St. Paul’s Sermon 2005

The Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany - January 30, 2005

Lessons: Micah 6:1-8; 1 Cor. 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12

“What Does the LORD Require?”

Introduction:

I remember my first week in seminary - knew there would be many folks from many various backgrounds there - We had a weekly small group - faith development - one of the group - "I'm not so sure of all this Jesus stuff; what I believe in is in Micah 6:8 - "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

For the last century or so, this has been a favorite verse of the more socially progressive wing of the church. It is one that has been picked up by Unitarians and others to show a Bible message that says "Go out there and be good people. Love justice, show mercy, walk humbly with your God."

That's what it sounds like in English. But it means a lot more.

I) Our old Friend Chesed Returns

For the past several years, I have been pointing out to you a particular Hebrew word. Every three years, when Matthew's Gospel comes up, you'll be reminded of this little word. It's the word that ties the Old Testament and New Testaments together. It's the word that explains the faith life of the Old Testament people. It's the word that explains how the covenants of the Bible work. What’s that Hebrew word? Chesed. It shows up over 200 times in the OT.

So, if we've talked about it, why do I bring it up again? First, because I have a teaching responsibility to our kids, our new members and to all who want to grow in their understanding of the Bible to explain and teach it. Secondly, as part of that, I need to help you understand how the Bible is one book, about one God and that God who works the same today as he always has. A covenant is a covenant; Christianity isn't a new religion that replaced the religion of the Old Testament. It’s the same God, the same type of covenant and we have the same type of relationship God has had with his people as long as we've known about that God.

Chesed is best translated "covenant love." It's a multi-party relationship created and imposed by God. It is about a faithful, grace-filled, love-based, steadfast relationship between God and people, people and God and between believers. It’s all empowered by God's covenant, and it's the same today as it was for Abraham. That's the point I want to get across.

II) A Misunderstood Passage

Since the philosophical movement called "the Enlightenment" began to affect the theology of the western European church, the God of the Bible has been greatly distorted. The Enlightenment and its so-called "Rationalism" taught that all that existed in the world was what we could see. They said there was nothing supernatural in the universe; no miracles and their picture of God was some kind of impersonal force that created everything and went away somewhere. This is the faith of the Unitarian and by mid-20th century it had deeply affected mainline Protestantism.

As some have read the OT in the past 170 years, they have tried to paint the OT faith as some sort of dry, law-based Unitarianism of following the rules and doing justice. Or they have reduced Christianity to some sort of mushy religion of being nice, being good and feeling lovingly. That might be a great picture of the Unitarian faith of those Bible commentators, but it’s not the faith of the OT. The faith of the OT is a passionate relationship between a God with a blazing, red-hot love for his chosen people. It’s a personal relationship with a living, personal God. He is passionately involved with his people. He calls the people of Israel his wife, and speaks of their rejection in terms of adultery!

In our passage today, Micah is trying to call the northern kingdom, Israel and the southern kingdom, Judah, both to repentance. He lays out his case like a prosecuting attorney in court, speaking to his people before the entire universe. His jury is the mountains and the hills, the whole planet:

(Micah 6:1-5)

Listen to what the LORD says:

"Stand up, plead your case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say.

[2] Hear, O mountains, the LORD'S accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.

For the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel.

[3] "My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.

[4] I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery.

I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.

[5] My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD."

He then answers back on behalf of his people, using their religious language:

[6] With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? [7] Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (like the Canaanites, who were sacrificing their children?) NO!

Micah tells it very clearly, if we can hear its message:

[8] He has showed you, O man, 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.

The fruit of true faith is to act justly, live in this covenant relationship with God and neighbor, and live it out humbly with God. It's about the relationship, just like the NT. Hear the pair: Do justice. Live in the faith relationship. Sound familiar? Remember James words:

4 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 18 But some one will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

When Micah says, "Do justice" or "Act justly"- that's the same as James' "works." When he says "love mercy" - the word is chesed- don't just havechesed, -- LOVE chesed.- love the relationship of faithfulness with your God. That's what the New Testament calls faith.

Do justice = works

Love chesed= faith.

III) Biblical Faith

The faith of the Bible isn't about being good people. The Bible teaches that there is no goodness apart from God, we can't even know right from wrong, we can't do God’s will without knowing God. We know God only through a personal faith relationship - that was true in 700 BC with Micah; that was true at 1800 BC with Abraham. And it's true in 2005 with you.

Biblical faith, OT or NT, isn't some sort of dry, law-based Unitarianism of following the rules and doing justice; nor is it some sort of mushy religion of being nice, being good and feeling lovingly. Christianity is not about being good. It's not about doing nice things. You don't become a Christian by being a really good Boy Scout or keeping the Ten Commandments or by being very, very nice. The faith of the Bible is one thing, since day one: a personal relationship with the living God.

We trust in the living God, who has revealed himself in his Word. We don't believe in a philosophical god, picking which attributes we like and ordering them the way we choose, like building Mr. Potatohead. When we try to invent our own god, it's like the blind men and the elephant. They each feel a different part of the elephant and say that it's like a rope, a tree, a snake. None of them get the big picture of the reality of the elephant. So it is if we start to imagine God, rather than be spoken to by the one who has willed to reveal himself fully in his Word. And in reading his Word, he creates the relationship we call faith.

If you have that relationship, then you are a Christian, and you will live a life that produces good fruit. If you don't produce the good fruit, maybe you're not real. But you can't become a Christian by doing nice things. It goes one way- because we can't really know what is good, unless we're guided by God. Trying to become a Christian by being good is like trying to start a car by sucking on the tailpipe. It doesn't work that way. If the car is running, then exhaust comes out. But you have to start it from the other end. The energy comes from the battery; when it starts the car, it creates exhaust. But suck on that tail pipe as much as you want; hook up your Kirby vacuum cleaner- it still won't work. It goes one way.

Faith is like that- it comes from God; it creates a relationship with God, empowered by God. That relationship changes you, and you learn to be led by God to do his will. In doing his will, we do what is truly good. In learning to know that living God, we learn to know him, to have that relationship, and that's where the power comes from - so we can act justly, because we love chesed- the covenant love God has created for us.

And we can't really love, without having first received God's love. The OT isn't he only place where there are words in our Bible that are hard to translate, and we can't see the real word in English. Like Ephesians 4:32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. That's not really what it says. It literally says, "grace one another, as God in Christ graced you." That's the Greek word charis, which is related to the Hebrew chesed. As you've received grace from God, grace each other. As you've been freely forgiven, forgive each other. That's a direct NT use of the OT idea of chesed. God has reached out to you in covenant love, so you can reach out with the same love.

Over 200 times the LORD reminds his people of his covenant love, and calls them to the same. We could use many words to describe that sort of love: grace. faithfulness. steadfast love.

This one word ties it all together- OT and NT;

Faith and Works; God and me and you; if we are absolutely breathtakingly in love with chesed- if the reality of God's steadfast, unchangeable, unconditional love; the kind of love in which he sent his Son to die for you - if that kind of love breaks into your life, and begins to grasp you, it changes everything. In Jesus Christ, God has claimed you and bought you back to himself. That's the Gospel. As we hear that story, it changes us. That gratitude and trust we develop inside is what the Bible calls faith. From that faith we grow to love God and love neighbor.

It's the same today as it was 2700 years ago. Same God. Same faith. Same book. Same promise.

Invitation; Amen.

January 30, 2005 - Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany

Micah 6:1-8

Listen to what the LORD says:

"Stand up, plead your case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say.

[2] Hear, O mountains, the LORD'S accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.

For the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel.

[3] "My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.

[4] I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.

[5] My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.

[6] With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

[7] Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

[8] He has showed you, O man, 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.

1 Cor. 1:18-31

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [19] For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

[20] Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. [22] Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, [23] but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, [24] but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [25] For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

[26] Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. [28] He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, [29] so that no one may boast before him. [30] It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. [31] Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

Matthew 5:1-12

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him,

[2] and he began to teach them, saying:

[3] "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[4] Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

[5] Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

[6] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

[7] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

[8] Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

[9] Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

[10] Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[11] Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

[12] Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."