Sermon, "Advent in Narnia: Aslan Is on the Move," Micah 3:1-7, Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

Sermon 12/23/18

Micah 3:1-7, Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

Advent in Narnia: Aslan Is on the Move

When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie first meet Mr. Beaver in Narnia, he says to them nearly right away, “They say Aslan is on the move - perhaps has already landed.” Aslan is the great lion, the true King of Narnia, the Christ figure of the series. But up until this point, none of the children have ever heard this name mentioned. Mr. Tumnus hadn’t mentioned Aslan to Lucy, and the White Witch certainly did not mention Aslan to Edmund. So at first, the children only have this name that Mr. Beaver speaks to them, as he indicates he wants to take them to see Aslan soon.

Each child reacts differently to hearing the name of Aslan. The narrator describes it to us: “Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it has some enormous meaning - either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in his inside. Edmund felt the sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.” (64-65)

Mr. Beaver can’t tell the children more about Aslan though until they are safely at his home. The children are eager to hear about him. As soon as they start back into the conversation about him, they have that same feeling they did on first hearing his name, “like the first signs of spring, like good news” had come over them. (74) Mr. Beaver can’t believe they don’t know who Aslan is.

“Aslan?” said Mr. Beaver, “Why don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand … But word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He’ll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus.” When Edmund suggests that the White Witch might turn Aslan into stone, Mr. Beaver laughs. “Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it’ll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no: He’ll put all to rights as it says in an old rhyme … ‘Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight. At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death and when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.’” (74-75)

Finally, Lucy asks a critical question. “Is - is he a man?” Again, Mr. Beaver is amazed by how little the children know. “Aslan a man! Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beast? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion.”

Susan feels afraid at the thought of meeting a lion. “Is he - quite safe?” she wonders. Mrs. Beaver responds that feeling nervous is only sensible. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” (75-76)

“Then he isn’t safe?” Lucy asks. “Safe?” says Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Despite all that’s been said, Peter says that he still longs to meet Aslan, even if he is afraid. And with that, they begin planning to get the children to meet Aslan.

In this season of Advent, we are longing to meet the Christ-child. We’ve been preparing and planning and awaiting his arrival. What are we picturing, when we imagine Jesus coming into our world yet again this season? The children don’t seem, at first, to have a good sense of who Aslan is. They can’t imagine him, meeting this lion, this king, this one the Beavers won’t even declare to be safe. Even so, they long to meet him. When we turn to the scriptures for descriptions of the Messiah we’re longing to meet, how is he described? How do the images the authors of our texts conjure match with the vision of Jesus we have in our minds?

Our first reading is from the book of Malachi, one of the prophets. Malachi wasn’t necessarily a name, though, an individual. Malachi means “the messenger” in Hebrew. So it could be a name, or it could be a title Either way, Malachi delivers a message. Malachi was most likely written sometime after the Israelites had returned from exile, and were again living in the land. The temple had been rebuilt. The covenant restored. People were feeling pretty good. But Malachi has noticed that some of the Israelites - some of the religious leaders in particular - are starting to get lax in their behavior. They’re doing some of the same things that the people were doing that led to the conquering and exile of Israel in the first place.

Malachi writes as a corrective warning: “The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight - indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?” The one who is coming, Malachi says, is like a refiner’s fire, like fuller’s soap, both things that are meant to cleanse something of impurities. The one who is coming will swiftly judge those who go against the ways of God, against those who oppress others. “Return to me,” we hear, “and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”

In our gospel readings from Luke, we find Mary hearing about the coming of the Christ-child, and the role she will play - she will carry him in her own womb. Mary, certainly, gets some ideas about who this Christ-child will be, what he will be like, what he will become. What does she say about him?  In the first part of the text, Gabriel arrives with a message for Mary, and we get a description of Jesus: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Whoa! Despite this enormous announcement - Hey, young, single, peasant woman: You are going to give birth to a King, the Son of God in fact. And he’s going to reign forever! - Mary has just one question - how? Gabriel explains that she’ll conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that nothing is impossible with God. And Mary is apparently satisfied. She says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Mary does not seem stunned by God’s actions in her. She’s only “perplexed,” which seems a pretty mild description, and even that only when Gabriel first greets her. On the contrary, she seems to find God’s actions just right. When she later spends time with her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with who we call John the Baptist, Mary has a clear vision of who God is and how God is working through this child she carries to shake up the whole world. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she sings. “God has looked on my lowliness with favor. Surely, people will forever think of me as blessed, because God has done great things for me. God has shown strength, God has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty. God has helped Israel. God is mercy, fulfilling the promises made to Abraham and the descendants of Abraham.”

Like the children listening to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver for their descriptions of Aslan, we’ve heard some descriptions of this Christ-child we’ve been longing to see. Are we still eager to meet him? As we come to the end of this season of Advent, I hope we can pause now, one last time, and make sure we understand who exactly this Christ-child is. It is pretty easy to get excited about a baby soon-to-be born. And I love the sweet images of Mary holding a newborn Jesus, of the little family, of God being born as one of us, like us, humble and dependent just as we are. But we can’t forget why Jesus is born, and we can’t forget who he grows up to be, and what we says and does. We can’t even forget why and how he died. And thankfully, we can’t forget that he lives, that we follow a resurrected savior. Even as Mary treasures and ponders at Jesus’ birth, we see already from the words of her song, what we call the Magnificat, that Mary knows, understands, even if in part, who her child is.

Sometimes, when we hear a powerful message that convicts our hearts, where we know if we really let the message seep in we’ll have to make changes, our strategy seems to be finding anyway we can to dull the impact of the message. I think, for example, of how Dr. Martin Luther King’s words have been used in commercials for soft drinks and expensive cars, something hard to imagine him supporting, or even how we tend to only read and listen to some of his speeches, not the ones that were calling out capitalism and militarism. I think we can do this with the message of Jesus, too, with the work and words of God, when we water down the power of God’s message to us because we’re secretly - or not so secretly - worried about how significantly God will call us to transform our lives. And so sometimes we can welcome the baby Jesus, tender and mild, and be trying hard not to think about the stuff he will say, calling us to repentance, calling us to take up crosses, calling us to leave everything to follow him. But Jesus the Christ-Child and Jesus who asks for our everything are one and the same!   

The Pevensie children are longing to meet Aslan. But they’re also hoping that Aslan is safe. Tame. Human, at least! Aslan is none of those things. Aslan is a lion. Aslan is Ruler of all of Narnia. Aslan isn’t safe, but he’s good. And Aslan is on the move, ready to turn things upside down in Narnia. We are longing to meet Jesus again. And we will! Soon! But friends, though Jesus is one of us, he’s also God-made flesh. He is the Ruler of everything that is. He isn’t safe. He doesn’t call us to paths that are always safe and easy. But he is good. And he is on the move, ready to turn the world upside down again. Let this be the Christ we are longing to welcome. Amen.

Sermon, "From Charity to Justice: Seeking Justice," Micah 6:1-8

Sermon 6/25/17

Micah 6:1-8

From Charity to Justice: Seeking Justice

            Imagine that you were walking alongside a river one day, and you saw someone in the water, clearly in distress, struggling, and needing help. What would you do? Well, of course, I imagine that you would jump into the water and help the person out, or at least call on someone else to help. Of course, that’s what you would do. But what if, as you were helping the first person out of the water, more people appeared, coming down the river, all appearing to be in distress? What would you do? At first, you might think to quickly gather a group of people – together, with a team, maybe you could start to get all of the people out of water and to safety. But I think, eventually, if this problem persisted, you would choose to send at least one person to travel along the river, looking for the source of the problem. Why is it that so many people are in the water, struggling for their lives? Was there an accident upstream? Did a boat sink? Did a bridge collapse? Has there been some disaster? Is someone or some group trying to harm these people, throwing them into the water? Once these questions can be answered, you can begin to think about a plan of action. You still need, of course, to get the people out of the water who are in distress, with their lives in immediate danger. But in the long run, more people will be saved if you figure out how they’re ending up in the water to begin with.

            I told you when we started this series two weeks ago that the focus of my doctoral work was studying how to help congregations move from a charity-based focus in their outreach work to a broader justice-grounded focus. This river scenario I just shared is one of the ways I help folks start to think about the differences between charity and justice. There is certainly a place for, a need for charitable action. We see this particularly in times of crisis, perhaps as a response to a natural disaster or a tragic event. Charitable actions focus on the immediate response, meeting immediate needs. It can be very individually-focused, as in “we need to help this person who has fallen into the water.” Charitable action focuses on fixing what we might call the results of oppression and injustice. If we’re thinking about poverty and hunger, charitable actions would focus on feeding a person who is hungry, providing material needs or cash assistance for a person struggling with poverty.

            But there are some problems with charitable actions when they move from being the initial response in a time of crisis to being the primary response of people of faith to injustice over time. First, charitable action doesn’t address the causes of injustice, since it aims simply to alleviate the results. Charitable action can feed hungry people, but without asking why people are hungry, and working to address and change the causes of hunger, there will be no end to hunger. Our charitable actions are optional actions, based on generosity and desire. We can give or we can choose not to give. Charitable actions are often come with huge power differentials between the person who gives and the person who receives. Remember, we talked about justice and righteousness being grounded in right relationships between God and one another. If our only relationship with some people is through acts of charity, where we are always giving and the other is always receiving, there is no chance for mutual relationship. The work of justice focuses on ministry with people instead of ministry for people. The work of justice is long-term work, and focuses on changing whole systems and structures. And finally, the work of justice is what God requires. It isn’t optional, something that God calls us to do if we feel like it, if we have enough extra to share, if we’re feeling generous. Throughout the scriptures, the work of justice is work that God builds into the very laws that form the covenant between God and God’s people. The poor and vulnerable are protected by law, and failure to act with justice towards those whom God protects is a failure of justice, a violation of law, a sign of brokenness in the covenant. God takes it seriously when we fail to work for justice.

            Part of how we get “off track” with charity is because the concept of charity has changed over time. In the scriptures, the word that can loosely translate into something like our word charity means “to give alms,” to give money to those in need. It appears in two or three places in the Bible, describing a practice of giving to the poor that was considered generous, but was also part of the law, an expectation for faithful Jews. As our PowerPoint title slide says, charity gives. We need charitable actions, we need to respond to the immediate crises of people in pain, people suffering. We can do good and needed charitable work. But, it’s a word that doesn’t really communicate what we want it to, and it perhaps doesn’t encourage us toward the mutual, set right relationships in the way we want it to, and it doesn’t change things beyond the immediate for the people who so need to experience the freedom and good news and release we read about in Isaiah last week. We are called to something more. Last week, when we shared in our Companion Litany to our Social Creed, we used the phrase “God celebrates when justice and mercy embrace.” Considering acts of mercy serves us better than acts of charity. The concept of mercy is grounded in our biblical witness, and speaks of God’s loving action towards us. To be merciful is to have compassion for others. You might remember me sharing with you last summer that the word compassion, often used to describe the way Jesus looks at us, means literally to have your stomach twisted in knots with concern for others. What if we acted with mercy and justice in the face of the world’s brokenness, and our need to build right relationships with God and one another?

            We find both mercy and justice in our scripture text this morning. Today we turn our attention to the book of Micah. Micah is another of the prophets, and he writes around the same time as does the prophet Isaiah, and you can find a lot of similar themes in their work. When we pick up our reading in chapter 6, Micah is reporting that God is declaring to the hills and mountains that God has a controversy, a case to bring against Israel. Basically, God is accusing Israel of failing to uphold the covenant between God and God’s people. God has promised to be the God of Israel, and the people were in turn meant to be faithful to God and God’s law, but they’ve failed to uphold their end of the promise. God, though, is ever-faithful. Still, God is demanding an accounting, and when God brings the case against Israel, God starts by reminding the Israelites of all that God has done for them, of all the ways that God has been a guide, their leader, their strength. “Remember how I brought you out of Egypt and slavery?” God reminds. “Remember how I gave you leaders in Moses, Aaron, and Miriam?” “Remember how I saved you from the enemies that wanted to keep you from reaching the promised land?”

            Micah then speaks on behalf of the Israelites, imagining their response to God’s claim against them. He imagines that the Israelites will offer anything – burnt-offerings, and offerings of livestock – extravagant riches – a thousand rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, even their firstborn children – in order to be justified, to be set in right relationship with God again. The pictures Micah paints are of extreme hyperbole, suggesting we’d promise anything to be on good terms with God again.

            But, Micah says God has already told us what is good, and what is required. We already know what God wants – we just don’t seem to want to do it. What does God require? That we “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with [our] God.” God doesn’t want our extravagant gifts when they don’t come with our heart and soul attached. God wants our hearts, our compassion, our commitment to justice for all of God’s people, and our humble discipleship, following in the footsteps of Jesus. Both less costly than all of our treasures, and more costly, because God wants everything, heart and soul and whole lives as an offering.

            What God wants, as always, is for us to make God’s ways our ways, for us to make God’s values our values. That happens when we seek righteousness – right relationships with God and one another. And God reminds us that God has always treated us with justice and mercy. Remember, remember, remember how I have loved you, how I have treated you, how I have worked for fullness of life for you. And let your remembering spur you to work for the same for others. Remember – you already know what I require – justice, mercy, and humble discipleship.

            So, how will we do this work here, in this congregation and in this community? What can we do here that will help us make God’s values our values, set us right with God and neighbor? How will we love mercy here, and seek justice here? I think we can work to build on the things that we already care about as a community. Our church serves many families each fall with our We’ve Got Your Back to School program. There’s a vital ministry that can lead us to ask justice-seeking questions. How can our faith communities better support our schools, our children, and our educators? How can we be advocates, working to get the resources our schoolchildren need? How can we be in relationship with families with schoolchildren who feel overburdened and stretched thin? How can we support teachers and administrators and staff who can have such a profound impact on young lives? We have a thriving Friday Lunch program that brings meals to countless people in our community – so many people touched by this program. What do we know about what resources are available to the elderly in our community? How do we build meaningful relationships with folks that are often neglected and overlooked by a society that values eternal youth? We’re beginning to think and plan and dream about how we support people and families who are walking the road of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Already, we’ve been talking about being advocates for mental health resources, educating ourselves and our community, encouraging hospitality and breaking down stereotypes. There is no one right way to seek justice, grounded in mercy. There are so many ways to answer God’s call. What stirs your spirit? What way is God calling you? Where does your compassion meet God’s vision of justice and wholeness for the world?

            God wants nothing more and nothing less than our hearts and souls. And God tells us just how we can make such an offering. Not with jewels and riches and without what God really wants. Requires in fact. God has told us what is good. Let us do justice. Let us love mercy and kindness. And let us walk, walk this journey as disciples, walk humbly in the company of God. Amen.

                                                                                                      

Sermon for Fourth Sunday of Advent, "His Name Shall Be Called: Prince of Peace," Isaiah 52:7-10, Micah 4:1-4, Matthew 5:9

Sermon 12/18/16

Isaiah 52:7-10, Micah 4:1-4, Matthew 5:9

His Name Shall Be Called: Prince of Peace*

“His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This week I read an article by Michael Kellerman in the New York Times about the horrors of war in Syria, and particularly its impact on children. In particular, he was moved by a short video of a 7 year old Syrian girl, Bana, who said simply: “Please, save us. Thank you.” Kellerman writes about how disinterested, or at least how distracted from the humanitarian crisis we have been. He says, “… [A]ll we do is watch, helplessly, as Syrians refuse to go quietly, determined to get us to know them, their lives, all that has been lost. Some of the public’s indifference can of course be chalked up to compassion fatigue and disillusionment with a war in its sixth year … There were assurances about popular uprisings. Social media today supercharges protest movements, which burn out almost as fast. Such movements used to require a slow … construction. They didn’t rely on Facebook videos and … photos. Truth be told, no sane person wants to see these images anyway. What’s happening in Aleppo is almost unbearable to look at. But that’s the point. Bana looks us straight in the eye and asks us to save her, please. We have done nothing to help. The very least we should do is look back.” (1)

            I have been trying to look back. And as I have been looking, I’ve been thinking about this fourth title for the Christ-child that we’re studying today. We call him Prince of Peace. Of all of the titles we’ve talked about, I think this one slides most easily onto Jesus. It makes sense. We often think of Jesus as Prince of Peace, even outside of the Advent season. And during Advent? There are images of peace everywhere. We love the idea of peace. But do we really love peace? What are we willing to do to make peace a reality in our world?

During his last days before his crucifixion, Jesus heads to Jerusalem, and after he arrives, when Jesus is greeted with a parade and fanfare by the people, he heads out to look over the city. As he surveys everything before him, Jesus beings weeping. He says, “If you, even you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes … because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:42, 44b) What do you think? Do we recognize the things that make for peace? What are they? And do we choose them, the things that make for peace? I look at that video of young Bana and think: I’m not sure we know anything about peace at all.

            The story woven through the scriptures tells us that God’s people have long struggled with knowing how to make peace. In Isaiah’s oracle, when he talks about the Prince of Peace, the word he uses is shalom. Shalom means not just the “absence of hostility”, but more broadly the maintaining of the whole social system, with the intent of “the promotion of the general welfare” of all people.” (52). It’s the same idea we get in Psalm 72, which we shared together in worship a few weeks ago. For there to be peace, there must be justice practiced for the poor and needy. Prosperity for all, not just an elite group. (53) As we read in Micah today, “disarmament is a prelude to peace.” Violence and peace are not compatible. (54)

            Yet, disarmament can’t be a “coercive activity enforced by the victor.” Peace that is imposed by the winning side is not true peace, not when there is no other choice for the loser. Walter Brueggemann writes, “Peace makes a better political slogan than a credible political reality.” (56) The prophet Jeremiah lamented in his writings: “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (6:13) The peace of God cannot come about through force by the mighty over the weaker.

            Consider this: Jesus, Prince of Peace, was born in a nation occupied by the Roman government during the time in history known as the Pax Romana – the Roman Peace. And yet, we know from the accounts of scripture that God’s people in Israel did not consider it a time of peace, but a time of oppression, a time when they were living under foreign rule, a time when people lived in fear. If we’re settling for this kind of peace, it’s a shallow peace, a false peace, clinging to a notion of peace when there is no peace. When people are living in silence because they are afraid, when there is injustice and oppression and yet we say we are at peace – this is not the vision of peace God has. This is not the peace that the Prince of Peace ushers in.

            Maybe we do not know the things that make for peace. But we do know Jesus, or we are coming to know him, invited to come and know him. And he knows about peace. Jesus carries in his being a peace that “defies all ordinary expectations, [that is] a peace that is wrought in vulnerability, [that] does not impose its own way.” He is a Prince of Peace whose vulnerability confounds us. (61) When Jesus is born, God’s messengers declare that his birth signals that peace is meant for all the earth. When Jesus heals people, he tells them, “Go in peace,” not as a trite farewell, but as a way of saying that person has been restored to God’s vision for their life. (62) When he sends out the disciples to preach the gospel, he tells them to seek out people and homes who “share in peace,” suggesting that peace is a personal and interpersonal relationship, a way of being that we can claim, counter to the culture around us. He practices nonviolence, refusing to defend himself, even to the point of his own death. When he is resurrected, the first words he speaks to his disciples are words of peace.

            Some might think that Jesus is just naïve. But I think that we’re the ones who don’t know the things that make for peace. I think sometimes we’ve confused peace with safety and security. But they aren’t synonyms. Peace is not safe! Working for peace, is risky, because God’s vision of peace for the world means that the whole world order gets turned upside down. If God’s vision of peace prevails, then some will lose power and status and wealth and position. If God’s peace means a world where the well-being of all people is top priority, then some will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo. If we insist on working for God’s vision of wholeness for all, then we have a hope of experiencing the peace that passes understanding but can abide in our hearts and change our lives, but we also take risks when we commit to the way of peace. Jesus, Prince of Peace, invites us to follow him. And his path leads into some dangerous places. He knows this. He goes this way anyway. And he asks us to follow anyway.          

What are the things that make for peace? I think peace comes from the inside out. We don’t know about peace when we think that peace is beyond us, that we aren’t a part of making peace. When my brothers and I would get into arguments growing up, (which we never do anymore, of course) my mom would say, “How can we expect there to be peace in the world if we can’t have peace in our home?” This would induce some eye-rolling in us – at least we agreed on that – but I’ve always remembered it. How can we have peace in our home if we don’t have peace within? Peace within comes from our relationship with God, from God dwelling in our hearts. That’s the work of Advent – preparing room in our hearts for the Prince of Peace.

            We don’t know about peace when we think that peace won’t cost us. Brueggemann says that “Peace requires the capacity to forgive. Peace requires a readiness to share generously. Peace requires the violation of strict class stratification in society. Peace requires attentiveness to the vulnerable and the unproductive. Peace requires humility in the face of exaltation, being last among those who insist on being first and denying self in the interest of the neighbor.” (64)

            We don’t know about the things of peace when we pretend we have achieved peace while others are suffering. Peace is not the absence of something. It is the presence of something. It is not simply the absence of war, the absence of violence, although we seek after such things as a part of peace. Instead, peace is the welcomed presence of God’s reign in our midst, which results in the well-being of all of God’s creation. And if peace is the presence of something, not the absence, then we can only live in peace when we are active, not passive in pursuing it. Peace will not just find us, settle on us, wash over us. We must seek peace, cultivate it, spread it, carry the message of it, claim it in the midst of every opposing message.

            When we do these things, when we seek to learn the things that make for peace, when we make it our life’s work to practice them, maybe then we will be able to look back at little Bana and hold her gaze steadily, really seeing her, ready to work for a world where she experiences wholeness. We’re waiting, longing for the Christ-child. Let us not miss this visitation from God. Let us be God’s peacemakers, God’s children. Come to us, Prince of Peace. Amen.

Song – Dona Nobis Pacem.

(1) Michael Kimmelman, New York Times,

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/14/world/middleeast/kimmelman-images-of-aleppo.html?emc=edit_th_20161215&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=76025005&_r=0

*All references in this sermon come from Walter Brueggemann’s Names for the Messiah, Chapter 4, “Prince of Peace,” unless otherwise noted. 

Sermon for Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, "Requirements"

Sermon 1/30/11

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

Requirements

           

Requirements. When I was in high-school, I knew I had really arrived, I was really becoming grown-up when I got to the time in school where I could start choosing some of my classes. By the time I was a junior, I no longer took math and science – I had taken the required courses for graduation already. And instead, during my senior year, I was taking a full load of five periods of music courses, ranging from choir and orchestra to theory and history. It was great. I loved it. Then, in college, my choices were even more wide-ranging. You got to choose an entire course of study. I got to choose a major and a minor. There were some core requirements of course – Ohio Wesleyan sadly required three sciences, much to my dismay. But I got to choose classes like Ancient Greek, Stage Make-up and Costuming, Shakespeare, and Adolescent Psychology. And then, I went to seminary. Instead of getting more choices, I had less than in college, it seemed – I had seminary requirements and requirements that were specific to the United Methodist denomination. I had requirements that our annual conference set all its own. And during my last year, the school was already moving to add one or two more classes to the list. I can’t say I didn’t have some choice in my courses, but it seems a seminary can’t let you go off to become a pastor without having classes in Old and New Testament, or courses on Preaching. And now that I’m working on my Doctor of Ministry degree, it seems things have come full circle. I don’t have a single elective class in my program. Every class I take is prescribed. I just take what I’m told to take. Zero wiggle room. The requirements are the requirements. And if you want to get out of high-school, you’ve got to take English. And if you want to get out of seminary, you have to complete the requirements necessary for ministry. And if I want my Doctoral degree, I have to take every single one of those classes. We might wish it worked differently, but ultimately, we know we must pay our dues if we want to get credit and move on.

Sometimes, I think we treat things similarly in our faith lives. We’re interested in knowing what our requirements are, and what part of faith is elective. We’re interested in knowing how much we need to believe and how much of our faith we need to practice to do what is necessary for us to reap the benefits. For example, how many times a month do you need to attend worship? Your answer and my answer to this question might be a little different! But we wonder – do we have to attend every week? Once a month? Three weeks on one week off? Or we wonder, how much do we need to give? What can we get by with? If we go to church, do we have to go to Sunday School too, or vise versa? What’s required for us to be good Christians? We wonder what we must believe too: did Jesus really mean we had to drop everything and follow him, like the disciples did in our reading last week, or is that just an elective part of faith, only for the really devout? When Jesus taught us to love our enemies, did he mean all of them, or just some? When we read about our neighbors and how we are to treat them, are we required to love every last one, make amends in every relationship, or does Jesus just expect us to give it a good try and then say, “Enough is enough!?” We want to know. Of course, I’m teasing a little bit – but I’m serious too – we really want to know what’s required of us. We love God – I’m guessing that’s why most of you are here. We want to serve God. We want to live rightly. We want to be disciples. But we know our limitations too – we’re not perfect. We’ve failed so many times before. How can we live up to the standards set by the disciples, who dropped everything to follow Jesus, or the Israelites, who wandered for years in the desert to follow God’s commands, or those like Paul, who were even imprisoned for preaching the gospel? We doubt we can live as they did – and so we want to know: what’s required of us? What must we do to please God?

We are constantly trying to figure out what it is we need to do to please God. We think of the heavens opening up at Jesus’ baptism, and Jesus hearing God’s voice saying, “with you I am well pleased,” and we want so much that same assurance of God’s love, even as we feel so much less deserving of it than was Christ. We are not alone in our wondering. We read in Micah today, the questioning Israel brings before God: “with what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Perhaps these suggested gifts don’t sound very meaningful to us, but the offerings, the calves, the rams, even the firstborn – these represent all that was important and of value to the Ancient Israelites – the offerings would represent the finest that a person possessed, the best of the best one had to give, or even one’s own child – the firstborn, who held all sorts of high positions in Hebrew society. We’re not much different when it comes to trying to please God. We know that we are sinful – we know that we’re often not doing what God wants – but instead of trying to change our behavior, to transform our lives, we wait until after we’ve made bad decisions, and then scramble to make bargains with God. “God, I swear I’ll never do X again if you’ll just do X for me.” “God, I promise I’ll do X all the time God, if you just forgive me for X.” We hope that our offerings will appease and please God, as Israel wonders if its guilt offerings are what God desires.

But Micah, the prophet, has some clarity to offer, and I can almost hear the “you know the answer” tone-of-voice he must have been using with the people. Micah answers, “God has told you, people, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We already know, Micah reminds us, what we are to do. God has told us. Maybe we haven’t been listening, or perhaps we haven’t believed what we’ve heard. But we know the requirement of faithful living: to walk humbly, to love kindness, or mercy as some texts read, and to do justice. These are the requirements – not the electives – but the requirements of faithful living, good living.

What does it mean, though? How do we do these things? What is justice, and mercy or kindness, and humility? To me, it can be overwhelming if we think about the nouns instead of the verbs. The nouns – justice, mercy, humility – those are some big broad concepts. What is justice? Well, we could spend a lot of time talking about that, and end up spending little time actually doing what Micah talks about. But if we focus on the verbs in Micah’s response to our question, I think we find a way to move forward. We have to walk humbly with God. We have to love mercy. And we have to do just or act justly. Walk, love, do/act. That gives us something to get our head around. What does God require of us? We have to walk with God. When we are figuring out our path in life, we’re to figure out where God is going, and go that same way. We’re to try to be where God is every day. It’s like going on a walk with a friend – you’re side by side, and where they go, you go. We walk with God. And we’re to love. That’s easy, right? We know how to love. We can get better at it. We can include more people in who we love. We can remove some of the conditions that we put on how we love. But what’s required is something we already know, that’s as essential to living as breathing. We’re to love. And finally, we’re to do, to act. We talked about this last Sunday – how being disciples involves reflection and action. It’s easy to see where God’s love is needed in this world, where grace is needed, where peace is needed. All we have to do is act in faith. That doesn’t mean we have to solve everything. But what’s required is that we don’t just do nothing! Taking action in the small ways we can is infinitely more effective than doing nothing because we can’t do everything.

Today we celebrate people who are engaging in the journey of faith Micah describes. As we install new leaders and we receive new members, we lift up those who are taking a particular step in their walk with God. We affirm our love for them as we welcome new folks into this part of the Body of Christ and as we encourage our leaders to work with love in guiding the congregation. And these celebrations are certainly actions, taking an active role in discipleship. As we celebrate, we also reflect on our own journeys, and seek to take steps in faith together.

What does God require of us? Just three things. Walk humbly. Love mercy. Act justly. We have a whole lifetime to complete the course. Amen.