Opposition will come

As we stumble along, trying to figure what our next move, our next day, will bring, I was thinking about the book of Nehemiah.

The fourth chapter really spoke to me. Maybe you've read it; maybe not.

The story is this: Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild its walls that have been destroyed by a conquering nation. When he arrives and begins getting families together to do the work, opposition arises.

It reads, "Sanballat, Tobiah, and the people of Arabia, Ammon, and Ashdod heard that we were making progress in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem and that the gaps in the wall were being closed and they became very angry."

A couple of verses later, we read, "The people of Judah had a song they sang: 'We grow weak carrying burdens; There's so much rubble to take away. How can we build the wall today?'"

I was wondering why some would opposed progress. I assume the argument would be about just what is progress, but clearly in the case of Nehemiah, progress was being made in building the walls back to where they had been.

Just as clearly, the people of Arabia, Ammon, and Ashdod did not want defensive walls built in a city in which they had become powerful.

And there you have it.

Those who opposed change, who oppose progress often are the ones who are currently in power. It is the effort to grab onto power, cling to the power one has grabbed and even attempt to gain more power that causes the opposition to progress.

It is the Pharisees, those keepers of the law in the New Testament Israel, who wanted Jesus dead because he threatened their power.

I did a bit of research about why people hate change, particularly in the church, and these were the greatest of the reasons.

Ineffective communication (why must we change as part of a vision-casting); feeling of a loss of control; distrust of (clergy); fear of redundancy; fear of failure; if it's not broken, why fix it?; internal focus (refuses to see the bigger picture); fear they lack the skills to do what is being asked.

I believe the top reason for a desire not to change is simply the fear of being useless in the new system.

When I was a journalist, we at the New Orleans newspaper for which I worked had a job pledge that said we would never lose our job as long as we were willing to be retrained when technology changed (I paraphrase). We had that pledge until they took it away in 2009 as the Internet ravaged the world of newspapers and suddenly people were not nearly as needed as before.

Change is scary. Change is coming, regardless.

For Nehemiah, as the opposition grew, his planning began to have to deal with what he knew to be possibly rebuild stopping. "From then on, half of my men worked and half stood guard..."

When we rebuild, when we promote change, there is a better than average chance that half or more of our people will oppose it. Nehemiah shows us that if we believe we are called by God to do a particular task, we must continue it, even if the opposition grows deadly.

Just keep working (and carry a big stick).