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Sermon by Jane Larsen-Wigger
Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church
5th Sunday of Easter
April 20, 2008
Micah 6:1-8
1 Peter 2:2-10
(Before reading the Micah text)
This passage from Micah that we are going to hear
is "commonly regarded as a law-suit, in which Israel and
Yahweh have come to court to see which one is at fault in
(their) fractured relationship." As the OT scholar Walter
Brueggemann puts it: "The premise of the poem is that
something is profoundly amiss." (To Act Justly, Love
Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers, by Walter
Brueggemann, Sharon Parks, Thomas Groome, Wipf and Stock
Publishers 1997, p. 12)
Listen...for God's word for the church:
(Read Micah 6:1-8)
Last week I shared with you the vision our session has of
our congregation as an "open, growing, faith-filled
community." There's a deliberate emphasis in this vision on
community – because of its importance to us in living the
Christian life. Now, there are all kinds of communities.
Church isn't the only one. This area of town is considered
the Crescent Hill community. We are such basically because
of geography. And we have certain concerns in common
because of that geographical proximity. And there's Rotary
Club—or the Garden Club—or the bowling league. All of those
are types of communities as well. People get together
around a common interest. They often care a lot about one
another – or at least about the cause that unites them.
But, we are together in the Church, not because we
happen to live in a particular part of town or because we
have an aptitude for a certain sport or even have the gift
of a green thumb. Christian community is about something
more than just an interest we share with others. And it's
not something we can just opt out of if we lose interest or
decide we don't really like these people. It's not so much
that we choose it as that it chooses us.
Because central to our life as a community is the generous
mercy of God. And we are part of Christian community
because we understand that mercy through the life and
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Being together is for the
purpose of being formed, as Peter put it, into a spiritual
house; fashioned into the likeness of Christ. We're in the
church to help make of us a people – not a bunch of
individual persons - but a people. A people called and
forgiven and freed by the God of mercy. A people called
into partnership with Christ in God's work of love and
justice. It's something that gets worked out here as we
learn and pray and gather together. But, it doesn't end
here. We're not in community just for the sake of being
together. It's all in order that we can be agents of God's
mercy in the world. This is just sort of the practice
ground. The effects of which reverberate to the global
community.
To grow more fully into this type of community the
session claimed as guiding emphases for this year two
things: "developing authentic relationships and cultivating
a passion for justice and mission." The way we understand
the life and ministry of Jesus, these things are central.
So, they need to be central for us as a community being
formed as disciples of Christ.
So, after lots of talking and praying (and
arguing!) the Session agreed on a vision for our
congregation: "As partners with Christ, we are an open,
growing, faith-filled community, developing authentic
relationships and cultivating a passion for justice and
mission."
That vision is before us to guide our work this
year. You all have already had opportunities to help us
flesh that out — like this morning's Mission Partnership
conversation. How does thinking about mission in terms of
relationship affect how we go about it, what we choose to
do. Ever since we came up with that vision, one particular
scripture passage kept echoing in my mind.
It is Micah's words to us in response to the great
mercy of God: "What does the Lord require of us? But to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your
God."
Micah 6:8 seems to weave together so well the
centrality of relationships - with one another, with God,
with the world. So, we're using this verse as a session -
to help us go about our work. And it seemed appropriate to
share it here as well and to introduce you all to the
session's work and intentions for this year.
It seemed especially fitting to use it this Sunday
because of the Mission Partnership conversations and the
fact that today is our annual Offering of Letters for Bread
for the World. I'd already decided that....And then....lo
and behold....separate (supposedly) from these things, our
youth were also thinking about and working on this very
scripture. As they told you, they're making a video to
enter in a contest. The theme? "To do justice, love
kindness, walk humbly with God." (This is also the theme
of the upcoming General Assembly of the PCUSA.)
The first part of chapter 6 in Micah is framed as a
‘controversy' God has with the people. They just don't get
it. Over and over again God has tried to get through to
them. Don't they remember? So God rehearses what God has
done for the people—how they were brought up from Egypt,
freed from slavery, guided by leaders. All these were named
as ‘saving acts of the Lord.'
And what does God want in return? Burnt offerings? Money?
Our first-born? No. The Lord has told you, O mortal. And
what does the Lord require? No THING at all. In response
to what God has done, God would have from God's people a
certain way of living." (Interpretation: Hosea—Micah, James
Limburg, John Knox Press, 1988, p. 192)
To act justly. Love tenderly. Walk carefully with God.
Justice. Kindness. Walking with God.
As Brueggemann suggests, these three elements "may
embody all that we need to know in order to be faithful and
to be human." This isn't like three separate things to do,
three virtues, but rather they describe "three dimensions of
a life of faithfulness.” (Bruggemann, p. 14) They are
dimensions that are all woven together and dependent on one
another. Sort of like the community which is called to
embody them.
And our youth were quick to identify those places where this
community seems to embody these dimensions of faithfulness.
Things they wanted to include in their video. There is
evidence the kids think - that this is what we're about:
Doing justice: that's what our stand for a
church where all are included is about. Or our involvement
over the years with the Coalition of Immokalee workers and
their fight for fair wages for farm workers and against
modern day slavery. Or the emphasis on fair trade,
mountaintop removal, Bread for the World.
We're not involved in these things out of some sense of
political correctness, but out of a sense of relationship:
All these are ways that we as a church are reminded that all
of God's creation is not flourishing....and sometimes that's
because of us and our way of living.
Because of the culture we are in it's easy to
become preoccupied with questions of prosperity and security
-- and we don't notice the cost of our prosperity and
security on the poor or the voiceless. (Brueggemann) Being
in a community where we are asked to remember the poor or
speak out for the voiceless is a reminder that our own
welfare is all tied in with the welfare of all God's
creation. And so, we are called to be about doing
justice, making things right. . . even if it makes us
uncomfortable.
Loving kindness: the youth wanted to be sure and
capture on their video the whole ‘passing the peace' thing –
it seems to them to embody the importance of making
connection with one another, offering a word of grace – or
sometimes of forgiveness. But they also see this
congregation's treatment of our children as a sign of loving
kindness. Or how the youth themselves know they are an
important part of this community. Or how they see people
moving out beyond these walls to feed children at a Kids
Café or help build a house through Habitat or relate with
Christians in Guatemala. That is all evidence of tender
love.
‘Church' provides a good practice ground for loving
kindness. Because it is worth saying again (and probably
again and again) that Christian community does not mean that
we all agree - or even that we all like each other. But, you
can care about another's welfare even if you don't agree
with them; you can learn from someone else even if that
person thinks about things differently; you can definitely
pray for someone even when–maybe especially when–you find
them hard to like. So we get good practice in love and
kindness here....in order to be able to act with loving
kindness toward the world.
And walking humbly with God? "The important word
here is walk. It is used to describe the whole orientation
of one's life. . . It is similar to the call of Jesus, whose
most characteristic invitation was not ‘believe' but rather
‘walk' or ‘follow me.' (Limburg, Interpretation, p. 192)
"Humble walking with God is indeed a description of a life
in faith." It's about more than belief - it's about knowing,
trusting, and doing the will of God. (Groome, p. 47) The
youth recognize that most vividly in our worship and prayer
life. Because it is here, in this sanctuary that we gather
week after week to be reminded of "our place in the
universe. . ." Every week we walk into this sanctuary to
turn toward the God of the Universe. And one of the first
things we do is admit where we've been seduced by all the
little gods that seem to run our lives. And then we watch
as the waters of baptism are poured out and we are reminded
of God's great mercy poured out for us. Worshiping
together helps us walk to the rhythms of God's mercy.
We're going to learn a song that will probably be new for
many of you. It weaves all the dimensions of Micah's words
together in a beautiful way. It lets each of our voices
blend with others as we sing our part. And the rhythm of it
picks up on the rhythms of justice and mercy and walking
with God. The fact that you really can't sing this song by
yourself is important. It shows the need for the community
in being able to live out this call. Debbie was teaching it
to the youth last week and she told me, "They got it.!"
I'm pretty sure she was referring to the music itself, maybe
the words. But, I venture to guess that it's more than
that. That indeed because they have been a part of this
particular community of faith they ‘get it.' Get that our
life together is forming us as a people, a people called
into partnership with Christ in God's work of love and
justice. Could it be that God's mercy has so taken hold of
us that we are actually becoming people of mercy, of
kindness, of justice? |
