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Sunday January 18, 2009 "Doing Justice" Micah 6:6-8 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 1/26/2009 2:18 PM | “What do you want from me?”
This question has been asked so many times in so many situations: children ask it of parents, parents ask it of children, partners and spouses ask it of each other, workers ask it of bosses, friends ask it of friends.
Sometimes the question is fraught with exasperation. Sometimes it is a loving offer of help. Sometimes it seeks simple clarification.
But it is definitely a question we have heard, a question we have asked.
God has heard the question, too. The question has been asked of God in silent, fervent prayers. It has been asked in huge assemblies. It has been asked out of loyalty and devotion. It has been asked out of frustration. And more than once it has been asked in the hope that we need do nothing more to sastisfy God – we have it just right. But more often than not, we ask it, hoping that the answer will be something easy, knowing full well that the answer, while simple, will never be easy.
In this passage today, the question is asked by a worshipper of God and answered by the prophet Micah. It is up to us to decide if it is a legitimate question. That is,
does the worshipper really not know? Is he searching for an easy answer? Is he faithfully seeking to make sure that he is doing everything he can to please God, to do God’s will?
Micah doesn’t seem to think that it is a legitimate, well meaning question. Micah seems to think that the questioner is one that knows the answer, but is hoping that there might be an alternative to the hard answer that Micah will deliver.
You see, Micah has a beef with the Israelites that he counsels. He is not the first person to condemn worship and actions that are unpleasing to God. Micah is not the first person to condemn the so called “high places” that preach apostasy and heresy and lead innocent followers astray. Micah is not the first person to anger powerful people and leaders. But he stands fairly well alone in the list of critics that condemn Jerusalem and the leadership of the Jerusalem Temple directly. While most prophets condemn kings that led the people astray with worship at the so called “high places” and hold Jerusalem up as a beacon of light to the world and the Holy Temple as the one true place of worship, Micah takes a different tack.
Micah takes issue with Jerusalem itself, and by implication, the vaunted temple. He declares that these are among the “high places”, leading the faithful down a garden path to their own destruction. He backs up this judgement with a prophesy of the destruction of the temple, a prophesy that ultimately comes to pass.
In the passage we heard this morning, we witness the culmination of Micah’s message to the Israelites. He has issues with them to be sure. His words are words of judgment. His message is one we have heard over and over again: turn around! Do something different! Get right with God!
But with all the judgmental tone of Micah’s words, he always presents a message of hope. He does not condemn the Israelites, but rather warns them. His judgment is that the people are headed in the wrong direction and if they do not heed his words, they will seal their destruction. The hope is that his words will resonate with them and they will return to God’s way and revel in the celebration of what it means to be God’s people.
And then, comes the question from the worshipper: “What does God want from me? Burnt offerings, livestock as gifts, barrels of expensive oil. Should I dedicate my first born to the Lord’s service? What does God want from me?”
When I taught at Northeastern University in Boston, a story was making the rounds about an esteemed Harvard professor who was overseeing a PhD student’s dissertation. The student would bring his work to the professor and then come back a few days later and the professor would toss it back across his desk and say, “You can do better.” The student would leave, and do their best to do better. Time after time, the answer was the same, “You can do better.” Finally, the student broke down, sobbing, “What do you want from me? I can’t do any better.” The professor picked up the manuscript and calmly said, “Good. Now I will read it.”
While this apocryphal story most likely struck fear in the hearts of graduate students everywhere, and gave faculty members a good chuckle, there is in fact of grain of a truthful message in it. When friends and I were working on our dissertations, we joked about what we might do to assure our successful completion. Maybe a $100 bill on the flyleaf of the manuscript? Maybe a case of the professors favorite wine or expensive cigars? What could we offer our advisors that would assure they would look favorably upon our projects?
But that would be too easy. What did our advisors really expect? What did the professor in this story expect? The professor expected the students best. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When I read Micah’s answer to the worshipper’s questions, I picture Micah as a man exasperated beyond belief. A man who gives his all to convince these folks to give their best to following God. Shoulders slumped, dejected and deflated, Micah responds with a big sigh: “God has already told you what is expected of you.”
Indeed, God had repeatedly made clear to the Hebrew people what God expects. The question has been asked and answered: What does God want from me? Psalm 15 says God wants people who speak blamelessly, people who do what is right, people who speak truth from their heart. Psalm 24 instructs that God wants people with clean hands and pure hearts.
The books of Moses answer the question over and over again. Throughout the exodus and wandering of the Hebrew people, through Moses, God instructs the people about what is expected. In fact, there are 613 commandments laid out for their use!
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe my picture of the deflated Micah is not the way it happened at all. Maybe his exasperation shows in a different way: maybe he throws up his hands and shouts, “WHAT DOES GOD WANT FROM YOU? WHAT ARE YOU, A MORON? HAVEN’T YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? GOD HAS ALREADY TOLD YOU WHAT IS EXPECTED! 613 COMMANDMENTS ARE LAID OUT FOR YOU! WHAT DON’T YOU GET!?”
Well, I would have wanted to shout. Maybe Micah shouts maybe he doesn’t. But whatever his demeanor, he knows he has to give them a simple, yet true, answer to the question: “What does God want from you?” “God wants you to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God.”
It is, to be sure, a simple answer. I also think that Micah does a masterful job of distilling the essence of those 613 commandments into these three simple prescriptions. Simple yes. Easy, not so much.
Centuries later we find ourselves sometimes asking the same question. That in and of itself is testimony to the difficulty we humans have in giving ourselves over totally to God’s will.
Still, we ask the question. And still, we know the answer.
We make mistakes. We grow tired. We sometimes just want to take an easier route. God’s route is not always easy. It can at times be tiring. But Micah’s hopeful message is the same today as it was some 5000 years ago: the rewards are beyond our comprehension. When we do our absolute best to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God, the peace that is visited upon us through God’s grace is undeniable.
What is this justice we are called to do? Justice exists when all members of a community have their rights and dignity preserved and protected.
What does it mean to love kindness? The kindness we are called to emulate is the kindness that God showers upon us in God’s timeless and unconditional way. The grace granted to us, the blessings offered to us. These are the things we must offer to those we meet.
What does it mean to walk humbly with our God? Walking humbly with our God is accepting and practicing the reality of our awareness of our need for God as a full and complete partner in everything we do.
We know what is right.
We know what God expects us to do.
The question is, can we commit to doing what we know to be right?
This passage will be forever linked to the man our country celebrates tomorrow with a national holiday, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As the American champion of civil rights for all, Dr. King personified what God expects of us. His example of seeking justice through non-violent resistance taught a generation what it meant to be a person of God.
The fact is that many, many of the people involved in the movement were people of faith. Not all were Christians, but all understood, either implicity or explicitly, what the prophet Micah was telling them. At the heart of all that God would have us do is to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly.
Any person who was alive and aware of the televised images of orderly marches and quiet acquiescence to harsh language and actions could not help but be impressed with what the members of the movement were doing. They did not seek to harm others. They did not seek to degrade others. They sought justice for all Americans. They answered hate with love. They answered violence with pacifism. They answered shouts of derision with the silence it deserved.
Tomorrow is a national holiday, not a religious holiday. But like other of our national non-religious holidays, it can help us, the church, as we seek to do what God asks of us.
Independence Day has great lessons for us in understanding what it means to work together for a common good. Memorial Day helps us to remember those who laid down their lives in protection of those they loved. MLK Day helps us to remember that Micah was right. None of these three days are overtly religious holidays, but each of them point to the role of faith in pursuing freedom, protecting freedom and expanding freedom in this wonderful country. Religious and politics might be sometimes difficult to reconcile, but faith and politics are so tightly intertwined as to almost be unseparable.
Look to our national heroes. Look to the people who have had the greatest positive impact on this society. Look to those who are most instrumental in pushing for lasting, positive change, and they are to a person, people of faith. Look even closer and we will see that their faith is made manifest in their actions. They are people who do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with their God.
What are we the church to do with this information? As a congregation, our dollars support many good causes that will ultimately promote the cause of justice. Because we give to the Interfaith Outreach Home, children of poverty have a much better chance of growing up to take their rightful place in our society. Because we give to the Campbell-Stone retirement centers, we make sure that our elderly are treated with dignity and comfort, and not forgotten. Because we give to the Oglethorpe Food Pantry, families have a fighting chance to participate in the American Dream.
All of these things promote justice, and I am proud to be part of congregation that gives so generously to these and other organizations that seek to help promote the well being of our fellow citizens.
But still, giving of our resources to these worthy organizations sort of sounds like the bringing of the “things” to honor God that the worshipper in Micah raised. They are fine and good, but they are not enough.
They are not enough because when it comes right down to it, it is not really about WHAT God wants. It is about WHO God wants.
Justice can be pursued in many ways. Kindness can be shared in many ways. But the best way is through the forging of relationships. Real, one on one, person to person relationships. Think about it: our relationship with God becomes real in our humble acceptance that we need God in our lives, in real relationship, every step of the way, through every up and every down. Our relationship with God informs our faith when we give ourselves over to it. Our relationship with God empowers our actions when we honor and nurture it.
It is that example that we must carry into the world. An example of partnership that we must extend to all we meet. So, how do we do that?
We can move beyond the support we give through our monetary contributions and move toward building relationships with those who need our presence. We can go to Campbell Stone and visit. We can put together a work day at the Interfaith Outreach Home and get to know the folks who are working so hard to get a leg up in this brutal economy. We can volunteer at the food pantry, helping directly those whom are contributions support.
Those are just a few. There are many, many more possibilities. Here is my challenge to you today: take some time, during your communion meditation today, during your prayer time this week and think about where you as an individual and we as a congregation can do justice. What organizations would you like to support with your time? What projects can we join in to build relationships? Where can we be most effective, person to person, in helping those who need what we can offer? Jot them down on the back of the attendance sheet, send me an e-mail, come and talk to me with your ideas of how we can actively live out God’s call in our lives.
That is the challenge I put before you: how, in 2009, can we actually carry out Micah’s admonition? How can the Brookhaven Christian Church do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God?
Because really, we know what to do.
So let’s get to it.
Let us pray: Lord, we know what we are called to do. Grant us the strength to step up and practice being the people you would have us be. Help us to reach out, really reach out, to those who most need your presence, and then, give us the wisdom to do your will and in so doing change lives: theirs and ours. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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