Last month we thought together about what it means for Broad Street Christian Church to be a particular kind of place. In light of our vision statement, what does it mean that we call ourselves a spiritual place, a loving place, and a justice seeking place? It means that as we think about what kind of place we are – we give even greater consideration to the kind of people we are.

Are we people who say one thing and do another? No, we are not hypocritical here. Are we the kind of people who love you to your face, and then talk bad about you to everybody else? No, we are not two-faced people.

Are we the kind of people who divide the church like political pundits divide the country with red Christians and blue Christians and never the twain shall meet as we do theological battle? Thank God, no! We know here that whatever our political beliefs, our greater belief is in Jesus Christ as Savior of our lives and model for our ministries.

What kind of people are we? Today I want to focus on who we are as a covenant people. Next week we will focus on who we are as a worshiping people, and the week after that, on who we are as a giving people. All of those things point to the kind of people we are.

A covenant is a formal agreement between two parties with each assuming some obligation (Harper’s Bible Dictionary. San Francisco: Harper&Row Publishers, 1985, 190-191). We live with several covenant/agreements. Our first covenant is with God, and the example for that covenant is God’s covenant to protect and love Israel if Israel would remain faithful to God. We are a covenant people. If you are married or in a legally recognized partnership, you are in a covenant. If you and your employer signed a contract, you are in a covenant. When you sign your name to a credit card receipt, you have made a formal agreement to pay for what a merchant has provided to you.

We are in covenant with each other; individually and as part of the faith community gathered here. Because we have agreed by our presence here we have pledged to support each other and to support our church in every way we can. We are a covenant people who have prayed for this church we love and who want it to prosper.

Mary Kay Ash, the cosmetics queen has been quoted as saying, “whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon inevitably comes to pass”. I wish what she said was always true, we know it isn’t, nevertheless, I imagine here a congregation filled with representatives of God’s rainbow of people, desiring to know God fully; who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and who trusting in the Holy Spirit, will continue to be Christ’s church in this place. That is the kind of covenant people we are. We want to continue to do wonderful things here love and serve God and as God loves and blesses us. That is our covenant with God. But we need a plan to live out our covenant.

Planning always reminds me of my high school principal, Aaron C Wade. He was a harsh, smart former varsity football coach. When he became the principal of Compton High School, he had a motto put on the sign board in front of the school: “plan your work and work your plan”.

Planning is wearisome, it can be worrisome. It takes too much time, we never seem to make a firm decision, we want to get on with it. But before we get on with “it”, we need to know what “it” is, and then we need a plan to know how to achiever it. By the end of this year, this congregation will have a strategic plan in place to move us forward. And so I want us to think of today as the first day of the rest of the long, long life of Broad Street Christian Church, it is time for us to celebrate who we have been and who we will be. In this new and renewed day – in this day of covenant and planning, what shall we do? Nehemiah helps us answer that question. Nehemiah has imagined a restored city, he has desired it, he believed it was possible, and he acted on his belief.

Nehemiah had a covenant with the king who employed him, with his community, and with God. And he had a plan.

The story begins when Nehemiah, the chief butler to the king of Persia, receives word that his beloved city of Jerusalem is in ruins. The people are depressed and devastated and the wall that was built to protect the city is broken down. Nehemiah weeps for his city, he prays, and he remembers that God will protect him if he will remain faithful to God, and develops a plan. The king grants him a sabbatical and gives him a letter of safe passage from the king, permission to gather the wood he needs from the king’s forest, and an escort into the city. When he gets to Jerusalem, he is able to see for himself the destruction around him and he resolves to rebuild the wall. And at some point he is named the governor of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah is a man in covenant, and while he has a plan, he knows that he cannot do the work all by himself. So he gathers around him priests and artists, carpenters and goldsmiths who all worked together to rebuild the wall. They remind us that it does not matter what our plan is, no one of us can achieve it alone. We are each called by our baptism and our love for God and this church to do all we can to help it grow in every way that builds up the body of Christ.

We can all do something. We can pray for the church and the world. Most of us can support the church with our dollars and our time. None of us is without talents and skills. We have gifts of song, of building and fixing things, of cooking and cleaning things, of serving on teams and committees and task forces of joining us for worship and coming to fellowship events, of telling our story and telling someone looking for a church like this where we are. If we each bring what we have to the task, we can build this good and faithful church into a great and faithful church. I believe we can and I promise you I am going to continue doing all I can to make it so.

Today when we encounter Nehemiah, he is putting the finishing touches on the wall. It is that moment when the temptation to relax is strong that people will try to mess you up. You are a senior in high school or college, you have done well on your job, you are ready to go on with the next phase of your life when someone who does not have your best interest at heart says to you, “why don’t you forget about what you have worked hard to achieve, come and go with me. You don’t need college, you don’t need that job, you don’t want to live there, this is much better”. Keep covenant with the people who have entrusted themselves to you, who know you and stay on the plan.

Beware of the people who want to stop your plan they may be jealous, or resentful, or they have an ax to grind or they want to hide their own mistake. Whatever the reason, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem have been watching Nehemiah, and they are so disturbed by his progress that they make their own plans to stop him. First, they try to get him out of town and away from his task. Why? Because if he quits now, he will dishonor the king who trusted him. “Come down and let’s go for a ride. We will go out to Ono and talk a bit. Leave your work, show the king that his trust in you is misplaced, that you would come ‘this close’ to getting the job done but you couldn’t quite finish the plan.

“I am too busy. I will not come down. In fact, I am doing a great work here” (v.3). When the distractions did not work, Sanballat sent an open letter around, today he would send an email to 1000 people and place a full page ad in the Dispatch, New York Times, and USA Today. The letter accused Nehemiah of nothing less than treason. “He is plotting against the king, he is buying prophets, he is building an empire, he wants to be the king”. Now, Nehemiah is smart enough to know these men mean to harm him and he will not go, and he will not be intimidated. He never lost focus, never lost loyalty, never forgot the plan. He says to Sanballat, “shame on you. This plot is in your head, you are making things up”. When they spread rumors about him, Nehemiah kept his courage, his focus and his faith. “For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking ‘their hands will drop from their work and it will not be done’. But now O God, strengthen, my hands” (v.9). We have work to do here and as we plan our work and work our plan, if what we do has meaning for us, if it excites our passion for God and for God’s people, if we can see it, believe it, and do it, nothing will deter us.

Sanballat is relentless. He arranges for Nehemiah to get an invitation from Shemaiah, a homebound prophet who will venture out of his house if Nehemiah will meet him in the temple. But Nehemiah knows that something is not right.

“On the surface, nothing seems wrong with this proposal, but Nehemiah rejects it for several reasons. First, as governor, he does not want to look afraid by fleeing from his enemies. Second as a layperson, he has no right to go inside the Temple because that space is reserved for the priests, and violation if it is a capital crime. Third, Nehemiah figures out that Shemaiah has been hired by Sanballat and Tobiah” to lead him into danger (New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. III. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999, p. 785). If he had gone with the prophet, his reputation would have been ruined and his life would have been in danger.

In our renewed life together, let’s keep covenant with God and with each other. Let’s not be tricked by people who believe a diverse congregation, a welcoming and hospitable congregation, a progressive congregation is doomed to failure. It is not and we are not. Let’s not come down from our work, let’s pray that God will strengthen our hands and heart. Let’s renew and transform this church.

Nehemiah had a covenant and a plan and the wall was finished in fifty two days, just over seven weeks. It is amazing what we can do when we put our energy and efforts together, when we keep covenant with each other and get on with the ministries before us.

Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem saw the restored wall, the beautiful gates, the people rejoicing, and they felt a little sick. Because while they did their best to intimidate Nehemiah, they were the ones who were intimidated. “And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (v.16).

What they perceived, Nehemiah knew, he knew who he was; he knew that he had kept covenant with his king and his God, he knew that he had kept covenant with his community.

He offered himself to them, he kept faith with them, he lead them and praises God and celebrates with the people. That is what we are called to do in this new day. We are called to keep covenant with the people who trust us, to keep covenant with the community and understand that the community includes those we love, those with whom we pray and worship, and those we serve.

Stay with the plan of faithfully rebuilding what is broken, families, lives, and in the months and years to come, with the Gulf Coast region of our country. We are called to keep covenant with God. Put on Christ, owe nothing but love and keep renewed faith with the one who has given us the new covenant.

He lived and died and was raised from death for our sake. May we love and serve him in sacred covenant for his sake and for the sake of the world. The nation will look to faith communities in these days, and the world is watching this nation. They will want to know whether we can imagine desperate people getting the help and healing they need, and whether we as people of faith ardently desire to relieve their suffering, whether we believe that we can and whether we will act with thanksgiving to God because we can.

If we do, lives will be saved, a shred of hope in torn and wounded souls will be restored, we will have honored God, and Jesus Christ will be praised. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dr. LaTaunya M. Bynum
Senior Pastor