Micah 6:6-8
Being More Like God
James Sledge April
7, 2019
In
a day when many church congregations are struggling, strategic planning and church
revisioning have become quite common. Seemingly endless books, conferences,
consultants, and other resources are available for such work, but sometimes
this work is made difficult by a lack of fundamental clarity about why church
exists in the first place.
Typically
the problem is one of assumption. Members and leaders assume that they know why
church exists, but if you ask them to spell it out, you sometimes get answers
such as, “You know, to be church.” If you press for specifics, most people can
come up with some sort of answers, usually a list of prominent things happening
in their church such as worship, Sunday School, and a few other items. But it
is hard to do much in the way of strategic planning if you define why church
exists by the things it currently does.
Fortunately,
we Presbyterians have denominational statements that spell out the fundamental
reasons for congregations to exist. One is something called “The Great Ends of
the Church.” This century old statement lays out six primary ends or purposes.
They are:
the
proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;
the
shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;
the
maintenance of divine worship;
the
preservation of the truth;
the
promotion of social righteousness; and
the
exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[1]
Our
scripture for this morning, as well as our Renew focus for today, has me
thinking especially about those last two: promoting a rightly ordered society
and showing the world what God’s kingdom looks like.
Micah
is one of a number of prophets upset at Israel for their failure to create a
rightly ordered society, and his anger is aimed at the rulers, priests, and the
wealthy. He says, Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for
a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. Sound
familiar?
Our
particular verses from Micah raise a question about what it means to be the
faithful, to be Church, if you will. With what shall I come before Yahweh? The
prophet then tosses out some of the typical answers of that day. How about
elaborate worship and burnt offerings, offerings of the very best sort in the
largest amounts? Perhaps even, if you are desperate enough, offering your own
child?
But
then the prophet answers his own question. God has already told you what true
religion is, says the prophet. Enact justice, love kindness, and walk humbly
with God. For Micah, doing justice means undoing a world where rich and
powerful and privileged can dictate different outcomes from those who are poor,
outcast, or immigrants. It means government leaders who share God’s priorities
of special concern for the poor, the weak, and vulnerable, not allowing small
numbers of rich and powerful to accumulate more and more by exploiting the
weak.
Doing
this sort of justice can be difficult and complicated. At least kindness is
simpler and more doable. Or perhaps not. “Kindness” is a tame translation of
the Hebrew word more frequently translated “steadfast love,” This steadfast love
is a core attribute of God and is frequently paired with justice. God’s justice
abounds in steadfast love and relents from punishing, and so God’s justice is
never simply about following the rules. It is about restoration and
reconciliation. It is about lifting up the downtrodden and takes special note
of the poor, the broken, and the immigrant, all who find themselves without
voice and without privilege. When Micah says to love kindness, he is saying to
act more like God.
That is central to what it means to be a
Christian. To be baptized is for the old self to die and a new creation to come
to life because we are in Christ. This is not about us being good enough or
smart enough or any other sort of enough. It is about letting the Spirit work
in and through us. It is about opening ourselves, as individuals and as a
congregation, to God’s power that makes us new.
____________________________________________________________________
When
the old northern and southern streams of the Presbyterian Church that split
prior to the Civil War finally became one back in the 1980s, one of things done
to celebrate the creation of the new Presbyterian Church (USA) was to write a
new profession of faith entitled “A Brief Statement of Faith.” It has three
sections, each focused on one person of the Trinity, and we occasionally use
one of the portions in our worship here.
The
section on God the Holy Spirit contains this line. “In a broken and fearful world the Spirit gives us courage to pray without
ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask
idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.”
Joined to Christ and empowered by the Spirit, we can
indeed promote
a rightly ordered society and show the world what God’s kingdom looks like. We
can be the body of Christ we are called to be, doing justice, pursuing
steadfast love, and walking humbly with our God.
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