Below is the sermon that I delivered this morning at St. John United Church of Christ:
Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.” “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah is simply my favorite of the Old Testament books. It contains an incredible charge from God to God’s people:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
This passage is perhaps the best known in Micah and for good reason. Many consider it one of the most important statements that God makes about what the mission of humanity is.
“The notion is a dynamic one; justice is something that one does,” wrote James Limburg, a scholar on Micah.
In Micah we read of a prophet who attacks the powerful for economic policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else (Micah 2:1-7) and the false prophets who support injustice (Micah 2:6-8). In the end, Micah calls us back to what the he considers the roots of salvation: justice, kindness, and a humble attitude before God. Jesus knew the teaching of the prophets of the Old Testament and considered his ministry to be in line with theirs. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Matt 5:17),” Jesus said.
In one of his books, Oregon State University religion professor Marcus Borg writes about how his undergraduate students understood the definition of justice. When he asked what justice meant many of them talked about notions of “criminal justice” or “procedural justice.” Biblical justice, he argues, is something different. He writes:
A third meaning of justice is “social justice.” More comprehensive than criminal justice and procedural justice, social justice is concerned with the structures of society and their results. Because it is results-oriented, it discerns whether the structures of society – in other words, the social system as a whole – are just in their effects. Do they produce a large impoverished class or result in a more equitable distribution of resources? Do they benefit some at the expense of many or serve all equally? Do they produce conflict or peace? Do they destroy or nourish a future?
Micah is clearly talking about social justice. Like other 8th and 7th century prophets he was concerned that Israel had turned away from God in ways that fundamentally broke the covenant between God and God’s people. Israel had become a place where the poor suffered needlessly and the powerful put the pursuit of material things ahead of their loyalty to God. The only way for the people to repair that breach was to work for justice – for a restoration of society. It was a common theme among the prophets of the Hebrew Bible that societies not based on fundamental justice would fail. The reason: social injustice is a human concept that goes against God’s will and societies not built on God’s justice will collapse under the weight of their own misdeeds. There are parallels to Micah’s time and our own contemporary society.
Today is being observed as Jubilee Sunday in congregations across the globe. Many of the planet’s so called “third-world” nations owe huge debts to Western countries. Those debts require that governments pay interest on money borrowed instead of investing in health care, schools, and basic infrastructure. Much of the money loaned by Western nations was handed over to dictators and oppressive governments which the West backed politically for various reasons. Few of those governments are still in place but the people living in those nations are forced to pay so much in interest that their countries cannot afford basic human services.
Finance ministers from the world’s seven richest countries will met in early February to discuss debt reduction. Religious groups are joining anti-poverty advocates to ask the governments to simply cancel all the debt. The United States and other western nations can easily afford to absorb the loss. Most of the loans have already been repaid several times over. The interest payments are literally keeping food and health care out of reach for millions and the issue has taken on new urgency for tsunami ravaged nations that are being forced to pay interests payments while at the same time trying to pay for relief efforts. Jubilee is a Biblical practice in which debts are forgiven so that poverty does not trap one generation after the next. The concept is explained this way by the Jubilee USA group:
Early Israel prevented the accumulation of wealth in that everything was shared and ultimately "owned" by God. However, between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE (BC), another economic model was introduced, whereby distribution was not equal, and God's ownership not respected. Some Israelites were forced into debt in order to keep from starving, and, because of high interest rates, slavery resulted. This situation can be paralleled to the astronomical rises in interest rates on international loans in the early 1980s. Countries today have been forced to use state industries and national forests to pay off their loans, distribution of resources is not equal and God's ownership again is not respected. International debt has become a contemporary form of slavery.
The issue of international debt illustrates for us in a very real way how Micah’s teachings – and really the teaching of the entire Bible – come alive for us in relevant and meaningful ways. Can you imagine how different the world would be if our economic, social, and political institutions were based on these Biblical teachings?
We’ve been together now for five months and there is a confession I should make: I’m what you would call a liberal. My liberalism is not, however, defined in political terms alone. My faith in God’s teachings determines how I see the world. Isn’t this true for most of us? When we all hear about human suffering and injustice don’t we turn to our Bibles for guidance? Some of us read those teachings and come out liberal and some of us read those teachings and come out conservative. We can interpret Biblical teachings and come to different conclusions and still remain faithful Christians as long as we honestly try and discern God’s will in the teachings and not our own desires.
There is a remarkable consensus emerging, however, among Christians on issues of economic justice. Just recently “seventy-six leaders of evangelical colleges, seminaries, denominations and ministries petitioned (President) Bush about health insurance and the 'unacceptably high' rates of U.S. hunger and poverty. The group further lamented that the United States 'ranks absolutely last' among developed nations in 'governmental assistance to overcome global poverty,' echoing a U.N. official’s controversial comment about 'stingy' nations in the wealthy West,” according to The Associated Press. Most of these evangelical leaders (many of which voted for the president’s reelection) would find fault with the more progressive theology found in the United Church of Christ, but despite those differences conservatives and liberals – and all those in-between – who read Micah with integrity come to similar conclusions on how we are to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
We can illustrate our commitment to God’s justice in more than one way. Advocating on important issues such as debt relief is one example of acting for justice. Another example would be how we live out our family lives. Do we give our children the support they need to thrive? Do we show the respect to our family members that each child of God deserves? Do we welcome people into this faith community without preconditions as Jesus called us to do? These are all justice issues as well.
Christianity is not a Sunday only experience. We all know this but it is worth repeating. Christians are called to set aside our own narrow self interest in favor of God’s Kingdom. Frankly, we have a radical faith that often stands in tension with culture. When we put our own culture ahead of God’s Kingdom, as was done in Micah’s time, it clearly frustrates God. God intends for us to be more than we often are. Yet God doesn’t give up on us. God sends prophets to bring us back into relationship with God. Let us recommit ourselves to hearing the words of Micah anew so that our lives and worldly purposes are more in line with the Kingdom God calls us to help build.
