Old Habits

Passage: Nehemiah 13:1-14

The reality TV universe has expanded recently to include a few programs about “hoarders”. The plots of these shows tend to run as follows: the hosts find a person whose compulsion to collect stuff has gone so unchecked that their homes, cars, and every other available space is crammed. As the hoarders tell their stories, the hosts wade into efforts to help them clean out their living spaces and get their lives under control. At the end of the show the home has been cleaned out, and the hoarder has been given a fresh start. At least part of the premise is that if you help people get out from under the messes they’ve created, they’ll be well on the way to recovery. The big question, of course, is whether, after the camera crews have left and the dust has settled, the hoarders will go back to their old ways.

Old habits die hard. This is what we discover at the end of the Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah tells the story of the homecoming of God’s people. After living in exile for nearly a century, the remnant of Israel have been set free. They’ve settled in and around Jerusalem. They’ve rebuilt the temple. All this is very exciting, because it is proof that God keeps his promises. Every milestone in the journey home and every phase of the rebuilding has been met with great joy and raucous celebration. Toward the end of the Book of Nehemiah, Jerusalem’s city walls have been completed and its gates, the symbol of God’s protection, have been set in place. Nehemiah takes a break from his labors and returns to his other job as a courtier of the King of Persia.
He is dismayed to find, during a later vacation to Jerusalem, that his hard work has started to come undone. The priests and Levites, commissioned the task of maintaining the worship space and life of God’s people, have gone back to working their farms. People are buying and selling on the Sabbath. One wing of the temple has been turned into a bachelor pad. It’s as though, after the dishes were washed and the confetti swept up, the people just went back to doing what they were doing before the party.

Those of us who have been following the story of God’s people from the beginning can’t help being dumbfounded. It seems incredible that after all they’ve been through – deliverance from slavery in Egypt; safe passage to the Promised Land; regular bouts of judgment for their sin and redemption by a gracious God; punishment for unremitting relapses; final deliverance from exile by a gracious God – after all this they still haven’t learned their lesson. No sooner have they celebrated God’s mercy and love than they’ve turned their backs and gone back to doing things their way.

If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we recognize we’re not much difference. Our life with God is characterized by crisis, complaint and complacency. We find ourselves in some kind of trouble we can’t see our way through. We cry out for God’s reassurance and God’s intervention. No sooner has the crisis passed than we forget God. Go back to the business of doing things our way. Old habits die hard.