Being Wealthy, Religious and Powerful
Sermon
SEEK GOOD, NOT EVIL
that you may live
That's like the blast from the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, who had the furnaces heated to seven times their usual intensity in order to consume Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It's the outpouring of a man or woman with a short fuse, a fuse which has been short for a long time.
One wonders whether or not it would have been wise to have a committee check this language before it was uttered in public, especially for a church public. That lacerating language may have its place in other places, but the church is hardly the place.
But there's more here than an irritated prophet exercising his vocal chords. We have grown too accustomed to the always cool, laid back voice of our news broadcasters, who maintain their icy calm even in the midst of catastrophic events. It makes us wonder if the catastrophic moments have occurred or not. The calm voice and the calm figure are in the foreground, the devastated Mount St. Helens in the background. The foreground takes precedence over the background.
Not so here. All the fury of the text is preceded by the significant words, "The word of the Lord." In our language, Micah is reporting what God is seeing, what God is feeling. It is not just a point of view. In fact, a great deal of the trouble is that that is precisely the way Micah's words are being heard, only as a point of view. Interesting, perhaps, but for all of that, parochial. But it's not parochial. It's God. It's not Micah. It's God.
But both God and Micah have a problem. How do you get rich folks to listen, to listen to anything but what they want to listen to? Worse than that, how do you get rich religious folks to listen? Let us not forget that rich defines most of us.
That's correct. After we've recovered from the first blast of fury, we realize that it is not pagan people whom God has addressed. He does so on other occasions. Here he is addressing his own people. His people who claimed the temple of Solomon as their place of worship and continued to worship and think of themselves as the people of God but had become specialists in anti-God activity of every sort. That activity included devising wickedness; brewing up new ways to do evil even when they should have been sleeping; defrauding people simply because they had the power to do so ("My first in your face" was their motto) and not only coveting a field but seizing the field they had coveted, and doing the same with houses of others, by rising up against the people of God as though the people of God were the enemy; stripping away the robes of those who would be peaceful, so that a soldier at the front was in less danger than when he fell into their hands. The totality of the outrage is complete when the most defenseless are attached by the powerful.
Has it changed much in our time? The women and the children, the special ones with whom God is concerned because he knows if their condition is favorable, the condition of all people is favorable. If their condition is not favorable, the condition of others may be ever-so-favorable, but in his eyes it is not favorable. The women and children are outraged by being driven out of their homes (such as they are), and driven into exile. Even their poor excuses for homes are seized by those who already have much more than they can possibly use even in the most profligate of their actions.
The outrage is complete. There is no evil they have imagined. There is no evil they have not imagined that they have not done. Having performed so outrageously, they cannot possibly imagine the breadth of their outrage nor can they imagine that their outrage can ever come to an end. As far as they are able to see, their outrageous behavior has brought them more and more wealth.
Both they and we have often taken prosperity as a sure sign of our Lord's benediction, its absence a sure sign of his absence. Is this perhaps why we secretly hate to be poor and fear being poor? Does it mean that God no longer cares for us?
Why, then, is it so hard to hear the disembowling words of Micah and of God? On a first level, how is it possible for one to be rich and wrong at the same time? On the face of it, it seems impossible. Wealth, affluence is a result of hard work, a just reward for careful investments, not to say coveteousness, and the rich do not use the word covet.
There are very few of us who do not want to get wealthy. Being wealthy seems a laudable goal. Just because some make it and some don't doesn't alter the equation. One of the driving forces of Western civilization, especially in the United States, is that of upward mobility. That includes wealth, as much as you can get. The rags-to-riches image is more than an image. It's a compelling force. The poor boy who makes it to the White House is one of our favorite stories. To be master and dominate others is a personal as well as a national and religious goal. Why is it that number one means so much and that number two means so little, even though in a specific area the number two person has only one more who is better than he or she is?
We forget that this inordinate pursuit of wealth comes at high cost. That fact is not much in our conversation. It is in God's however. It is in the text. It's the small folks, the little folks, the peaceful folks, the women and the children who pay the price for our greed. Human rights are subordinated to greed. The little ones of Christ's judgment day story pay the price - a price that God says is too high. Hence, Micah's message. It is not without significance that until comparatively modern times the church opposed usury, that is, loaning things on interest, that which has become the very backbone of our economic systems, borrowing other people's money with interest. How many of us would be here this morning if we had never borrowed other people's money or are not here on borrowed money?
The heights that come with money and power seem to produce deafness and historical amnesia. People in power have a way of believing that they will always be in that position. Stories of people falling from the heights are just that, stories of other people. Never mind that Muhammed Ali is no longer the greatest, that the Shah of Iran is no longer the Shah of Iran, that Howard Hughes died a miserable recluse, that Richard Nixon, once the most powerful man in the world, had to resign amidst personal and national disgrace.
Even the rapacious Romans of old had a slave constantly whisper into the ear of a conquering general in those moments of the triumphal procession down the streets of Rome, "Sic transit gloria mundi." Thus passes away the glory of this world.
Those of you in this congregation who are over sixty years of age have seen the disappearance of an empire that seemed untouchable. The British Empire is no more. During our lifetime it has ceased to be. Contemplate that for a moment. Teach us to number our days and apply our hearts unto wisdom. The Hitlerian empire with its dream is no more.
Carl Sandburg captured that moment in a poem in which a chorus sings, "We are the greatest nation. We are the greatest people that ever was." At the close of the poem not even the rat prints are left to tell us that this was the greatest nation, the greatest people that ever was.
But for all the good that it seems to do, Micah says, they may just as well have a drunken preacher, something they would probably resent because of their civility and sophistication, but who would represent them best of all because of their being drunk with power and greed and covetousness.
Job is an exception to much of this. It was on the good days that Job would make it a special point to sacrifice to God the best bullocks, for he understood the potential danger of the "seeming good days." We may turn to God on bad days. Job knew that good days are times of danger.
We now stand beyond the days of Micah. What he said came true. What they had done to others was done to them. "We are utterly ruined. Among our captors he divides our fields." Uncleanness has destroyed with a bitter destruction.
We have moved beyond Micah, but not beyond the conditions he describes, not beyond the message he proclaims. When the poor and the widows and the orphans end up with the short end of the stick, there can be nothing so good as to excuse that.
The message still continues among the righteous and the unrighteous. Finally God sent the Prophet of prophets, the Teacher of teachers, the Preacher of preachers - himself in the person of his Son. You know what they did to him. They cast him out of the city in hopes that they would never have to hear that message or that Messenger again. But neither crucifixion nor death could hold him. He only reconfirmed what had been said again and again. As you have done it or not done it to the least of these, you have done it or not done it to me. The alliance is not between wealth and wealth, covetousness and covetousness, but between himself and his people. The short run never seems that way. That's why covetousness gets its way. But God specializes in the long run. He believes people are more important than dollars.
He died about that, so that we might live about that: being rich toward God.
The oracle of God which Habakkuk the prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee "Violence!" and thou wilt not save? Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower, and look forth to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end - it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
(Habakkuk 1:1-3, 2:1-4)
One wonders whether or not it would have been wise to have a committee check this language before it was uttered in public, especially for a church public. That lacerating language may have its place in other places, but the church is hardly the place.
But there's more here than an irritated prophet exercising his vocal chords. We have grown too accustomed to the always cool, laid back voice of our news broadcasters, who maintain their icy calm even in the midst of catastrophic events. It makes us wonder if the catastrophic moments have occurred or not. The calm voice and the calm figure are in the foreground, the devastated Mount St. Helens in the background. The foreground takes precedence over the background.
Not so here. All the fury of the text is preceded by the significant words, "The word of the Lord." In our language, Micah is reporting what God is seeing, what God is feeling. It is not just a point of view. In fact, a great deal of the trouble is that that is precisely the way Micah's words are being heard, only as a point of view. Interesting, perhaps, but for all of that, parochial. But it's not parochial. It's God. It's not Micah. It's God.
But both God and Micah have a problem. How do you get rich folks to listen, to listen to anything but what they want to listen to? Worse than that, how do you get rich religious folks to listen? Let us not forget that rich defines most of us.
That's correct. After we've recovered from the first blast of fury, we realize that it is not pagan people whom God has addressed. He does so on other occasions. Here he is addressing his own people. His people who claimed the temple of Solomon as their place of worship and continued to worship and think of themselves as the people of God but had become specialists in anti-God activity of every sort. That activity included devising wickedness; brewing up new ways to do evil even when they should have been sleeping; defrauding people simply because they had the power to do so ("My first in your face" was their motto) and not only coveting a field but seizing the field they had coveted, and doing the same with houses of others, by rising up against the people of God as though the people of God were the enemy; stripping away the robes of those who would be peaceful, so that a soldier at the front was in less danger than when he fell into their hands. The totality of the outrage is complete when the most defenseless are attached by the powerful.
Has it changed much in our time? The women and the children, the special ones with whom God is concerned because he knows if their condition is favorable, the condition of all people is favorable. If their condition is not favorable, the condition of others may be ever-so-favorable, but in his eyes it is not favorable. The women and children are outraged by being driven out of their homes (such as they are), and driven into exile. Even their poor excuses for homes are seized by those who already have much more than they can possibly use even in the most profligate of their actions.
The outrage is complete. There is no evil they have imagined. There is no evil they have not imagined that they have not done. Having performed so outrageously, they cannot possibly imagine the breadth of their outrage nor can they imagine that their outrage can ever come to an end. As far as they are able to see, their outrageous behavior has brought them more and more wealth.
Both they and we have often taken prosperity as a sure sign of our Lord's benediction, its absence a sure sign of his absence. Is this perhaps why we secretly hate to be poor and fear being poor? Does it mean that God no longer cares for us?
Why, then, is it so hard to hear the disembowling words of Micah and of God? On a first level, how is it possible for one to be rich and wrong at the same time? On the face of it, it seems impossible. Wealth, affluence is a result of hard work, a just reward for careful investments, not to say coveteousness, and the rich do not use the word covet.
There are very few of us who do not want to get wealthy. Being wealthy seems a laudable goal. Just because some make it and some don't doesn't alter the equation. One of the driving forces of Western civilization, especially in the United States, is that of upward mobility. That includes wealth, as much as you can get. The rags-to-riches image is more than an image. It's a compelling force. The poor boy who makes it to the White House is one of our favorite stories. To be master and dominate others is a personal as well as a national and religious goal. Why is it that number one means so much and that number two means so little, even though in a specific area the number two person has only one more who is better than he or she is?
We forget that this inordinate pursuit of wealth comes at high cost. That fact is not much in our conversation. It is in God's however. It is in the text. It's the small folks, the little folks, the peaceful folks, the women and the children who pay the price for our greed. Human rights are subordinated to greed. The little ones of Christ's judgment day story pay the price - a price that God says is too high. Hence, Micah's message. It is not without significance that until comparatively modern times the church opposed usury, that is, loaning things on interest, that which has become the very backbone of our economic systems, borrowing other people's money with interest. How many of us would be here this morning if we had never borrowed other people's money or are not here on borrowed money?
The heights that come with money and power seem to produce deafness and historical amnesia. People in power have a way of believing that they will always be in that position. Stories of people falling from the heights are just that, stories of other people. Never mind that Muhammed Ali is no longer the greatest, that the Shah of Iran is no longer the Shah of Iran, that Howard Hughes died a miserable recluse, that Richard Nixon, once the most powerful man in the world, had to resign amidst personal and national disgrace.
Even the rapacious Romans of old had a slave constantly whisper into the ear of a conquering general in those moments of the triumphal procession down the streets of Rome, "Sic transit gloria mundi." Thus passes away the glory of this world.
Those of you in this congregation who are over sixty years of age have seen the disappearance of an empire that seemed untouchable. The British Empire is no more. During our lifetime it has ceased to be. Contemplate that for a moment. Teach us to number our days and apply our hearts unto wisdom. The Hitlerian empire with its dream is no more.
Carl Sandburg captured that moment in a poem in which a chorus sings, "We are the greatest nation. We are the greatest people that ever was." At the close of the poem not even the rat prints are left to tell us that this was the greatest nation, the greatest people that ever was.
But for all the good that it seems to do, Micah says, they may just as well have a drunken preacher, something they would probably resent because of their civility and sophistication, but who would represent them best of all because of their being drunk with power and greed and covetousness.
Job is an exception to much of this. It was on the good days that Job would make it a special point to sacrifice to God the best bullocks, for he understood the potential danger of the "seeming good days." We may turn to God on bad days. Job knew that good days are times of danger.
We now stand beyond the days of Micah. What he said came true. What they had done to others was done to them. "We are utterly ruined. Among our captors he divides our fields." Uncleanness has destroyed with a bitter destruction.
We have moved beyond Micah, but not beyond the conditions he describes, not beyond the message he proclaims. When the poor and the widows and the orphans end up with the short end of the stick, there can be nothing so good as to excuse that.
The message still continues among the righteous and the unrighteous. Finally God sent the Prophet of prophets, the Teacher of teachers, the Preacher of preachers - himself in the person of his Son. You know what they did to him. They cast him out of the city in hopes that they would never have to hear that message or that Messenger again. But neither crucifixion nor death could hold him. He only reconfirmed what had been said again and again. As you have done it or not done it to the least of these, you have done it or not done it to me. The alliance is not between wealth and wealth, covetousness and covetousness, but between himself and his people. The short run never seems that way. That's why covetousness gets its way. But God specializes in the long run. He believes people are more important than dollars.
He died about that, so that we might live about that: being rich toward God.
The oracle of God which Habakkuk the prophet saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee "Violence!" and thou wilt not save? Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower, and look forth to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end - it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
(Habakkuk 1:1-3, 2:1-4)
