SERMONS

Bethany United Church of Christ

The Reverend Angela L. Ying

Micah 6:1-8; Mark 1:9-11

It started out as innocent game. Two rows of children separated by a large field. The children of each row would hold hands and each team would alternate, calling out a child’s name from the other side to run over with the attempt of trying to stop the child from breaking the tight knit row they had formed.

“Red rover, red rover!” the children would yell. “Send so and so over.”

Being one of the smaller children in my class, I watched, I waited, and I wondered what the point of the game was.

Was it to show one’s strength by breaking through with the sheer force of one’s body? Or was it to be caught, as a fish in a net, unable to break the chain only to be made aware once more of one’s own weakness?

As I held tightly, grasping to the hands of my elementary school classmates, I was not sure which would hurt more, attempting to sustain the weight of a kid running full speed towards us — the odds of that happening were mathematically not good –or having to face my fellow classmates if and when I had let the kid coming straight at me break through.

Neither choice was a good one, and yet at a young age I had not quite figured out that within each of us is the power to not play the game, to dare to break the rules, to go against the flow – for a larger purpose.

Oh … but how to bring that conscience to awareness.

As I saw the kid racing right towards my side of the line, the thought of screaming, “Bloody murder!” did cross my mind.

I knew this was not going to be a pretty sight; I let the moment pass and then something worse happened.

“Red rover, red rover, send that slanted-eyed Asian shrimp over!”

What happened to adjectives like bright and petite?

I did my best to muster up enough courage and strength, and yet all I could feel was the fear within me and in a way the fear all around me.

A part of me longed to break a wrist, any wrist. Wasn’t that what the game was about? A part of me longed not to run over to the other side at all. And in my dilemma, amidst the tension, I remember whispering to myself, “Red rover, red rover, dear God, what do you want now that I am called over?”

In our scripture passage, the air is indeed tense for God and the people of Israel are in the middle of a metaphoric lawsuit. They have come to court to see who is at fault in their fractured relationship. The mountains and the hills, representing all of creation, are to be the witnesses. A controversy with God? Probably not a good place to be in, especially if you are the one who has broken the covenant.

And yet, God being God, God takes the responsibility as any loving parent, upon Godself and wonders, what did I do to make this happen? As when we ask, “How in the world did I get a rebellious and strong headed child, instead of one of the obedient ones?”

“O, my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you?

The people are silent, so God proceeds to remind his beloved children what God has done.

I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage. The exodus, or have you forgotten?

I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam (could be Obama, Biden and Hillary) so that you might know the saving acts of God.

But you have forgotten. Your memory has become hazy. You have grown forgetful in what was given to you, not as a contract, but as a Gift.

By choosing not to remember their own exodus and the struggles leading up to their liberation, the people will grow complacent seeking now to possess, and we begin to see what the prophet Micah saw.

A people willing to bargain, to bribe, and to buy off God to meet their own self interests. Perhaps, not too far from what our own capitalist country was attempting before this economic reality hit us all, causing us to step back and to reflect on what is going on.

The people learn slowly.

Instead of facing the facts, they talk amongst themselves as they cleverly come up with a calculated scheme.

With what shall I come before the Lord? Surely God will take my burnt offerings, my young calves. Certainly God will be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil, my firstborn for my transgressions, and like the Lorax who dares to speak for the trees, Micah eloquently responds, “What does the Lord require?”

Or maybe it is more in his prophetic voice, “WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE? HELLO — IS ANYONE OUT THERE LISTENING?? Have you heard one word I have spoken? Do you see the injustices all around you? WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE?”

A gracious and poetic way of saying perhaps, GET A CLUE–WILL YOU? This is not rocket science. In fact, if you and I are to stay on purpose, we as a community of faith will realize that God has already told us what God requires.

I must confess that I have been troubled by how some churches have all too often taken the poignant and radical words of Micah, which he gets from Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, and makes the words come out sweet, breathy, as if at any moment we expect music from a violin.

And though I may be mistaken, when I read the book of Micah, he is not a happy camper!

So who was this 8th century prophet anyway?

All we know about Micah is that he was from a small village, Moresheth, (could have been the neighborhood of Beacon Hill on the southend) — A prophet who spoke for the poor farm workers who were suffering at the hands of the powerful landlords.

Micah was the voice of the worker and that of common everyday people. He saw the injustice that was going on in society, was quite willing to name them by their right name and felt called to address the ones in power and to speak against evils that were no longer tolerable.

Micah was not removed from the suffering and plight of his people. He was right there in the midst of it. Micah knew that justice, as history has shown, arises out of the people themselves, who have been alienated. Will the people choose to go down an alienated path alone or will they somehow, by God’s grace, dare to envision change, new ways of doing things and different and dynamic alternatives to their current unjust conditions?

What does the Lord require, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?

To do justice is not a romantic ideal or an abstract concept. Rather I have found justice is excruciatingly hard work, as we have seen in making justice a core ministry in our community alongside worship, faith formation, hospitality and stewardship.

For justice asks of us as a people to work together, to truthfully critique the present unjust system and to find new alternatives to change the system. Justice is able to disrupt, dismantle, break down, disarm, and transform systems and people when we dare to see what is really happening here and around the world, through God’s purpose, without growing cynical and closed off.

We come to understand that every human being matters. That God matters! Which is why doing justice is closely intertwined with that of loving kindness.

The Good Samaritan who dares not pass by another human being, even when that other was considered an enemy. The father of the elder son in the parable of the prodigal son, who did not choose one son over another but found his two arms wide enough to embrace both his sons. Mary and the women standing at the foot of the cross of Christ, no matter how painful and frightening. Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah weeping together in solidarity amidst their grief. The woman with her alabaster flask who broke it open and poured it out without holding back, and Jesus, who wept, prayed, broke bread, touched, and healed the people — are real flesh and blood examples of loving kindness.

And yet, in our society, to love kindness is no easy task. Perhaps this is because loving involves one knowing confidently that one is truly loved.

To be able to take the risk to be moved, to be vulnerable, and to be able to see another person’s suffering as one’s own is loving kindness.

On this Baptism of Christ Sunday, we remember the heavens torn apart and a voice from heaven say “You are my Beloved, in You I am well pleased.”

A reminder of your own baptism in which God loves you, calls you God’s Beloved, and in you is well pleased. Which is very different from a belief that God loves you if or only when you …

No, in baptism, God, in Jesus, takes the initiative towards us to love.

Karl understood this. Karl was one of those kids who the Church School teachers just could not get a hold on. When it came time for the Christmas pageant, the teachers thought themselves wise to give Karl a simple part. Karl would be the innkeeper. This would mean saying, “No room” three times.

On the night of the pageant, two of the children dressed as Joseph and Mary came to the inn. “No room,” Karl called out. The couple knocked on the door a second time. “NO ROOM!” Karl repeated even louder. Banging on the door, desperately seeking space for themselves and their new baby — the two children, as Joseph and Mary, continued to plea with the innkeeper, “Please, please is there any room in the inn?”

Forgetting to follow the script, and instead moved with compassion, Karl forgot his next line.

“Oh! …..” he said, “Why don’t you take my room tonight!”

The pageant came to a complete halt.

But for all who had come in the spirit of Christ seeking the presence of God, Karl’s words of kindness had taught them something about loving kindness.

To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Truth to tell, I often think I know what “to walk humbly with God” is not — more than I grasp what “to walk humbly with God” IS.

First of all. It says walk. To walk … to walk humbly with God is not to run or be in a hurry with God. God is on God’s own time.

Kosuke Koyama says it well when he writes of God as a three mile an hour God. “Three miles an hour?!” That is way too slow we think to ourselves as we attempt to rush around at 90 miles an hour — often missing the point.

Three miles an hour. It is a good and disciplined pace for walking with God, so you dare not miss anything God intends.

For to walk humbly is to not exalt yourself and to not worry or be bothered by other people’s opinions of you. To walk humbly is not to think of being above someone or below someone, but rather standing with someone.

It is not thinking you can do it all on your own, carrying the burdens upon your limited human shoulders. It is not forgetting you are human. It is not living without grace. It is not playing God!

So maybe walking [remember: it does not say racing or running, mind you] humbly with God is about paying attention. Paying attention to who we are, whose we are and what is around us — listening to the cries of our hearts and the stories of other human beings, and most of all, to God’s Story.

It is as Micah said, “I will wait on God and God will hear me. Then when we continue to see wars and bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Chicago — we as human beings will choose to gather around the world with one another to communicate, to organize, to get to know each other, to pray together, to play together, and yes, to stand up to say, “No more! No More!”

Red rover, red rover, dear God, what do I do? Red rover, red rover, what can we do?

Keep to the very purpose in which God has called you Bethany Church. To do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.

For only then will our intergenerational worship, our cross cultural prayers, our ministry, our vision and our relationship with God and one another begin breaking the chains of injustice and take root in what God requires — For if you do not choose life for yourself as God’s Beloved, and thus life for all people — it’s all over!