Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
Object:
The important thing to remember about this text from Micah is that it represents a court case between Israel and the Lord. God is the plaintive in the judicial procedure, Israel is the defendant, and the hills, mountains, and foundations of the earth are the jury. God, the plaintive, presents his case in verses 3-5, Israel, the defendant, replies in verses 6-7, and verse 8 is the verdict that confirms God's position and judges Israel for what she should have done but has not done.
The Lord's most telling accusation against his people is that they have been weary with him (v. 3). God recounts, in verses 4-5, all of his saving acts on behalf of his covenant people in the past. He has delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, given them his guidance in the law and led them safely through the terrors of the wilderness, prevented Balaam from bringing a deadly curse upon them, and brought them through the Jordan from Shittim to their first encampment in the promised land at Gilgal.
Yet despite all of God's loving deeds toward his people in their past history, they have forgotten what God has done. They have not kept that memory of the sacred history that gives a people gratitude and hope for the future and patience in the midst of tribulation (surely a three-point sermon). Instead, Israel, like so many in our time, is just weary with God -- weary of her constant pleading with him and inability to find him. She is in some kind of trouble, and she wants God to bail her out, but God has not answered or helped, and Israel is disgusted with him.
What does it take to call this unresponsive deity to her aid? Israel asks (vv. 6-7). Should she sacrifice burnt offerings to him of calves a year old that are so much more valuable than newborns? Would God be satisfied with thousands of rams, as Solomon offered him (1 Kings 8:63), or with literal rivers of precious olive oil used for food and healing? Or maybe, the disgusted speaker says sarcastically, God would like Israel to offer those child sacrifices forbidden in the law (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 18:10) and condemned by the prophets as pagan practices (Jeremiah 7:31, et al.). What does it take to appease an implacable deity? That is Israel's exasperated question.
The answer is given in the words of God's prophetic spokesman in verse 8 -- an answer that condemns Israel. God has shown his covenant people what is good, and he has shown all of us what is good and what we are to do, for his reply is addressed to "O man," "O 'adam" in the Hebrew, meaning "humankind." The Lord has shown all of us what he requires of us. He has not left us to stumble around in the dark, making up the rules as we go along, and searching vainly to find the proper paths for our lives. No. God has guided us, and he says very plainly how he expects us to act.
First of all, reads our text, God wants us to do "justice," mispat. That can refer to legal justice, and certainly our society is often lacking in just courts of law. But while the meaning of "justice" in this passage includes judicial equity, it is also much broader than that. Mispat means to establish God's order in every area of life -- in our nation and society, our towns and homes. God wants every relationship of life structured and conducted according to his will, given us through the scriptures -- permeated with his love, his fairness, his forgiveness, his mercy, his straight and upright truth.
Second, our text says that what God requires of us is "to love kindness," but once again, the meaning goes beyond our understanding of those words. The term for "kindness" in the Hebrew is hesed, which is a covenant term. It means to be faithful to our covenant with God and with one another, to be bound together in solidarity with them, to be a community that lives in steadfast loyalty to God and to other human beings. And we are to love those ties -- love our relation with our Lord who has made us in his image, love our relation with our neighbors for whom we are always responsible. Thus, faithful covenant solidarity with God and all those around us is not understood as a duty here in our text, but as a pleasure, rendered in lovingkindness, because God has first loved us.
Finally, Israel is told in our text that she is expected to walk "humbly" with her God. While that meaning eschews all proud self-righteousness and self-will, the word for "humbly" is hasene'a in the Hebrew, that has the meaning of "attentively," "paying attention to," "watching." We are to walk "attentively" with our God, not in proud self-independence as so many of us desire, but paying attention always to what God wants. We are to watch him for what is good, seeking after his will and not our own, being alert to his guidance and commands for the way we conduct our lives. Through sermon and scripture, prayer and meditation, we are to be intent on God's guidance of our steps and future. And if we do that, then it will become possible also to "do justice" and "love hesed." The first two requirements rest on the third -- to seek always after our God, in every relationship of our daily round.
The prophet Micah, throughout his book, is sure that Israel never lives up to these requirements laid upon her by her Lord. And of course we never live up to them either, do we? All by ourselves, with our own strength and will, we repeatedly do not rely in all things upon our Lord.
But within the book of Micah, there is also the promise of a Messiah, come from Bethlehem Ephrathah (5:2-4) -- a Messiah whose birth we celebrated a few short weeks ago at Christmas. According to our gospel lesson from Matthew 5, that Messiah once again laid these requirements of God upon us, when he gave his Sermon on the Mount. And his requirements and these of Micah seem impossible for us to meet -- as they are, indeed, if the Messiah has left us on our own.
But the gospel, the good news, of course, is that he has not left us to depend upon our own devices and wills to satisfy the requirements of our God. Instead, Jesus Christ has forgiven us all our sins and shortcomings by his death and resurrection. And then, he has sent his Spirit into our hearts, transforming our lives and giving us the willpower and ability to do the good that we are required by God to do. We do not earn our way into the favor of the Lord, good Christians -- not by multitudes of sacrifices, as Micah says. Rather, God accepts us as "good" because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And then he enables us to do the "good" by the power of his Holy Spirit. Our responsibility is to trust that God in Jesus Christ can, in fact, work that transformation in our lives. For as Christ works in us, we will, indeed, find that we do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
The Lord's most telling accusation against his people is that they have been weary with him (v. 3). God recounts, in verses 4-5, all of his saving acts on behalf of his covenant people in the past. He has delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, given them his guidance in the law and led them safely through the terrors of the wilderness, prevented Balaam from bringing a deadly curse upon them, and brought them through the Jordan from Shittim to their first encampment in the promised land at Gilgal.
Yet despite all of God's loving deeds toward his people in their past history, they have forgotten what God has done. They have not kept that memory of the sacred history that gives a people gratitude and hope for the future and patience in the midst of tribulation (surely a three-point sermon). Instead, Israel, like so many in our time, is just weary with God -- weary of her constant pleading with him and inability to find him. She is in some kind of trouble, and she wants God to bail her out, but God has not answered or helped, and Israel is disgusted with him.
What does it take to call this unresponsive deity to her aid? Israel asks (vv. 6-7). Should she sacrifice burnt offerings to him of calves a year old that are so much more valuable than newborns? Would God be satisfied with thousands of rams, as Solomon offered him (1 Kings 8:63), or with literal rivers of precious olive oil used for food and healing? Or maybe, the disgusted speaker says sarcastically, God would like Israel to offer those child sacrifices forbidden in the law (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 18:10) and condemned by the prophets as pagan practices (Jeremiah 7:31, et al.). What does it take to appease an implacable deity? That is Israel's exasperated question.
The answer is given in the words of God's prophetic spokesman in verse 8 -- an answer that condemns Israel. God has shown his covenant people what is good, and he has shown all of us what is good and what we are to do, for his reply is addressed to "O man," "O 'adam" in the Hebrew, meaning "humankind." The Lord has shown all of us what he requires of us. He has not left us to stumble around in the dark, making up the rules as we go along, and searching vainly to find the proper paths for our lives. No. God has guided us, and he says very plainly how he expects us to act.
First of all, reads our text, God wants us to do "justice," mispat. That can refer to legal justice, and certainly our society is often lacking in just courts of law. But while the meaning of "justice" in this passage includes judicial equity, it is also much broader than that. Mispat means to establish God's order in every area of life -- in our nation and society, our towns and homes. God wants every relationship of life structured and conducted according to his will, given us through the scriptures -- permeated with his love, his fairness, his forgiveness, his mercy, his straight and upright truth.
Second, our text says that what God requires of us is "to love kindness," but once again, the meaning goes beyond our understanding of those words. The term for "kindness" in the Hebrew is hesed, which is a covenant term. It means to be faithful to our covenant with God and with one another, to be bound together in solidarity with them, to be a community that lives in steadfast loyalty to God and to other human beings. And we are to love those ties -- love our relation with our Lord who has made us in his image, love our relation with our neighbors for whom we are always responsible. Thus, faithful covenant solidarity with God and all those around us is not understood as a duty here in our text, but as a pleasure, rendered in lovingkindness, because God has first loved us.
Finally, Israel is told in our text that she is expected to walk "humbly" with her God. While that meaning eschews all proud self-righteousness and self-will, the word for "humbly" is hasene'a in the Hebrew, that has the meaning of "attentively," "paying attention to," "watching." We are to walk "attentively" with our God, not in proud self-independence as so many of us desire, but paying attention always to what God wants. We are to watch him for what is good, seeking after his will and not our own, being alert to his guidance and commands for the way we conduct our lives. Through sermon and scripture, prayer and meditation, we are to be intent on God's guidance of our steps and future. And if we do that, then it will become possible also to "do justice" and "love hesed." The first two requirements rest on the third -- to seek always after our God, in every relationship of our daily round.
The prophet Micah, throughout his book, is sure that Israel never lives up to these requirements laid upon her by her Lord. And of course we never live up to them either, do we? All by ourselves, with our own strength and will, we repeatedly do not rely in all things upon our Lord.
But within the book of Micah, there is also the promise of a Messiah, come from Bethlehem Ephrathah (5:2-4) -- a Messiah whose birth we celebrated a few short weeks ago at Christmas. According to our gospel lesson from Matthew 5, that Messiah once again laid these requirements of God upon us, when he gave his Sermon on the Mount. And his requirements and these of Micah seem impossible for us to meet -- as they are, indeed, if the Messiah has left us on our own.
But the gospel, the good news, of course, is that he has not left us to depend upon our own devices and wills to satisfy the requirements of our God. Instead, Jesus Christ has forgiven us all our sins and shortcomings by his death and resurrection. And then, he has sent his Spirit into our hearts, transforming our lives and giving us the willpower and ability to do the good that we are required by God to do. We do not earn our way into the favor of the Lord, good Christians -- not by multitudes of sacrifices, as Micah says. Rather, God accepts us as "good" because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And then he enables us to do the "good" by the power of his Holy Spirit. Our responsibility is to trust that God in Jesus Christ can, in fact, work that transformation in our lives. For as Christ works in us, we will, indeed, find that we do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
