DAY 170

STAYING “CENTERED”

Nehemiah 12 & 13 and Acts 4:23-37

I have difficulty “staying centered.” There is much to do in being a Husband, Father, Son, Brother, Uncle, Friend and Dean of a Cathedral. Most of the things I spend time doing are “good things” and most all the things I spend time doing are “worthy of doing.” The question for me becomes one of “are they really necessary, especially if doing them is a detriment to the central things I should be doing?” I can be so busy that I lose my “center.” And, if I am honest with myself, occasionally I can become so “side-tracked” that I am doing the wrong things.

Today in the Old Testament we come to the close of the Book of Nehemiah. It starts with the dedication of the repaired wall. Two great choirs singing in thanks must have been a glorious sight. Our last two Christmas Midnight services had two choirs signing across the Cathedral – one “in choir” near the altar, and another in the West Loft some 175 feet away. It was grand. It was meant to celebrate and offer praise to God. Nehemiah certainly was offering praise and thanks to God.

Nehemiah then goes about ordering the work of the service in the Temple. He goes to pay tribute to the king, the king who has allowed him to do this wonderful work in Jerusalem. While he is away the people again slip into idolatry and more. These are the people who placed their seal on the covenant. It is hard to tell if they set out to “do wrong” or if they just slipped into it. They certainly lost their center.

The issue which is remarkable to me is that Tobiah, an Ammonite king who came out and opposed Ezra and Nehemiah, now has a chamber in the Temple! Did this come through force, inter-marriage, or by some other means? Nehemiah is outraged and takes on his final reforms…the people have certainly lost their center and he aims to restore it.

In the New Testament the prayer and behavior of the followers of Jesus is amazing: they seem centered. I love the prayer… “help us to be faithful and proclaim you to the world with boldness” might be a summary of it. They are so committed that they hold everything in common. “No sense weighing ourselves down with the things of earth, we are on a mission.” It would be easy to look back and want to “go back” to that sort of situation, as if to run away from the challenges of the current situation. We often romanticize what the past looks like. I am also reminded of the idiom, “grow where you are planted.” That is what the early believers did, they grew where God had placed them…and they changed the world.

So what I am taking away today is that I need to keep centered, right here in Albany, doing what I am doing to proclaim him…at least for now.