Where does your help come from?
This week's verses are on Ezra 4:1-5:
If you're one of those Christians who only goes to church on Christmas, or Easter, or whenever your family is in town and shames you into it, you've probably never heard much on the book of Ezra. It's basically a book about a church building project and a revival, except that it takes place about 2500 years ago. Ezra is the guy appointed to lead the work. In these verses, their group of about 40,000 people had just returned and started putting things into order.
Israel used to have a temple in Jerusalem. But they rebelled against their more powerful neighbors so it got smashed to bits, along with Jerusalem itself. All of the educated people and priests were then rounded up and sent to the capital region of the invaders, and other people groups were shipped in to take their place. It would have been a multicultural paradise, except that everybody hated each other, which was kind of the point. If you invade a place and leave the people there, they'll put themselves back together and rise up against you when you're weak. If you put all sorts of people there who don't get along, they'll just accuse each other of racism and never make any progress. Then you can do what you want and nobody will stop you.
So anyway, Israel was given permission to return to their homeland, except that now there were other people living there. There were people who hated them and wanted them gone, the "enemies of Judah and Benjamin." And there were "local" people who probably had perfectly good lives there before Israel came back and wanted things to stay that way. Any time you have people displaced by war or disasters who take awhile to move back, they find people already living there and have the same tense dynamic we see here. The people coming back say "Hey we're back for our stuff. Thanks for watching our house, but it's time for you to leave." And the local people say "My grandfather found this broken down building fifty years ago and we fixed it up and planted orchards. I have no idea who you are but you're not taking our farm."
So Israel is back, 40,000 strong, and is clearing the land to reconstruct the temple. Imagine if 40,000 people showed up in your town, started buying up land, and began acting like they own the whole place. That's probably the local people's view when this all started happening. And imagine there were people filling the media with stories of how horrible this newly arrived people group is, and how they'll ruin your community and steal your daughters and turn them into prostitutes. That's the "enemies of Judah and Benjamin." So Israel had their work cut out for them. When it talks about them clearing the land for the altar, it says they were in fear of the local people. You can imagine the tension.
So the enemies show up, and offer to help. They act all friendly, saying "Hey we're just like you. We have the same values, and the same traditions, and we love what you love and want to be a part of what you're doing." Sounds great, right? Like a movie on the Hallmark Channel. Except none of what they were saying was true. They, and the local people, just wanted to stay in power. If they helped, they could insert their own traditions and values into the new community and force Israel to accept them. They could claim equal standing, because they would have helped to build the temple, and they could tell them for generations forward that Israel would not have that temple if it wasn't for them.
Ezra had a hard decision to make. He could accept their help, and then try to manage the consequences later, or he could turn them down and potentially make the escalating situation worse. Luckily Ezra was a priest. He knew that God, their God, was sending Israel to build his temple in their former capital. If God had sent Israel to build it, he didn't need those other people. God didn't send them. He sent Ezra and his 40,000 volunteers.
Ezra tells the enemies and locals that he doesn't want their help. It's a job for his people and his people alone. So for years afterwards, the locals and enemies became a thorn in their side. They spread fake news about them. They tried to "dishearten them from building," which could mean any of the things ethnic groups do when they don't want another ethnic group in their space. It can get nasty.
And yet the temple was rebuilt and God protected his people. If Ezra had included these people in his work, there always would have been doubt about whether it was God's will that they came back, or whether God would have protected them otherwise. It also might have destroyed their religion and culture, since this was the time that the old traditions were being reestablished. If it had been an inclusive community where everyone contributes something of their various cultures to the scriptures, particularly when some of them were quite open about hating the Jews, the Law and scriptures would have been changed or lost. Ezra's stubborn principles and faith in God basically saved the Bible!
Sometimes as Christians we encounter tempting alliances with people who don't have our values. They tell us they have the same goals, come from the same culture, believe in the same God, and so on. But then they begin to make their demands. "We'd rather you not use the word 'prayer' because someone might find it offensive. Just say 'thoughts' instead." "We'd rather you not mention 'Jesus' in your Christmas pageant because there are people of other 'faith traditions' in this community who might feel alienated." "We'd rather you not use the male pronoun when referring to God because it has a lot of baggage from centuries of patriarchy and might trigger some people who have chosen different pronouns."
On the one hand, it's cool to join together and build something. But on the other hand, if the people offering to help have different values and a different vision for the future, sometimes the extra hands are not worth the cost. What could the enemies and locals have offered Ezra that would have been worth losing or corrupting the Bible? What labor could they have given that would have justified centuries of reminders that "you didn't build this alone."
It's one thing to love someone, and quite another to give them authority over sacred things. Paul warns against Christians marrying non-Christians for that reason. You have the same values when you are in love, and your families are friends with each other, but what happens later on when the husband or wife forbids their spouse from going to church, or from teaching their faith to the kids, or when they teach their own religion instead? Is it worth having a helper and a companion if it means being cut off from sacred fellowship? There are some areas, very few areas, where we have to be cautious.
That's not to say we can't collaborate. Ezra recognized and worked within the authority of King Darius, for instance. And I'm sure they didn't insist on only buying materials from other Jews. But Ezra had the discernment to know which alliances were safe and which would taint the work he was tasked to do. We have access to that same discernment. If you're about to enter into an alliance with a person or group of people who don't share your values, be careful. Ask God for his input. Will they interfere with something sacred?
The fact that there are so few cases in modern times where this could be a problem is kind of an indictment of how little we live out our faith in day to day life. Do we do the kinds of work where a lack of Christians would be noticed in our organisations? Do we express our faith such that we would feel it or notice if we were forbidden from bringing up God, and his greatness? Do we teach Christianity to others, or pass our knowledge to the next generation intensely enough that we would notice if someone tried to slip something else in? In Ezra's time, there was enough of a difference that he needed to put his foot down.
There are a few other sections in Ezra where they rely on God to power what they are doing. They're hesitant to accept military protection, for instance, when they are being threatened. It's the same issue. How could Ezra preach a powerful God to the people whose military protection he accepted? That's like borrowing money from someone and then lecturing them on how God provides for all of your needs when they ask you to pay them back. In making it clear where they turn to for help, Ezra and his people glorify God. In so doing, they created a sacred space and a sacred people who demonstrated God's provision and power and sovereignty, and blazed the trail to where Jesus met us centuries later.
When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin learned that the former exiles were building a temple for the Lord God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and the leaders and said to them, “Let us help you build, for like you we seek your God and we have been sacrificing to him from the time of King Esarhaddon of Assyria, who brought us here.” But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the leaders of Israel said to them, “You have no right to help us build the temple of our God. We will build it by ourselves for the Lord God of Israel, just as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.” Then the local people began to discourage the people of Judah and to dishearten them from building. They were hiring advisers to oppose them, so as to frustrate their plans, throughout the time of King Cyrus of Persia until the reign of King Darius of Persia.
If you're one of those Christians who only goes to church on Christmas, or Easter, or whenever your family is in town and shames you into it, you've probably never heard much on the book of Ezra. It's basically a book about a church building project and a revival, except that it takes place about 2500 years ago. Ezra is the guy appointed to lead the work. In these verses, their group of about 40,000 people had just returned and started putting things into order.
Israel used to have a temple in Jerusalem. But they rebelled against their more powerful neighbors so it got smashed to bits, along with Jerusalem itself. All of the educated people and priests were then rounded up and sent to the capital region of the invaders, and other people groups were shipped in to take their place. It would have been a multicultural paradise, except that everybody hated each other, which was kind of the point. If you invade a place and leave the people there, they'll put themselves back together and rise up against you when you're weak. If you put all sorts of people there who don't get along, they'll just accuse each other of racism and never make any progress. Then you can do what you want and nobody will stop you.
So anyway, Israel was given permission to return to their homeland, except that now there were other people living there. There were people who hated them and wanted them gone, the "enemies of Judah and Benjamin." And there were "local" people who probably had perfectly good lives there before Israel came back and wanted things to stay that way. Any time you have people displaced by war or disasters who take awhile to move back, they find people already living there and have the same tense dynamic we see here. The people coming back say "Hey we're back for our stuff. Thanks for watching our house, but it's time for you to leave." And the local people say "My grandfather found this broken down building fifty years ago and we fixed it up and planted orchards. I have no idea who you are but you're not taking our farm."
So Israel is back, 40,000 strong, and is clearing the land to reconstruct the temple. Imagine if 40,000 people showed up in your town, started buying up land, and began acting like they own the whole place. That's probably the local people's view when this all started happening. And imagine there were people filling the media with stories of how horrible this newly arrived people group is, and how they'll ruin your community and steal your daughters and turn them into prostitutes. That's the "enemies of Judah and Benjamin." So Israel had their work cut out for them. When it talks about them clearing the land for the altar, it says they were in fear of the local people. You can imagine the tension.
So the enemies show up, and offer to help. They act all friendly, saying "Hey we're just like you. We have the same values, and the same traditions, and we love what you love and want to be a part of what you're doing." Sounds great, right? Like a movie on the Hallmark Channel. Except none of what they were saying was true. They, and the local people, just wanted to stay in power. If they helped, they could insert their own traditions and values into the new community and force Israel to accept them. They could claim equal standing, because they would have helped to build the temple, and they could tell them for generations forward that Israel would not have that temple if it wasn't for them.
Ezra had a hard decision to make. He could accept their help, and then try to manage the consequences later, or he could turn them down and potentially make the escalating situation worse. Luckily Ezra was a priest. He knew that God, their God, was sending Israel to build his temple in their former capital. If God had sent Israel to build it, he didn't need those other people. God didn't send them. He sent Ezra and his 40,000 volunteers.
Ezra tells the enemies and locals that he doesn't want their help. It's a job for his people and his people alone. So for years afterwards, the locals and enemies became a thorn in their side. They spread fake news about them. They tried to "dishearten them from building," which could mean any of the things ethnic groups do when they don't want another ethnic group in their space. It can get nasty.
And yet the temple was rebuilt and God protected his people. If Ezra had included these people in his work, there always would have been doubt about whether it was God's will that they came back, or whether God would have protected them otherwise. It also might have destroyed their religion and culture, since this was the time that the old traditions were being reestablished. If it had been an inclusive community where everyone contributes something of their various cultures to the scriptures, particularly when some of them were quite open about hating the Jews, the Law and scriptures would have been changed or lost. Ezra's stubborn principles and faith in God basically saved the Bible!
Sometimes as Christians we encounter tempting alliances with people who don't have our values. They tell us they have the same goals, come from the same culture, believe in the same God, and so on. But then they begin to make their demands. "We'd rather you not use the word 'prayer' because someone might find it offensive. Just say 'thoughts' instead." "We'd rather you not mention 'Jesus' in your Christmas pageant because there are people of other 'faith traditions' in this community who might feel alienated." "We'd rather you not use the male pronoun when referring to God because it has a lot of baggage from centuries of patriarchy and might trigger some people who have chosen different pronouns."
On the one hand, it's cool to join together and build something. But on the other hand, if the people offering to help have different values and a different vision for the future, sometimes the extra hands are not worth the cost. What could the enemies and locals have offered Ezra that would have been worth losing or corrupting the Bible? What labor could they have given that would have justified centuries of reminders that "you didn't build this alone."
It's one thing to love someone, and quite another to give them authority over sacred things. Paul warns against Christians marrying non-Christians for that reason. You have the same values when you are in love, and your families are friends with each other, but what happens later on when the husband or wife forbids their spouse from going to church, or from teaching their faith to the kids, or when they teach their own religion instead? Is it worth having a helper and a companion if it means being cut off from sacred fellowship? There are some areas, very few areas, where we have to be cautious.
That's not to say we can't collaborate. Ezra recognized and worked within the authority of King Darius, for instance. And I'm sure they didn't insist on only buying materials from other Jews. But Ezra had the discernment to know which alliances were safe and which would taint the work he was tasked to do. We have access to that same discernment. If you're about to enter into an alliance with a person or group of people who don't share your values, be careful. Ask God for his input. Will they interfere with something sacred?
The fact that there are so few cases in modern times where this could be a problem is kind of an indictment of how little we live out our faith in day to day life. Do we do the kinds of work where a lack of Christians would be noticed in our organisations? Do we express our faith such that we would feel it or notice if we were forbidden from bringing up God, and his greatness? Do we teach Christianity to others, or pass our knowledge to the next generation intensely enough that we would notice if someone tried to slip something else in? In Ezra's time, there was enough of a difference that he needed to put his foot down.
There are a few other sections in Ezra where they rely on God to power what they are doing. They're hesitant to accept military protection, for instance, when they are being threatened. It's the same issue. How could Ezra preach a powerful God to the people whose military protection he accepted? That's like borrowing money from someone and then lecturing them on how God provides for all of your needs when they ask you to pay them back. In making it clear where they turn to for help, Ezra and his people glorify God. In so doing, they created a sacred space and a sacred people who demonstrated God's provision and power and sovereignty, and blazed the trail to where Jesus met us centuries later.
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