The third chapter then begins with a Tolkien like list of the worker names (Meremoth, Joiada, Hananiah, etc) and obscure locations on the wall that needed rebuilding (Tower of Hananel, The Dung Gate, Wall of Ophel, etc). I must admit I have skipped this list many times and moved on to chapter four. But this last time I read it and some thoughts rang out from the names and places.

My first thought was that if you called Jerusalem home you got involved in the repair.

A couple weeks ago, I was walking down the vacant school hallway with my eight grade buddy. We were on our way to the library to work on some math and the first thing I noticed about the student free floor was the trash. You notice such things when the mob is not racing to their next class. On our walk my friend passed over a big wad of paper.

“Are you going to pick up that piece of paper?” I asked.
“No” came his response clearly.
“You need to be proud of your school and take care of it” I came back quickly.
“My school wouldn’t have a broken locker” came his retort as he pointed towards a locker without a door.

I immediately realized that he had an ownership issue. That school was not his so therefore he would not endeavor to take care of it. We are all the same. A pop can in our lawn is picked up, but the same can on the ground at your local grocery store is left “for someone else”. We have enough trouble taking care of what is ours to worry about what is someone else’s.

The problem comes when everything is always someone else’s problem.

That is the way it was in Jerusalem. All these people were walking over rubble every day and just said “it is not my wall”. It was not until this guy from out of town and saw things with fresh eyes that they began to realize that this wall was theirs and it was not the way that it was suppose to be. They had been like students in between class periods; they didn’t see the trash. If they did see the mess they decided to just say “that isn’t my part of the wall”.

We need to start taking ownership for our wall that is broken down. Our locality (as yours is probable also) is not what it should be and we all need to help in the rebuilding the hood. We need some new names written down in the next chapter of the revitalization of city! These names do matter because they show ownership in the destruction and ownership in the rebuilding.

My second thought on chapter three coming soon.