Getting Back to Our Roots
Bob Wickizer
Nehemiah 8:1-10
For a year after moving to Silicon Valley I had a boss who was a well-known business turnaround expert for a major venture capital company. The day I first met him he had come up from Southern California where he had laid off half of the factory at Levi-Strauss. The famous blue jean company was in deep financial trouble at the time. The parent venture capital company sent him in with his team of ivy-league financial wizards. They looked at the company books for an hour then they went onto the factory floor. My boss had a fire hose dragged down the middle of the factory on the floor. Everyone looked on with amazement wondering what was going to happen. Waving his right hand, he said ''Everyone on this side gets a pink slip.''
Later he explained that there was not enough time to agonize over who goes and who stays. An arbitrary prompt decision was made.
In the fifth century BC, Nehemiah did much the same thing. He was Jewish but he grew up in the exiled community in Babylon. He was an official in the king of Persia's high court. This is the period where the king of Persia begins the process of rebuilding Jerusalem and returning the exiles to Jerusalem. On his first trip to Jerusalem Nehemiah realized that the Jewish elite living in Jerusalem have been oppressing the poor. He immediately called for a cancellation of all debt and debt slavery.
He returned to Jerusalem a few years later when he found that the people there had been backsliding in their faith. In the midst of rebuilding city walls and buildings, a scroll of the book of Moses was found. Ezra sets out to read this scroll to the Jewish people. This is where the misleading part begins in today's reading.
Verses 4 and 7 are omitted from our reading. Without those verses you get the impression that Nehemiah is standing there all by himself reading scripture to all the people (men, women and children, Jews and Gentiles) from early morning ...
Bob Wickizer
Nehemiah 8:1-10
For a year after moving to Silicon Valley I had a boss who was a well-known business turnaround expert for a major venture capital company. The day I first met him he had come up from Southern California where he had laid off half of the factory at Levi-Strauss. The famous blue jean company was in deep financial trouble at the time. The parent venture capital company sent him in with his team of ivy-league financial wizards. They looked at the company books for an hour then they went onto the factory floor. My boss had a fire hose dragged down the middle of the factory on the floor. Everyone looked on with amazement wondering what was going to happen. Waving his right hand, he said ''Everyone on this side gets a pink slip.''
Later he explained that there was not enough time to agonize over who goes and who stays. An arbitrary prompt decision was made.
In the fifth century BC, Nehemiah did much the same thing. He was Jewish but he grew up in the exiled community in Babylon. He was an official in the king of Persia's high court. This is the period where the king of Persia begins the process of rebuilding Jerusalem and returning the exiles to Jerusalem. On his first trip to Jerusalem Nehemiah realized that the Jewish elite living in Jerusalem have been oppressing the poor. He immediately called for a cancellation of all debt and debt slavery.
He returned to Jerusalem a few years later when he found that the people there had been backsliding in their faith. In the midst of rebuilding city walls and buildings, a scroll of the book of Moses was found. Ezra sets out to read this scroll to the Jewish people. This is where the misleading part begins in today's reading.
Verses 4 and 7 are omitted from our reading. Without those verses you get the impression that Nehemiah is standing there all by himself reading scripture to all the people (men, women and children, Jews and Gentiles) from early morning ...
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