When the news gets personal
Nehemiah 1:1-11
We’re used to seeing tough stuff on our screens. Our bulletins and news feeds have a relentless stream of bad news. It seems, there’s no shortage of murders, hardship, suffering, both here and around the world.  No wonder sometimes we can switch off due to crisis fatigue.  We just can’t take any more in.
But when it affects people or places we know, suddenly it’s no longer just information. Then, it’s personal. Then, it’s not about some random jo or place. Then, it suddenly becomes about Jo, your sister Jo or Uncle Joe, or Joburg (Johannesburg), that place you visited or have connections there. You know them, you’ve got history together, your stories are inter-connected.  So, when the news is about your sister Jo or Uncle Joe, of course, you listen – you consume every single word, you search for every last detail.
In summer 1994, Sally and I moved from the Black Country to Manchester.  The day after we moved in, I got a call to say one of my uncles had been found dead in his house in Spain. A week later, Sally and I were due to go on holiday to France. We stopped off to get petrol just outside Dover. As I walked in to the kiosk to pay, I saw the newspaper rack. The front pages of The Sun, Express and Mail newspapers all had pictures of my Uncle with headlines about the circumstances of his death. It was the strangest thing, sitting on the ferry, watching people reading their newspapers. For them it was just another headline, some read it, others would have found more interesting news and features in other parts of the paper. But, for me, it was personal. It was my larger-than-life uncle.
There’s always been news. Back in 1994, I got out from the newspapers. Today, we consume our 24-hour news through news channels, the Internet and social media. 
Two and half thousand years ago, there was still news. They might not have got out from our 24-hour news channels, Internet or social media platforms; or even from newspapers, like I did in 1994. But they still had news; bad stuff still happened. And when it became personal, about people and places they actually knew, it still grabbed them, just like it does us today.
Nehemiah received some news, news that was deeply personal to him. His news feed came from Hanani, one of his brothers. Hanani told him about the desperate plight of the Judhites, the people from Judah, back in in Jerusalem. For Nehemiah, this was personal because they were his family, his people, and Jerusalem was his ‘home city’.
As we explored during our Ezekiel series (February-April 2021), Jerusalem had been attacked, defeated, and plundered. Many of it’s people had then been trafficked from Jerusalem to Babylon, 500+ miles east into modern-day Iraq.  They were in Exile, isolated from all that was familiar. There, By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion. For them, this was no jolly Boney M disco diva song. With Ezekiel, and his bizarre visions and cookie street theatre, it was the start of the beginning of the way home – to Jerusalem. 
We left with Ezekiel encouraging those in Exile to look up, have hope, faith. They would eventually be able to return home. And that’s exactly what then happened.  The Exile did eventually end. They were able to return ‘home’.
But that wasn’t quite the ‘happy ever after moment’. They got back to find a ravaged city with far fewer people. And they continued to be attacked; picked on, picked off. 
This news reached Nehemiah when he was in the city of Susa, the ‘second city’, the Birmingham, of the Persian Empire – modern day Iran. This means Nehemiah wasn’t ‘just’ I Babylon, 500+ miles east of Jerusalem in modern day Iraq; he was 350+ east of Babylon, in modern day Iran. He was cut off from Jerusalem and then some.
The news that reached Nehemiah was that Chapter 1 verse 3:
“Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
Today, walls and gates are tourist attractions, back in the day, they were a vital means of defence, security and protection. No walls, no security, no sleep. They were in a vulnerable state, so much had already happened to them, and now that could all happen again – and again – and again.
So, no wonder that, on hearing this deeply personal news, Nehemiah sat down, heavy with the weight of the news, and wept. Verse 4 says for days he wept and fasted and prayed. It wasn’t enough to just feel sorry for them, or even for himself. Nehemiah knew he needed to act. And the most significant thing he could do was pray.
Verse 5, he declared:
“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.”
Prayer is all about God, not us. It is only because God IS.. that there is any point in praying.  If there were no God, we’d simply be speaking to the walls. Maybe, even if you don’t consider yourself to be a Christian, you’ve still at key moments found yourself calling out to Something, for Someone, for God to intervene.  We all do it because, deep down, we all consciously or sub-consciously, believe something more powerful than us exists and is able to bring about good in and for us.
Prayer is only possible also because God wants relationship with us. It’s because God chooses to be knowable, approachable, that we can pray.
Having declared, Nehemiah then went on to confess. Verse 6:
“I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you.
Whilst Hanani was quick to say the problem was the attackers and what they were doing to Jerusalem, Nehemiah could see it went way deeper than that. For Nehemiah it was us, not them; me, not you.  Those that survived the Exile might have returned ‘home’ but they still hadn’t dealt with some of the reasons why they ended up in Exile in the first place. They had drifted away from God, had stopped living the healthy life God had always intended for them. We shouldn’t be surprised that actions have consequences. And that, even years later, they can come back to haunt us.
Rather than distancing himself from their actions, Nehemiah stood in solidarity with them. Their responsibility was his responsibility.
Nehemiah then, in verses eight and nine, reminded God:
“Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ 
Nehemiah knew that God is faithful. God keeps promises – always! And God had promised. After all, God is Covenant God. Not an agreement between two equals; instead, God unilaterally made the binding commitment towards us. That’s grace!
Yes, part of the promise was, if you don’t follow God’s Way, Truth and Life, if you don’t live the healthy life that God always intended for you, there will be consequences. You’ll have brought this on yourself.
But, the other side of the same coin was, if you DO follow God’s Way, Truth and Life, and choose to live the healthy life that God intended for you, there will be consequences too – good ones! You will be blessed, you will thrive.
It was beginning to dawn on Nehemiah, he was going to have to get involved. The news was too personal for him not to.
“Give your servant success today by granting him favour in the presence of this man.” 
Who was the ‘him’ he was referring to? 
Artaxerxes the First (and the best scrabble score of the day), the hugely powerful Emperor of the Persian Empire.
And who was Nehemiah?  He says, “I was cupbearer to the king.”
Some suggest this role of ‘cupbearer’ was as the Emperor’s closest and most trusted advisor and ‘close protection’ security detail. As ‘cupbearer’, he would taste everything first before it was served to the Emperor, just to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. It was a hugely risky job because people were always trying to poison the Emperor. That wasn’t a job you took if you had options. And as an Exile, Nehemiah didn’t have options. It’d worth noting, the Good News Translation of ‘wine steward’, as if no more than the Emperor’s wine waiter or expert Sommelier misses the point.
Another way to understand ‘cupbearer’ is to look at it from the Septuagint. The Septuagint was the New Testament-times Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. In New Testament times, they needed a translation in the language of the day (which was Greek) of what we now call the Old Testament. The Septuagint used the Greek word ‘eunouchos’. The suggestion was that Nehemiah was a eunuch. A eunuch was a male with no testicles, either because they were born without them or because they had had them removed, or been mutilated by others or themselves. For whatever reason, ‘eunuchs’, being ‘different’, were often misunderstood, treated appallingly, and left vulnerable. And yet a ‘eunuch’ might be brought in close by an Emperor because they would not be perceived as a threat to their so-called ‘manhood’.
However we understand it, Nehemiah was in a position of vulnerability. He was not the one with all the power. The Emperor, the King, was the one with all the power. Though Nehemiah might not have had the power of the King, he nevertheless did have access to the KING of Kings, the LORD of Lords, the Maker of heaven and earth.
So, having received such personal news, Nehemiah knew he was going have to step-up.
How are you receiving the news today? What’s moving you? What’s personal?
Take it to heart. Take it to God.

DannyBrierley@ChesterRoadBaptist.org.uk