Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

There is no more excellent summation of the law of God after that of “love God and love neighbor” then the passage from Micah:

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

As lovely as this passage sounds, it is a hazardous passage if we separate it from its context. In our world where the average attention span is a few moments, it is nice that we can summarize the law and prophets. However, there is a real danger in voicing “justice, kindness, and obedience” too far separated from the socio-economic realities that give this passage meaning. Micah himself warns of this danger and the judgment that follows the community that becomes killed at “talking the talk” but not “walking the walk.”

It seems that is the 8th century before Christ, people were doing the same things they are doing today, they like to call themselves Christians, and they want to be seen in the church and praying in public. They like to scream that they are being oppressed because of their faith when others hold them accountable for their lack of faith.

What Micah is doing here is critiquing the exclusive attention paid to the cultic practices of religious faith, without the ethical obedience that faith in God requires. He asks in verse 6, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?” He then offers a list of potential offerings; burnt offerings, calves a year old, thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, my firstborn. His answer is simply that none of these offerings are pleasing to God when they are stripped from the context that gives them meaning.

God desires more than empty words. God wants justice that is measured by how well the most vulnerable fare in the community. A loyal love that is equal with the kind of love that God has shown towards Israel. And walking, not just walking but walking in an ethical life.

Examples of this are all around us. There will be all sorts of pronouncements from pulpits all around the country about how wonderful people are and that if they follow the rules, God will reward them. All the while, right outside the doors of many of those same churches, people are starving, they lack affordable housing, clean water, access to health care, safe schools, and the myriad of other issues facing the average person today. Inside the people of God are talking the talk but they are ignoring the walk that must be done outside the church!

It might be helpful to remember that this passage emerges from God’s deep disappointment in the people, who have failed to bring about the kind of just community envisioned by the God that liberates people from political and economic bondage. God’s people have been put on trial in this passage, and earlier in prophecy, God has outlined the specifics of the charges;

The Powerful covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away (2:2)

They tear the skin off my people (3:2)

They send violence on the poor (3:5)

The political leaders take bribes, and the religious leaders sell out for money (3:11)

This text is a challenge to do justice as part of our worship experience and to do justice as part of the liturgy. We also heard the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew. These are a beautiful reminder that the last shall be first and who God considers blessed; the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart. And we also hear about those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake, and the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God. We understand that those who will be persecuted for righteousness sake will inherit heaven. And we are told to rejoice and be glad for those who are reviled and persecuted will have a great reward in heaven.

But the key to all of this is to look past our interest and to look out for others. Nowhere in the Gospel does it proclaim that we are to care for the least of these only after we have taken care of ourselves.

It is time for us as individuals, and it is time for us as a Church to start walking the walk. I know it is scary because we might be called out, but we truly have no other choice. If we sit here and pray to God, sing songs, raise our voice and hands in praise, then we have to be willing to do the same outside of the building, and only then will we truly do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Amen.

John 1:29-42

The 16th-century Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, wrote a letter to her nuns toward the end of her life. In that she included the following:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion in the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless humanity now.

The idea that we are to be the hands and feet, the eyes and the mouth of God in the world is not new and in my opinion, is central to Christian Spirituality, if understood correctly. At the heart of this idea is Incarnational Theology, the understanding that God became man and dwelt among us.

We have just finished Epiphany and before that,  Christmas the two seasons that celebrate, above all else, the incarnation of God into the world. The foundational idea in incarnation theology is that God became incarnate, became human in Jesus Christ to embody God’s love for humanity fully. I want us to dwell on that for a moment, God’s love for the world play itself out in the fact that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ. God became flesh and dwelt among us.

The portion of the letter I quoted takes this incarnational theological idea one step further and implies, well it does more than suggest that we are to become Christ in the world. In grand theological terms, Mary, the mother of Jesus is called the Theotokos, the God-bearer. Mary, through the power of the Holy Spirit, brought God into the world as a baby. What Teresa is advocating that we are to become Christotokos; we are to become Christ-bearers in the world. We are to love the world, and the people in it, just as Jesus did, without condition. But we need a little caution here. Caution that in our desire to be the hands and feet and mouth of Jesus, we do not think we are Jesus and believe we have a responsibility to save the world.

Several years ago, the WWJD thing became all the rage. It popped up everywhere, and it became almost a fashion statement to wear one of those bracelets with the initials on it, WWJD? The idea was that it would call our attention, or at least it was supposed to draw our attention, to the idea that in all situations we were to do things the way Jesus would do them. The problem is, we are not Jesus. Sure, we have the bible and tradition that guides us and shows us what Jesus did, but the real question is, what does Jesus want us to do? Feed, clothe, visit, love, love, love!

I believe I have mentioned this before; I am not a big fan of memorizing Scripture passages.  I have my favorites, but I can look them up. Back in my college days, I attended a Christian school, and each year the school would host the regional bible contest. Kinds from all around the east coast would come, and there would be a spelling bee of sorts but with bible passages and, in the end, the one who had memorized more bible passages one, wait for it, a bible.  Not sure why since they had most of it memorized.  The problem with all of this is that memorization is not enough. What does it mean? What is the practical application of that passage in your life, and my life? What is the context of that passage? What was going on at the time that passage was written?  We take something so complex and turn it into a game to win a prize and impress people with our ability to memorize. We do not change lives by our ability to memorize Scripture; we change lives by our example in the world.

This past week there was a story about the Falkirk Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The mission of the Falkirk Center, taken directly from their mission state is:

“a think tank dedicated to restoring and defending American ideals and Judeo-Christian values in all aspects of life.”

Of course, there is no further definition of what “American Ideals” and “Judeo-Christian Values” means in this context, but, it is Liberty University, so I have a pretty good idea. As disturbing at that is in the 21st-century context, there is a more disturbing part of their mission statement that comes right in the opening sentence:

“Bemoaning the rise of leftism is no longer enough, and turning the other cheek in our personal relationships with our neighbors as Jesus taught while abdicating our responsibilities on the cultural battlefield is no longer sufficient. There is too much at stake in the battle for the soul of our nation. Bold, unapologetic action and initiative is needed…”

Turning the other cheek, a central tenant of what Jesus taught, is no longer enough?

I have some suggestions of bold, unapologetic action and initiative that could be taken; feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing outstanding health care to all who need it — providing quality education in a setting that does not require metal detectors and teachers that have to buy their supplies in the classroom. How about showing concern about the future of our planet and not just the future of corporations by no mocking science. We are protecting freedom of religion even if it means to stand up for the rights of people who do not share our Judeo-Christian ideals and those who also desire freedom from religion. It is not our words that make the difference; it is our actions. The central tenet of those Judea-Christian values is the love of neighbor, all of our neighbors; our black neighbors, of Muslim neighbors, our Hispanic neighbors, our LGBTQ neighbors, all of our neighbors, and how are to love them, without condition!

Jesus, the very Word of God, became flesh and dwelt among us not to exclude anyone, not to leave us with a set of rules and regulations to determine who is and who is not to be included in the Kingdom of God. Jesus did not become incarnate so a bunch of narrow-minded people, throughout all generations, could twist his words to cause death and destruction around the world, no, God chose to send His Son into this world to leave us with an example of how we are supposed to live. If we claim the title of Christian, then it simply has to begin with that first principle which is love, just love, just simple childlike love for all of creation and not just the parts of it that look like us or love like us, all of it.

Want to change the world, it starts by changing us.

Matthew 3:13-17

I enjoy passages of Scripture that have many different directions that one can take. There is so much contained in these few short passages that we heard this morning. Who is John the Baptist, and what is his mission? What does the Baptism of John mean? Why is Jesus being baptized? And a whole host of others.  Well, I am not going to answer any of those questions this morning.

This morning I would like us to look at God’s ability to bring order out of chaos and to do that we need to read back through other stories in Scripture.

The focus will be on the water. Keep in mind that for our ancestors in faith, water was a pretty scary proposition. One could not breathe underwater; water was where Leviathan lived, storms started on the water. So to speak of Baptism as being immersed in the water, and using the image of dying and rising was slightly off-putting to them.

But, there is no better place to start than “In the Beginning” Genesis 1:1-5:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

If you have even been involved in a building project, then you know how chaotic it can be. All sorts of things going on at the same time. Different trades in and out of the job site all doing their jobs and the contractor is like the conductor of a symphony making sure it all happens at precisely the same time. I am sure that during the creation of the known universe, things were a little chaotic and we see that God, the Great General Contractor all of history, sending his Spirit to hover over the waters. Remember, water is a bad thing, and the Spirit was there to make sure the bad stayed where it was supposed to stay.

We have the story of Noah and the Flood from Genesis 6:9-9:17;

Seven days from now, I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.

God uses water to clean the earth of all that is wrong but saves Noah and his family who escape destruction because of that same water. The same water that destroys is the same water that saves. Remember that it will come up again later.

But we also see a turning point here in the relationship between God and humanity. Humanity had cut themselves off from that personal relationship with God after the issue with the fruit in the Garden. I want to take a little aside here to give you my theory on why Adam did what he did. You see, I believe that Adam learned, very early on that his life would be much better if he just did what his wife told him to do. I did not truly understand this until I got married myself, anyway, back to our story.

The change comes in Genesis 8:21:

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

God makes a covenant promise to humanity that God will never destroy humanity again. This is why I will never understand those who claim that God sends weather incidents like hurricanes and floods as some retribution for what people have done.

We next turn to Exodus 15 and the story of the Israelites fleeing from their captivity in Egypt being pursued by the forces of Pharaoh. You know the story; the Israelites are backed against the sea with no possibility of escaping the oncoming Egyptian Army. Moses lifts his arms and parts the Red Sea so they may cross.

The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy. Exodus 15:1-6

Here the water became their escape, and it became a tomb for the enemies of people. Once again, we see that water is both salvation and death.

And then we come to today’s Scripture and the Baptism of Jesus. As I have mentioned before, Jesus left us with the example of a life to follow, his way, his life, his truth. When we accept that Jesus is the Lord of all, then we accept the change that comes with that. Baptism is that sign, we die to our former life, and we rise to a new one. We are claimed, by God, at our Baptism, whether it was as an infant or an adult. We recommit to that life and that Jesus is the Lord of all, at our Confirmation or other public declarations.  Through Baptism, God makes order out of the chaos of our lives and sets us on the path toward righteousness.

In the service of Baptism we ask that the Holy Spirit descend upon the waters, to hover if you will, to make order out of chaos. The water of Baptism become, as the water has before, death and life, we die to sin, and we rise to new life. It’s not that we do not sin any longer, it’s just that we are now on a path towards that newness of life where we are no longer slaves to sin but have redemption through Jesus Christ.

At our Baptism, promises were made by us or on our behalf that we would reject sin and believe that we need the grace of God in our lives. We pledged that we believe in God and Jesus Christ, and we promised to resist oppression and evil and to show love and justice wherever possible. Later in our lives, we would confirm those promises and beliefs at our Confirmation and make a public declaration, in our own words, of our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

For many of us, our Baptism was a long time ago, and we probably do not remember it. But we are called to renew those promises not only through our Confirmation but every day. We are called to seek justice, to show mercy, to love God, to love our neighbor, and to love our enemies. Let us live as people called by God and who have been given God’s grace of forgiveness. Let us renew those promises to, at this hour, and seek to follow the path of Jesus.