foundation for a new temple, those who remembered the grandeur of the first Temple “wept with a loud voice” to see what they were reduced to (Ezra 3:12).
 
Worse yet, their non-Jewish neighbors were actively hostile to the rebuilding program. While they were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, the governor, Nehemiah himself, had to keep armed men at the ready the whole time for fear of attack (Nehemiah 4:16-17).
 
Worst of all, the Jews who had remained in the land were demoralized and not particularly faithful. For example, they routinely violated the Sabbath (Nehemiah 13:15).
 
Nehemiah and Ezra decided they had to do something. As we just heard in our reading, what they did was gather all the people together to renew their covenant with God. That’s their version of an Annual Meeting.
 
But they renewed their covenant in a big way. Ezra began by reading and interpreting the Old Testament law to them for hours—from early morning until midday. After that, he and Nehemiah sent the people home.
 
That’s all we get in our reading, but the covenant renewal wasn’t anywhere near over. They all came back for more the next day, and for the next seven days. Then they returned again a couple of weeks later for yet more listening to the law and more praying and more repenting. At the end of all that, the people committed, in writing, to observe everything they had heard and been taught. That is renewing your covenant, Old Testament style!
 
Terry suggested that we should do all that for our Annual Meeting. But eight days and more seemed a little much to me, so I convinced Terry that we could just renew our baptismal covenant and then meet for an hour.
 
What struck me even more than the length of their meeting, and what I want to focus on this morning, was the reaction of the people to their covenant renewal. We are told “all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.”
 
It is true that the people had good reasons to weep that day. They may have been distressed at their situation, which wasn’t great. They were dominated by a foreign power, surrounded by hostile people, and struggling with only limited success to rebuild their homeland.
 
They may have felt guilty as they listened to the requirements of God’s law and reflected on their own failures, which were also real enough. When they gathered a few weeks later for the final stage of their covenant renewal, they “assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads” (Nehemiah 9:1), so we know guilt was an issue for them.
 
And/or, they may have been afraid, afraid of what the future held in store for them, and afraid of how God might punish them for their sins and failures.
 
Whatever their reasons, the people reacted on that first day with weeping. That day, the people heard God’s word as bad news.
 
And in that, they were mistaken.
 
Nehemiah the governor, and Ezra the priest, and the Levites, which is to say the deacons, all told the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep….Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
 
This day is holy. Feast. Share. Rejoice. That is what covenant renewal should be.
 
I am happy to report that our prospects are considerably brighter than what the people of ancient Israel faced when they renewed their covenant in the book of Nehemiah.
 
The challenges we face are certainly real. Once again, our nation needs to come together as fellow Americans after a divisive election, and recommit to our founding values and to the common good. That has been hard for us after each of the last several elections. I’m guessing it will be hard after this one, too.
 
Saint David’s is not surrounded by hostile people as the ancient Israelites were. Our problem is closer to indifference. Today a higher percentage of the American people identify as entirely non-religious than at any point in my lifetime.
 
And, here at Saint David’s, our resources, financial and otherwise, are limited enough that it is tempting to turn inward, to devote our time and talent and treasure to maintaining the status quo. Even that isn’t easy.
 
Our challenges are real, and they can be daunting. Given them, how can we be expected to do all the things we commit to doing in our baptismal covenant? If we pause long enough to let the words of our baptismal covenant sink in, if we consider exactly what it is we are called to do, if we compare the magnitude of the challenges we face with the limited resources at our disposal, we, too, may feel like weeping.
 
That’s when we need to hear Nehemiah’s words. This day is holy. Feast. Share. Rejoice.
 
That’s when we need to remember that our God is a great and glorious God. That we are the body of Christ and individually members of it. That, like Christ himself, we are filled with the power of the Spirit and sent into the world to bring good news.
 
Later this morning, we will have our Annual Meeting. And we’ll do the things we do in Annual Meetings: elect new leadership; discuss our budget; review our ministries.
 
That’s not as bad as listening to 613 laws for several hours, but it may seem like petty stuff to some. But it’s not petty at all. What we do at Annual Meeting is reflect on our recent past, prepare for the year to come, and recommit to serving as God’s hands in the world. There is nothing more important than that. That’s why this day is holy. That’s why we feast, and share, and rejoice.
 
I thank God for our calling to be God’s people in this time and place, for the mission God has entrusted to us, and for the many ways God equips us to fulfill that mission. And I pray that we can continue to hear and to respond to God’s call with the joy that comes from doing God’s will.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen.