Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for your book, the Bible that you have given us to tell of your deeds throughout history clear back to prehistory, when the world was created.
We thank you for the stories you have for us, and especially thank you for the story that will be our consideration for the next few weeks. A story buried in the past and yet pulled out and renewed as a new creation with the Lord, our God and the Holy Spirit.
Bless our hearing it and help us apply it to our lives. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
This is the book of Ezra, which we haven't dealt with before. The first chapter, the first 11 verses, remember from elementary school. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job. Right. Okay, Right after Chronicles.
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of. Of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also in writing, saying, thus says King Cyrus of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. And he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Let any of those among you who are of his people, may their God be with them, go up to Jerusalem and Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel.
He is a God who is in Jerusalem. And let all survivors in whatever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with livestock besides, freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.
Then the heads of the family of Judah and Benjamin and priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. All their neighbors aided them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with livestock, and with valuable gifts besides all that was freely offered.
King Cyrus himself brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
King Cyrus of Persia had them released into the charge of Mithradath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. And this was the inventory.
Gold basins, 30 silver basins, 1000 knives, 29 gold bowls, 30 other silver bowls, 410 other vessels, 1000. The total of the gold and silver vessels was 5400.
All these Sheshtobar brought to Huit, brought up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So, friends we are in a season of rebuilding.
You, me, all of us are in a season of rebuilding. Now, why do I say that? Well, this is what I saw when I stepped out the door yesterday morning.
This is happening right across the street from where my wife Jill, my daughter Lucy and I currently live on Mar Vista Avenue. Thank you, Jason and Laura Burns. This is a rental home we have located just a couple blocks from where our former house on 2266 Norwich Place once stood. This is happening now. Houses are getting rebuilt. And not only that, but Jill and I have had the opportunity now to meet a number of times with our neighbors, the others who lived on Norwich Place. Here's a photo of them and thank you all for allowing us to meet right over in our atrium. We've been talking about, hey, what are you planning to do? What might you be planning to do? And also, what do we want as a neighborhood? What kind of elements from what we had before do we want to hang onto? What might we want to let go of? Some of you might remember in our house there was an outdoor staircase that really served no purpose other than, I guess, evoking sort of an older time. I think we won't include that during the rebuild, but I suppose we'll see. Now, not everyone pictured here is necessarily going to rebuild their home. But what's happened in the context of conversations together around rebuilding is that one of the couples who is well on in terms of life and experience, and it doesn't really make sense for them to rebuild. They've ended up selling their plot of land to the daughter of a neighbor of ours so that it will stay in Norwich Place, an African American neighbor. Too. Really exciting to see that's happening. There's a sense we're rebuilding together. And the rebuilding's not just taking place on a neighborhood level. It's happening through the greater neighborhood of Los Angeles county, the county of which this church is a part, all told, lost some 16,000 structures in the combined Eaton and Palisades fires. A number of your home were among those lost. Others of you had such significant smoke damage that you were displaced for months. Some of you have essentially had to tear down and rebuild your house because the damage was so great. And this is taking place in our broader county. We are all in this season of rebuilding. And it's not just a season of rebuilding.
Homes, houses, even Los Angeles County. The Christian church in North America, I would argue, is also in a season of rebuilding after loss.
Church Statisticians estimate that 15,000 Christian congregations in the United States will have closed by the end of the year. 15,000 Village Presbyterian Church of Arcadia was one in this region that we had to close just a couple months ago. The mission coworker program of the Presbyterian Church usa, something that sent a number of you in this congregation to serve overseas has been those mission coworkers have been called back and something new may well emerge. But it is a season where what we'd known before in terms of that co worker program is no longer and we're not sure what's going to come next. In terms of churches, yes, there are congregation closures, but there's also a host of new worshiping communities that, that are also being founded, developed, being issued permits to start. It's a broader season of rebuilding for the church.
And you might make the same argument for our nation, right, that this is a season of rebuilding. You could point to recent changes in whatever your political party or affiliation. You could talk to things that were gained, particularly around the budget and things that were lost. Some of you, I know have been impacted by government cuts. That has impacted you personally.
And with any loss, with any major change on the national level, the denominational level or the household level brings forth these questions. What do we want to rebuild?
Is this particular ministry, this house, this particular effort, something we do want to rebuild? And if it is, what's it going to look like? How are we going to change it? Maybe, maybe make it better, maybe make it different? It's a season of rebuilding. And we're asking one another, we're thinking together what that's going to look like. We ask these questions as households, neighborhoods, counties, nations. We ask them as congregations, presbyteries, larger ecumenical Christian community. What do we rebuild and what will it look like for all of us?
Well, these questions lead us, as so many questions do, right to our scriptures, back to our sacred text to listen to what God might have to say for us in just such a season.
And one of the texts from Scripture in which it seems to me God might have something powerful to say to us in precisely this time, is a book that's all about rebuilding after a period of displacement and loss.
The two Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell of an extraordinary season of rebuilding in the life of the ancient people of God. And it took place after an event so cataclysmic, so traumatic, so disruptive, that it makes the Eaton and Palisades fires pale in comparison.
Back in 587 BCE, the ancient people of Judah and its capital of Jerusalem suffered extraordinary loss. Their small Nation had already been reduced to a vassal state of the ruling superpower of that time, Babylon. And when Judah then had the gall to rebel against Babylon's rule, Babylon was merciless. The Babylonian army laid siege to Jerusalem and burned down the city and its sacred worship space, that great Jerusalem temple. Many of the former residents of Jerusalem and Judah, if they hadn't been killed in the invasion, were sent into exile. This is how one artist imagined that horrible time.
But then, nearly 50 years later, we read of a remarkable moment in the life of God's people. Darlene read the account of this moment from our scriptures. We read of a permit issued for a home rebuilt for the people of God.
Now, Jill, Lucy and I haven't yet received such a permit for our house. Has anyone in the congregation received one yet for their houses?
All right, they will be coming. And I don't know about you if you're waiting for such a permit, but I am going to sing and dance. When that day comes, it will be mixed with sadness, of course. Sadness for all that was lost that can't be replaced.
But there will be hope, too.
Hope that something wonderful and new will be built together.
Seeing written proof in that permit that we can officially build again on that site that had been the place of our former home.
Well, a major change in global relationships of power happened in 539 BCE, almost 50 years after Babylon had taken down Jerusalem and its temple. A new empire, a new superpower had taken over the whole region. Here's a map of the ancient Near East. In 540 BCE, you can see that enormous stretch of territory called the Persian empire. And then in red over to the left, you'll see the Babylonian empire, which forms most of that ancient fertile Crescent. This is 540 BCE the next year, 539. That was the year the Persians defeated the Babylonian army in the battle of Opus. And after that victory, the Persians marched right into the Babylonian capital. This time, it was the Babylonians who had their capital taken. And all that Babylon had held overnight in the hands of Cyrus, King of Persia. He was in their capital. Babylon had been brutal to the Hebrew people, destroying their city and temple, taking the sacred items and in the temple away with them to Babylon and sending many of the surviving citizens of Judah into exile. Cyrus and the Persians, however, had a very different approach.
Back in 1879, this cylinder was found in a territory that's part of modern day Iraq, and it was part of historic ancient Babylon as well.
On it, we read that Cyrus was lauded for returning the displaced in the region of Mesopotamia, their former cities rebuilding their sanctuaries that had been in ruins, and helping to finance the restoration of temples like those dedicated to the Babylonian God Marduk. The cylinder appeals to Marduk to protect and help Cyrus, who had restored these places of worship. It's a remarkable move of an empire, encouraging conquered peoples to keep their cultural and religious practices and return to their former homes.
Now, while the cylinder does not mention Jerusalem or Judah or the Jewish people, it's consistent with the kind of policy we read in today's passage from Ezra. A policy where Cyrus not only allows but encourages the ancient Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. And not only that, but we read Cyrus also arranges for the financing of it. I don't know about those of you who've lost homes, but for at least my household, it's not just the permit we need.
We need the financing. We need to know how that's going to happen. And you read in today's text in detail how the financing is arranged for both with a free will offering and expectations on those who would remain, on those who were with the exiles when the exiles returned.
But what today's passage makes clear is that these events weren't just happening on a human political level with an emperor setting a policy that could well be well out of self interest, you know, encouraging conquered people to keep their culture and religious traditions. You could say that's kind of a pragmatic way to make sure those conquered people support you or at least don't rebel.
But Ezra makes it clear that it wasn't ultimately Cyrus, it was ultimately God, the God of all peoples, the God at work in the ancient Hebrew people, and yet was also, quote, the God of heaven who truly presided over all things. God, we read, was the real cause of this return.
It was God being faithful to God's promise, spoken through the prophet Jeremiah years before the prophet had proclaimed. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when the city shall be rebuilt.
We read of God moving in a foreign king in today's passage, the king of Persia, Cyrus.
This is the God of all peoples, Ezra proclaims, who can work even through Cyrus. And originally, originally blessed a chosen people back in the time of Abraham and Sarah, so that they could bless, they could be a blessing to all nations and peoples after seasons of loss. It is God who in a variety of ways says to us, here is that permit you were looking for on a home rebuild. And here's the financing too.
It doesn't always come as fast as we want it to. And it doesn't mean the world. And we in it don't continue to suffer trauma and loss.
But it does mean that in this world full of suffering, God comes in time and again to say, here you go, a new beginning, a new way, a new permit for a house rebuilt or a new home in a new place. And I will be with you.
The journey, says the Lord, guiding you, strengthening you, leading you as you rebuild together.
More than that, as you rebuild with me in your midst.
Well, friends, as Christians, we believe this. God came to us in a new way, built a new temple in and among us, in Christ.
And by faith in him, we are part of a temple, the temple that is Christ's body, a temple together.
And in that temple, Paul writes in the first Letter to the Corinthians, in that temple we are as a community, the very spirit of God dwells.
So in a season of rebuilding, let's remember the one who opens doors, the one who makes a way out of no way, the one who issues that permit allowing such endeavors to proceed, the one who first gave life to all things, the one who brought new life to us and to our world in Jesus Christ. Let's look to that God for strength and vision. As we rebuild, let's remember God's commandments and the call of God we heard in Christ to love God and to love our neighbor. Let's rebuild in love.
Let's remember God's invitation to be ever doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God in all we do. And may what we build together reflect our faith, reflect the very God who has called us and claimed us together as God's very own.
Well, let me leave you with just one example in the season of rebuilding and of loss, of what it can look like when God's people not simply suffer loss, but attend to God's call as they rebuild together.
The San Gabriel Presbytery, this regional church body of which Knox is a part, has not only suffered the loss of some congregations in recent years. In 2024, it suffered the loss of an 80 year old ministry.
La Casa de San Gabriel was founded some 80 years ago as a Christian outreach of this presbytery, a kind of a joint effort of all our churches working together.
And for years it sought in particular to reach out in love to Latino neighbors.
It housed a preschool, some of the children you can see there. It housed a food distribution ministry so that the hungry could be fed and it would host community gatherings and service events.
Well, last year, 2024, the board alerted the presbytery that the CASA was down to just 10 students in the preschool and would have to shut its doors.
That's been the case with a number of congregations, and it happened to this ministry loss.
So in the wake of that, what might we build anew?
What might we build together?
The Justice, Peacemaking and Mission committee of this presbytery, led by Knox's own Patrick Perry, made a bold recommendation.
The Gabrieleno Tongva Tribal Council had been renting an office at Casa de San Gabriel for decades. The land on which the Casa de San Gabriel stood had once been a part of a sacred site to the Tongva people, part of the village of Sibanga.
And our presbytery and the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians had long enjoyed a close connection, in part because of this woman, Mona Morales Recalde, who has not only been a leader in the Gabrieleno San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, but she's an elder at nearby La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church. She shared with our church recently at a third Wednesday evening program along with her daughter Samantha, about wisdom from native peoples when it comes to recovery after a fire.
And in conversation with Mona and members of the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, this question was posed. What if the casa and the land on which it stood were returned to people who, let's just say, had been displaced from it?
Who knew the kind of experience we read the ancient people of God once knew where a foreign power came in and seized land, or where a foreign power had placed the residents of a land in forced labor, as was done to the Tongva people, whom the Spanish called the Gabrielena people. And you know this history from visiting the San Gabriel Mission and reading about it there?
Well, our presbytery felt inspired by God, inspired by passages like the one Darlene read today to be a part of God's work, issuing a permit for a home rebuilt. And on July 10th of this year, the title of the land on which the Casa de San Gabriel stands was transferred to the Gabrielena San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians.
From our research so far, this appears to be the first time any religious body in California has ever been a part of a land back to native peoples.
You were a part of it. Each one of you was a part of it. Some from Knox were even there at the celebration this past August 2nd, as the triune God was worshiped. The stated clerk of the Presbyterian church attended, pictured here, as did Chief Morales and the Gabriele Ntongva tribal members performed a traditional canoe and dolphin dance.
I share that with you. In part to celebrate this recent movement of this presbytery, a movement of the spirit that shows to me profound new vision and imagination.
But I also share it that you might imagine new possibilities and opportunities in the season of rebuilding. Yes, there have been losses of houses, churches, other losses too, jobs.
But there have been new churches started, new jobs embarked upon.
There have been bold new efforts at revitalization of congregations like the one this church has been a part of and continues to be a part. We were right on the brink of closing in 2003. We were that close.
A few people stepped in, and then a few people after that, and a few people after that. And lo and behold, here we are.
As households, neighborhoods, a greater Los Angeles county, we have the chance to rebuild together. As Christians, may we look to God in that journey for direction, imagination and strength. May we lean hard on God. And then when wonderful moments of rebuilding come, as they did on August 2, or as some of our households finally get those coveted building permits, may we say thanks be to God who worked in Cyrus and can work in our world today. Thanks be to God for yet another permit on a house rebuilt in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
