It is auspicious
that today is our Annual Parish Meeting
and we’ve had given to us
the Micah and Matthew readings — which are,
well, which are
everything.
And then there is that poem,
that painful yet brilliant poem
about what we are capable of doing
to the gemstones of our spiritual tradition —
like those readings
from Micah and Matthew.
It evokes that not so distant lean, spare,
and brutally scrubbed clean god
of our Protestant ancestors
whose love seems abusive.
At first blush, Micah’s God
could seem like that Puritan god
of bleached surfaces and brittle temperament.
But Micah’s God oozes love and hope for us.
I know we have been around this track before,
about the relationship
between Micah and Jesus — probably once
every three years when it comes up —
but it is worth being reminded, I think.
Micah was born and raised
among rural villages and farmland in Judah
some eight hundred years before Jesus.
Micah and his family
were among the peasant class
upon whom were inflicted brutal taxes
that went to support the excesses
of Jerusalem’s decadent urban elite.
His rustic and lowly social status
was like that of the prophet Amos,
while Isaiah and Jeremiah
came from the more educated classes.
Our buddy Jesus
shared the same socio-economic profile
as Micah and Amos, eight hundred years later.
The prophet Micah insisted
that the leadership of the people –
those at the helm of its stewardship –
should refocus on the Covenant
and its 613 Laws.
Micah reminded those who were in charge,
that the laws of Torah – those 613 boring rules –
included a list of social entitlements
that revealed the love of God.
He reminded the powerful
that those entitlements
were not being properly executed.Those 613 Laws spelled out
in scrupulous detail that food was to be shared;
that there was to be a periodic cancellation of debt;
that there was to be a policy
of the fair distribution of land;
that war was to be waged with mercy where possible
and with many exemptions respecting the personal lives of soldiers;
AND that access to power and resources
was to be expansive not narrow,
inclusive not exclusive.
Remember, this was a society of former slaves
and they had high expectations for something different.
Micah reminded them that those boring laws
in Deuteronomy and Leviticus we never read,
formed the very heart of the covenant
God made with Israel.
And in order for Israel to be Israel
those laws were to be embodied
in the policies and actions
of the ruling elite.
Micah reminded his partners in covenant,
that being the people of God
is not an entitlement itself,
rather it is a relationship to be lived into –
a covenant based upon
a particular kind of social order.
What Micah was doing
was putting Israel on trial.
Literally, he was making the case
for the prosecution
and putting his contemporaries on trial.
It is a courtroom drama
like in “To Kill a Mocking Bird.”
In the piece of the scene we heard this morning —
which, by the way, I shortened from
what the Lectionary assigned —
we are treated to a cosmic version of
“Law and Order.”
Micah imagines a court of law
in which the powerful elite of his day
are the defendants whose very use power
is used as evidence against them.
It is a cosmic court
and at the bench is a tribunal of gods
with The God of Israel presiding.
It is a cinematic Biblical moment, in which
God calls upon the mountains and the oceans,
and all the company of heaven,
to act as witnesses against Israel.The accusation
is that Israel has been unfaithful.
The charge is that Israel has forgotten her origin.
The Prosecution asserts
that Israel has forgotten she was once in slavery;
and because she has forgotten,
she has lost her reason to exist,
which was to be a light
to the people who sat in darkness.
Micah’s poetic prophecy
includes a feeble defense put forth by the elite
as they make a pitiful acknowledgment of guilt:
“So what must we sacrifice to make things right,” they whine.
“Should it be something really big this time?
What is it you want?
Calves?
Rivers of oil?
How about our first-born children?
Yeah, that’s pretty big, huh?
We’ll throw in some extra prayers,
lots of Hail Mary’s,
solemn recitations of the Nicene Creed,
earnest confessions,
and communion.”
It is a kind of adolescent maneuvering
aimed at evoking sympathy from the gods,
but which does not actually accept responsibility.
It is obvious
that the rich and powerful
neither accept responsibility
for the vast disparity of wealth and power,
nor do they buy into the Covenant’s vision
of a more equitable social order.
In fact, the very suggestion that God
is looking for some kind of religious ritual
to make things right,
is a painful indication they have forgotten
where they came from
and what their mission is.
And what Micah keeps saying,
in as many ways as he can,
is that we are to remember
where we came from
and what our mission is.
The cosmic court answers their forgetfulness.
And it responds to their outrageous attempt
to bribe the court with their silly rituals.
“What God requires,” the justices declare,
is for you to DO justice.
What God requires
is for you to LOVE kindness.
What God requires
is for you to WALK humbly
with God.”
I am convinced that the prophet Micah
was Jesus’ go-to guy.
Underneath Jesus’
sermon on the mount,
and especially the summary of the law,
is Micah’s summation of the Covenant:
Do not forget where you came from
and what your mission is:
to do justice,
to love kindness,
and to walk humbly
with God.
I dare say, that is as clear and cogent
a summation of the Covenant for us
as it was in either Micah’s
or Jesus’ day:
Do not forget where you came from
and what your mission is:
to do justice,
to love kindness,
and to walk humbly
with God.
In the past I have broken this down
and gone into a lot of detail
about each of those injunctions
and their biblical roots.
I don’t think that is necessary today.
I think you can apply
these criteria as directly to our social policies
and economic lifestyles
as well as I can.
We don’t need biblical definitions
to tell us what they mean.
We need courage.
We need the courage to judge
a whole bunch of things
that seem far beyond our control.
We need courage
to apply the Covenant
as filtered through Micah or Jesus,
to our situation in life as Americans
in the 21st century.
We need courage
to allow it to alter what we do.
We don’t get a pass
because we are just one person
or just one family
or far away from Albany or Washington, D.C.
or Wall Street.
So we need courage
to consider how we can better,
more effectively,
more bravely…
do justice,
love kindness,
and walk with humility
hand in hand with God.
If we do that —
if we use Micah and Jesus
to ask ourselves hard questions
and use their criteria
to shape our actions —
then, then we will have remembered
where we came from
and what our mission is.
We don’t get to be perfect.
We don’t have to crawl on our bellies
and sacrifice something at a shrine.
We do not have to live in fear
of our Mother’s god
that peers down at us with a nasty look
and snarled lips
because we aren’t living up to expectations.
All we have to do
is remember where we came from
and what our mission is
and then go about doing it
a little bit at a time.
One step at a time.
One day at a time.
One decision at a time.
One opportunity at a time.
When we mess up,
which we will,
and when we get negligent,
which we do,
then we remember.
We remember
and we remember
and we remember
and we walk into our mission
one step at a time.
And that, my friends,
is how I would sum up
what church is:
a community
to help us remember
where we came from — God —
and what our mission is —
to do justice,
to love kindness,
and to walk with humility
hand in hand with God.
A community to help us remember,
a community to hold us up and give us courage,
a community to love us when we fail
and help us recover.
In other words, a community
that tries to act like God.
So be it. Amen.
This sermon is so good. It gives us something to think about after we leave church. In my opinion, that’s what a priest’s sermon should do.
Thank you, that means a lot coming from you.
There was a retired priest and his wife in my congregation in Vermont who drove many miles to get to church on Sundays. He rated my sermons by how many miles they would discuss it on the way home. Sometimes he would email me that a particular sermon was rated a “ten mile” sermon.
My goal each week is simply to create an opening and hope that those who hear it will do the work. I appreciate hearing when that has happened. Thanks again.