I assume that many of you are familiar with the book Lord of the Flies, but if not here is the quick version. A group of British boys become stranded on an island during the Second World War and while things start of all right they quickly go awry with the boys breaking into tribes and killing each other, looking something like the current U.S. political landscape if we used pointed sticks instead of twitter. The book ends with the children being rescued by a passing British ship. The rather poignant thing that happens at the end is that when the boys, who by this point have become savages (if we can still use that word), see the British sailor they all revert back to their age and prior view of the world. They break into tears because they realize what they had become.
Something similar happens in our reading from Nehemiah today when we hear, “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
Now to understand this a little better and why it reminds me of Lord of the Flies, it would probably be good to have a little background. I assume most of you do not flip through the Book of Nehemiah on a regular basis, but if you do God bless you. But for those who don’t let me quickly summarize. The book takes place after the exile, that is after the Jewish people who had been hauled off to Babylon return to their traditional homeland. Once back they set about to rebuild Jerusalem and after a few setbacks this is accomplished. We join today where the city has been successfully rebuilt and Ezra and Nehemiah are now setting out to rebuild the inner lives of those who have returned from exile by reading from the book. It is generally understood that what was read was from the Law of Moses, which as you know tells people how they are to live in relation to God and to one another. And this is where I get reminded of Lord of the Flies. For based on the reaction it would seem that there is a realization that they had not been living in the way that they were supposed to be living. And instead of the tears that the young boys shed that they bow their faces to the ground and realize just how far short they have come to the glory of God. On a more personal level I sort of think of it like when we are driving and suddenly spot a police car. In those brief moments of panic we become incredibly aware of everything that we may have been doing wrong – perhaps speeding, looking at our phone or drinking a 40 of King Cobra. The police car rouses us from our slumber. But I really don’t want to make this a sermon about inventorying all of our shortcomings, even though, according to Amy, I really like to do that. What I instead want to focus on is what we convert to in these moments of extreme lucidity. The boys in Lord of the Flies realized in an instant that they were civilized human beings and were part of British society. Those in Nehemiah realized that they were the chosen people and that God had shown them a way to live. And as Christians we know that we were created in the image of God and that our identity should be that of a child of God. At our inmost being we should reflect God, because that is the tribe from which we come.
There is a quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton, which says, “When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.” What this is pointing out is that humanity has a strong need to belong to something; that is to believe in something. No matter what we do, we will reflect patterns and beliefs of that to which we submit and we need to make sure that what we are submitting ourselves to the right thing, the best thing. Today in Nehemiah they have rebuilt the city and the walls and here at the end they are seeking to have the people rebuilt. To not have them running after this or that but to have their lives belong to the God of Israel and to show this in thought, word and deed.
I was reading some interesting research the other day, which sort of shows what happened in Lord of the Flies. Two Notre Dame Law Professors, Margaret Brinig and Nicole Stelle Garnett looked into what happened in communities after Catholic schools shut down for reasons that didn’t have to do with low attendance. It could have been something like the pastor being transferred and not replaced or a building that was condemned. The study found that in these neighborhoods, shortly after the school shut down, there were increases in public drinking, drug dealing, drug use, graffiti, litter, and abandoned buildings. And it was not just physical manifestations. In surveys conducted in such neighborhoods, people were less likely to agree with the following three questions: 1. People around here are willing to help their neighbors. 2. This is a close-knit neighborhood. 3. People in this neighborhood can be trusted. When the tribe of God erodes the relations between individuals deteriorates. That is why the Law that was read in Nehemiah today deals with the relation between God and with each other, because they are so linked. Robert Putnam and his coauthor David Campbell in the book American Grace stated, “Religious Americans are, in fact, more generous neighbors and more conscientious citizens than their secular counterparts,”
I realize all of this may seem a little distant from Ezra reading from the Law, but stick with me for a second.This research shows that the less adherence there is to religion the less social cohesion and good will within a society; whereas more adherence to religion displays opposite, that is more community cohesion, trust and goodwill.One of the reasons for this is fairly obvious and that can be seen in the Israelites vowing to follow the Law.If people believe that they should not steal, covet, bear false witness or any of the other laws in the Books of Moses then they are going to be more trustworthy people and form a more trustworthy community.But I think that there is a second part to this.As the quote from Chesterton pointed out, those who stop believing in God start believing in all sorts of other things. And the things they chose to believe may not actually be terrible things.That is they may not go from worshiping God to worshiping Satan, but it does mean that they are worshiping something that is lessor than God.When people get to choose their own gods those gods inevitably do not get along with one another.That is at the heart of most of our discord today, people are angry because we do not show their self-chosen god enough reverence.But the God that we worship is the only one large enough to create harmony.And while I realize the Church has not always done a good job of modeling this behavior that is not God’s fault.In Psalm 133 we read, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”Like the boys in Lord of the Flies, we should cry when we realize the tribal behavior that we can exhibit and strive for the unity that is found in Christ alone.Living lives that are marked by our dedication to God and his word so that we may be his both now and forevermore.