Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, UCC

Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel

July 24, 2011

What does the Lord Require?

Micah 6:6-8

There are times for a preacher when God uses sermon preparation to bring about a transformation or major change in his or her life. I became a vegetarian in August of 2008, when preparing a sermon about animals in a “God is Green” series here at EHCC.  Prior to that, vegetarianism was something that I was trying not to think too much about. I sensed that it might be appropriate for me, that God might be calling me to it. So for years I put it out of my mind. But then I had to go and wrestle with Scripture and online videos and books and conversations with farmers and I could no longer push it aside. I was watching a video in the Singer Room the moment I became a vegetarian. In my message to the congregation, I assured everyone that I was not going to try to convince them to make the same choice that I did. I also talked about the various ways we care for animals and the earth that can include responsible choices in what kind of meat we buy.

Micah 6:8 is among my favorite verses in the Bible. I have recited it countless times. I’ve preached on it at least once before. I thought that the sermon preparation for my old friend Micah would be comfortable and easy. After studying Micah more in-depth, I went to a book recommended by a new friend called The Irresistable Revolution: living as an ordinary radical by Shane Claiborne. With the Micah-esque theme of justice for the poor and disenfranchised, perhaps I could glean a nice quote from Shane’s book. I was only in the introduction when it was the Singer Room moment all over again. That feeling of I’ll never be the same again. This modern day prophet grabbed hold of me and hasn’t let go. But it isn’t him that is so extraordinary, and he is the first to admit it--what has changed in me is a  fresh perspective on Jesus, and how we are to live as followers of Jesus.

Shane grew up in a Christian home in East Tennessee. He went up for plenty of altar calls, but began to wonder why he was asked to lay his life down but not pick anything up. What was he supposed to do with his life? He went to church religiously, but it became an empty ritual over time. It seemed to him that there was a major disconnect between the stories about Jesus in the Bible and the lifestyles of the church members. He went out in search of a Christianity that was more overtly about living like Jesus. It took him to Calcutta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baghdad, and many more places. He found what he was looking for in the poor, the struggling, the oppressed. He founded an organization with a group of friends, and they call it The Simple Way. They share a house in Philadelphia in an area where many are homeless and hungry. They open their home to people for showers, for food, for morning prayer and to show love.  He compares his interdependent living with the poor to the mustard seed from Jesus’ parable. He does small things for God, but they are acts of love and justice that God grows beyond what he had imagined. Mustard plants have a way of spreading, just as the small things that we do in the name of Christ have a way of being blessed and empowered by God.

This sermon is the part of a larger series on the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament.  12 brief books of prophecy urge people to turn from destructive ways of living, and turn toward God.  Much of Micah is in the form of poetry, and Micah 6:6-8 is in an entrance liturgy. When pilgrims journeyed to a place of worship, they would do a lot of singing.  When they finally reached a place of worship, they often sang a question about how to proceed into God’s house. Here the question asked is, What shall we bring to God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  The escalating possibilities go outside the possible. Thousands of rivers of oil? No chance. All of the prophets spoke against human sacrifice. What does God want from us? What shall we bring? No things. God has already shown us. God wants us. We give God our very lives, as we seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. The people wanted the easy route. They wanted a formula for which ritual would please God. But God does not appreciate religious practices when people do not integrate faith into their very lives. Ordinary Christians “sprinkle in a little Jesus here and there” according to Shane Claiborne. I find myself praying to God, just tell me what to do, when I am asking for guidance. Okay, replies God--live a radically different life than what you are living now. Change everything. According to Micah, there is no step by step plan for following the will of God. There was not one thing the Israelites could do to make all right between them and God. God loves us no matter what. But when we don’t live in accordance with God’s realm, it will be difficult for us to recognize the heart of God. It is a constant struggle to live in love and justice day in and day out, walking with God through it all. But once we are living that way, perhaps no other way will even seem possible.

Do Justice

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached it this way: “we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside . . . but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be continually beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars need to be repaved. We are called to the the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.”^[1]

Today one of those repavings may be aided by the Circle of Protection. This statement from church leaders and congregations is a plea to our government to think first of the poor and disenfranchised, reflecting the call to justice we read about in the Bible. It reads: “Budgets are moral documents, and how we reduce future deficits are historic and defining moral choices. As Christian leaders, we urge Congress and the administration to give moral priority to programs that protect the life and dignity of poor and vulnerable people in these difficult times, our broken economy, and our wounded world. It is the vocation and obligation of the church to speak and act on behalf of those Jesus called "the least of these." This is our calling, and we will strive to be faithful in carrying out this mission.” It’s not too late to go online and sign up to join the circle.

Love Kindness

Micah says “love kindness.” This Hebrew word, hesed has no translation in English. We say “kindness” but hesed is much more profound. It is a love with intense loyalty. Shane Claiborne tells this story: “A married couple who were unable to have children happened to meet a woman who had found herself six month pregnant and homeless, so they invited her into their home. It proved to be such a beautiful experience that they decided to continue living together to help raise the new baby girl while the mother pursued her dream of going back to school to become a nurse. They have been living together over a decade now. They are a family, and the baby is now a teenager and the mom a nurse. A heart-wrenching twist to the story is that the wife of the married couple is now very ill with multiple sclerosis, but now the nurse living in her home is caring for her, just as she had cared for the nurse.” He goes on to explain, “This is the divine gift of mystical providence and radical interdependence.” (183) To me, it is a story of hesed. It is a story of people who loved each other with a profound sense of loyalty.

Walk humbly with God

Shane became an activist for the disenfranchised, for the “least of these” soon after moving up north and beginning Eastern College in Pennsylvania. He became friends with a couple of guys who invited him to go with them downtown to meet their homeless friends. Not long after, he and his buddies heard about forty families who were about to be evicted from the abandoned cathedral that had become their home. This group of three guys recruited dozens more students to come to the cathedral and risk arrest by refusing to leave. This attracted such news attention, with books and films on the story of the group of families known as The Kensington Welfare Rights Union, and the publicity resulted in people giving the families places to live, and the city itself ensuring that everyone was taken care of.^[2] Shane went on to serve with Mother Teresa in Calcutta for a summer, providing comfort for the Home of the Destitute and Dying. He then experienced major culture shock when he returned to the States, and a year long internship at the Chicago megachurch Willow Creek. But he does not criticize Willow Creek folks. He sees Jesus in the people of Willow Creek who see to walk humbly with God, serving the people of Chicago. It was a very different ministry than the Home of the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta, but he saw how God was truly present in both places. In both situations, people were living justice, love and walking with God.

Mother Teresa said, “We are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful.” This idea continues to echo within me. It has become my prayer. This is the part of the Micah text “walk humbly with your God.” The connotation of Walk in this verse is similar to Jesus’ invitation “Come, follow me.” It is an action, an invitation to a way of life. It is walking in wisdom, intentionally. In Matthew 13 we read a parable of Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”  We sow the mustard seed, we mix in the yeast . . . we do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God in small ways that God can use to transform the world.  A Haitian proverb states, “When you give to the poor, you give to God.”  Shane Claiborne says, that is true, but if we are striving to be like Jesus then we should not simply give to the poor, but be among the poor. Jesus did not simply help the poor, Jesus was poor.^[3] Dorothy Day, “If you have two coats, one belongs to the poor.” We make choices every day that affect others. Each thing I buy for myself is money that I could have used to feed hungry children. Time that I spend surfing the internet is time that I could be offering to meet someone new, to hear their story, to give and receive. Walk humbly with God. Don’t tread the path of trying to be liked, the road of perfectionism, the way of apathy, the racetrack of burnout and exhaustion. Walk carefully with God.

So I began this sermon by telling you about my renewed conviction for living like Jesus. Truly, to do justice, love intensely loyally, and walk solidly with God. I have only done small things so far. But I have faith that God will take those small seeds and make them grow.