Today's Daily Lesson comes from Nehemiah chapter 13 verses 10 and 11:
10 I also found out that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field. 11 So I confronted the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?”
It's stewardship season around the church. This coming Sunday's lectionary is the story of the Widow's Mite and Pledge Sunday is just around the corner. Your pastor is probably talking money too -- or hiring a consultant to come and do it.
This morning's lesson comes from Nehemiah, who was very zealous for the house of the LORD. We get a sense of his passion in today's reading. He also once went into somebody's house and threw out all their furniture because he thought they had taken what belonged to God. If anything like that's going to happen at Second B then the consultant will have to be the guy to do it.
But though I have mixed emotions about Nehemiah, I respect his conviction about the house of the LORD: it ought not be forsaken. And Nehemiah gives us a very good image of what happens when it is forsaken or taken for granted.
The Levites -- the priests of the time -- and the singers were so underpaid in those days that they had to go back home and go to farming. It's pretty sad when you think of a clergy member like me trying to figure out how to run a tractor -- much less a whole farm. But that's how it was; and it's sometimes how it is. I can't count how many pastors I know have gone to selling insurance or selling cars or doing Internet service and installation because the church just wasn't paying enough.
"The laborer deserves his wages," the Bible says. The pastors and musicians ought to be given a fair deal and so too ought their programming to be sufficiently funded. Nehemiah was right, the LORD's house ought not be forsaken nor its workers un or underemployed.
But I'm not going to come take anybody's furniture to make it happen. I'll just trust you to make it happen.
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