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11 September. Nehemiah chapters 12-13
In these chapters Nehemiah establishes the pattern of Temple worship and the Sabbath observance. He leads a great procession around the city walls to bless the rebuilt city. But he treats badly those who continued to buy, sell or work on the Sabbath day, those who have failed to give the required tithe to pay the temple servants, and Tobiah who had set up a home or office in the temple store, thus defying its purpose.
As with my comments yesterday about the condemnation of intermarriage (which is repeated here in chapter 13) it seems that this re-establishing of the patterns of a religious life was Nehemiah’s overriding concern. People would naturally start and grown their businesses – farming, shopkeeping or whatever – but they needed encouragement (sometimes of a rather forceful kind) to build religious community.
It is no different today. As a lay reader in the Church my role is largely to encourage “ordinary” Christians in church attendance and in relating faith to everyday life. This is not easy. The many secular activities that we all get involved in make it difficult to establish or keep patterns of prayer and worship. The hectic, technological and rapidly changing pace of life around us makes it increasingly difficult to see the relevance either of an “unchanging” faith or of ancient books. But we must try, or we will quickly lose touch with the spiritual side of life.