Better Than a Thousand Rams

June 20, 2010

Micah 6:1, 6-8 and Matthew 25:31-45

I begin today’s sermon with the notion that our Old Testament reading is an excellent resource to examine Kathy Weinberg-Kinsey’s ministry and offer our thanks.

I have never asked, but imagine Micah 6 is one of her all-time favorite scriptures. I bet she regularly taught it to seventh and eighth grade confirmation classes as an essential element of what we are to believe and do, and frequently highlighted it as the “secret verse” in Bibles given to third graders during the last twenty years.

I know she lives it. Doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God are hallmarks of Kathy’s identity – in daily ministry and her demeanor.

As if further proof were needed, she also introduced me to the round we sang at the start of worship today, and that follows the sermon – a song based on Micah 6. It happened during a youth mission trip – to Yakima, Washington, I think – while riding along in a 15-passenger van. She and Dave were up front. I was in back among sleeping bags and sleeping bodies … of the typically gangly teenage variety. To pass the time, the Weinberg-Kinseys began singing: What does the Lord require of you …

Pretty soon, everyone was awake, learning a part, joining in. The miles flew by. Even better, in the subtlest of ways, Kathy linked the prophet Micah to the purpose of our journey.

So, Kathy, I offer that reading to you this morning, with gratitude for all the ways you made such connections, and for just being you.

But, I also chose the passage for those we will ordain and commission momentarily. The call to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” applies equally to them. In fact, it invites everyone to live boldly, openly, and concretely in faith. I mention that, Kathy, to keep you walking humbly! (This sermon isn’t all about you!)

* *

The first thing to notice is that Micah sets these verses in a courtroom. A trial has begun – Israel’s life is up for review. Judgment awaits as to whether or not they have offered what God requires. The testimony phase of the trial is underway.

Crucial to the outcome, is a determination of what God requires. It’s the first thing to decide. So the prophet lays out a series of alternatives in an ever-increasing crescendo of grandiosity.

• Burnt offerings?

• Year-old calves?

• Thousands of rams?

• Rivers of oil?

• Give God your firstborn son? (There were days I wanted my parents to do that with my older brother!)

But all those possibilities are rejected. Each one is false and misleading. God wants none of that. Why? Because each one is a commodity – a thing that can be bought, traded or sold … a thing that does not foster a direct relationship with God, but that stands between the giver and God as a distraction, keeping the relationship impersonal and at arm’s length.

“Hey, God! Here you go. Take this. Hope you like it!” But God needs none of our “stuff.”

So, then what? Once again the prophet inquires what God wants.

This time, rather than externalobjects, faithful relationships are proposed.

• First: a relationship based on doing justice – which is to say, a relationship with neighbor;

• And second: a relationship based on mercy – which is to say, a relationship modeled on the essential quality of God’s character.

In other words, Micah prescribes what Jesus later will lift up as the twin elements of the Great Commandment: to love God and love neighbor. Doing justice and loving mercy “fulfills” the Law and Prophets … and it’s what God requires.

Let me elaborate:

For us, “doing justice” often looks like what we see in a primetime courtroom drama. (Micah was right. It always happens in court!) An obvious lowlife is caught in a trap of his (or her) own deception, the good guys win, a dozen dead bodies are scraped off the pavement (but we didn’t know or like those characters anyway). Most important of all: each drama ends with the world still imbalanced just enough for whole thing to be replayed at another hour in another week with new criminals, new victims, and the same heroes. (A friend of mine in New York is bereft that Law and Order is going off the air, after 20 years. He’s pretty sure he’s seen every episode, and still wants more.)

But biblical justice isn’t like TV. The justice required by Micah’s God is not precarious or fragile. It doesn’t start from scratch every week. It is durable and stable. And biblical justice is less about psychopathic deviant murderers than it is about you and me, and the way we live.

So Micah’s justice has more to do with social-leveling than law-keeping. And it puts us on trial regarding how much and how well we do that social-leveling in regard to our neighbors – especially the “least” of our neighbors.

Food for all … Jobs for all … Education for all … Homes for all … Health care for all – that’s what the Bible expects! That’s what God requires. That’s what “doing justice” means. And, in Micah’s courtroom, that is how we will be judged …

… Along with our ability and desire to “love mercy.”

Our New Revised translation says, “love kindness,” but almost always the Hebrew word involves “mercy.”

What’s the difference? As Don Weinberg said at the Worship Committee meeting last week, “You can be kind to anyone. But mercy is usually for someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Besides, mercy is a key attribute of God. It’s an essential quality of God’s character. At least a dozen times, the Bible tells us that God isn’t just kind, but “… merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” to all generations. To which Jesus adds, “You therefore must be merciful as [God] is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

To “love mercy,” therefore is to want with all your heart to imitate God’s character in regard to people who do not deserve it. Like us!

* *

… Which takes us to the last line of the passage – to “walk humbly with God.”

If time allowed, I would unpack that phrase word by word. But for now, I’ll just highlight the word that is easy to overlook: The word “with.”

To walk with anyone is to notice his or her presence, and admit that you are not alone. So it encourages humbleness – not self-abasement or groveling, as humbleness is often perceived – but simple recognition that others are in this world besides you … and beside you.

We do not walk alone. We are not autonomous, self-actualized, independent creatures. I know a guy who has agoraphobia. You know what that is? Fear of crowds. Fear of being with others. But you know what really terrifies him? Fear of being alone. Fear that he won’t have anyone to care for him and love him. He hates to go out of the house. But he doesn’t want to be in the house by himself either.

To walk humbly is to know that, home or away, we are not alone, even when no one else is in sight … because God is there, walking with us.

And walking humbly is knowing even more that God often comes to us in the guise of other humans – a sister or brother, mother or father, widow or orphan, the leper and the lame, drug addict or homeless, neighbor or stranger… and particularly as the man who hung on a cross and walked from the grave – so that we might humbly walk with him into new life.

* *

At our most humble, we may only see them, not him. We won’t recognize Jesus in our other traveling companions. But we won’t need to. As another courtroom drama unfolds – the third in this sermon – we’ll say, “When did we see you hungry or naked or sick or in prison?” And the answer will come: “When you did it for any of the least of these, you did it for me.”

Some day justice and mercy will be so natural, we won’t even notice ourselves doing them. We’ll just think that’s what everybody does. Humility will be so all-inclusive that we won’t dream life could unfold any other way – not even in exchange for burnt offerings, or thousands of rams, or rivers of oil.

When that happens, we will be walking humbly with God.

* *

Kathy, you have brought us closer to that goal in your years as our Director of Christian Education. It has been an inspiration, a pleasure, and a joy to work with you. I am personally humbled by all you have done on my behalf.

I know – and you know – your work is not done. God still has wonderful plans for you, your family, the church … for Jim Kolo (our new deacon), and for everyone we commission. We just have to wait to see what those plans are.

In the meantime we keep singing and journeying together … to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”

In the Spirit and goodness of Jesus Christ.