A wall raised by many named, ordinary hands
Prepared for the Irvine chapter of the Google Christian Fellowship
The chapter is a roster, and the roster is the point. Eliashib the high priest and his brothers begin at the Sheep Gate—building it and consecrating it—and the record circles the city gate by gate: Fish, Old, Valley, Dung, Fountain, Water, Horse, East, Muster. Next to them, and next to them: goldsmiths and perfumers leave their trades to lay stone; rulers of half-districts labor beside temple servants; Shallum repairs with his daughters; the Tekoites take a second section, though their nobles “would not stoop to serve their Lord.” Again and again the phrase recurs: each repaired opposite his own house. No single builder is praised; the wall rises out of dozens of named, ordinary hands.
“Above the Horse Gate the priests repaired, each one opposite his own house.”Nehemiah 3:28
“For the widows and the bereaved we beseech, that God may hear their prayers…and accept their labour”Ethiopian Divine Liturgy · Liturgy of the Ethiopian Church, Preparatory Service litany §78 (trans. Daoud)
“Whose feet then wilt thou wash? Whom wilt thou care for? In comparison with whom wilt thou be last if thou livest by thyself?”St. Basil the Great · Long Rules, Q.7 (trans. Lowther Clarke, Ascetic Works of St. Basil)
“Through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being.”Pope St. John Paul II · Laborem Exercens 9
“…doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”Brother Lawrence · The Practice of the Presence of God, Fourth Conversation (Gutenberg ed. 5657)
“Every man’s mode of life, therefore, is a kind of station assigned him by the Lord, that he may not be always driven about at random.”John Calvin · Institutes of the Christian Religion III.x.6 (trans. Beveridge)
“Work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives.”Timothy Keller · Every Good Endeavor (2012), ch. 2, “The Dignity of Work”