RonBlog

Sunday 30th January, 2011 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Sentence
What does the Lord require of you, O man, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Collect
O Lord, You have taught us that all our doings without love are worth nothing; send Your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted as dead before You. Grant this for Your only Son, Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen

OLD TESTAMENT LESSON Micah 6: 1 – 8

Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. "O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD."
"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?"
He has told you, O mortal, 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?

PSALM 15

Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle: or who may dwell upon Your holy hill?
Whoever leads an uncorrupt life, and does the thing that is right: who speaks the truth from the heart and has not slandered with the tongue.
Who has done no evil to a friend: nor vented abuse against a neighbour
In whose eyes the worthless have no honour: but who makes much of those who fear the Lord
Whoever has sworn to a neighbour: and will not go back on that oath
Who has not put money to usury: nor taken a bribe against the innocent
Whoever does these things: shall never be overthrown

EPISTLE 1 Corinthians 1: 18 – 31

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

GOSPEL Matthew 5: 1 – 12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved

NOTES ON THE READINGS.

OLD TESTAMENT
It would seem that the view of Jewish religion and expression of it must have depended on who was talking and when; the New Testament is full of comparison between ‘Law’ and ‘grace’ – or between sacrifice and lack of it, circumcision or lack of it. So it was a surprise for me, when training for the priesthood, to discover the writings of Micah. What is more surprising to someone of the modern age, is that this man lived around 750 BC when one might have expected a rather naïve expression of Hebrew Faith. Little could be further from the truth.

For this rather remarkable person, real religion for him is expressed in that most passionate of expressions: ‘what does the Lord require of you, O man?’ The answer is more surprising in that day and age: to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ As I have mentioned many a time and oft before, the real Hebrew Faith was far less ‘religious’ and rather more like moderns might describe as ‘humanist.’ If that comes as a shock then stop and think. Love God and love neighbour can only be expressed in such terms anyhow. Put that in your pipe for some time and smoke it!

PSALM
And look what the psalmist has to say on the same subject. And this has to be one of the early psalms! Even these days, antagonists to the Faith are ready to declaim against anyone who acts inconsistently with the Shema Israel.

EPISTLE
There has been a lot of ink spilt in commenting on this passage from St. Paul, but often that ink misses the real point at issue. As mentioned earlier, the folly consists in the perceived difference between the human sense of who is strong, and those who are weak. Every country, so the propaganda goes, looks for a strong leader, which is why Germany chose Adolph Hitler. (Other examples are common!) And that sort of strength turns out to be a savage sort of weakness. If I need a big stick to convince you that I hold to the truth, then that very stick proves me to be a liar. I kid you not.
The second paragraph – about signs and wisdom – does actually have a lot to say about much modern populist religion, seems to me, as well as pointing to more ancient foibles. For Jew and Greek, it strikes me that those then-popular emphases were little more than smokescreens to avoid reality, rather than tests to establish the truth. Finally, I point to this last paragraph to underline the fact that God tends more often to work through humble ordinary people, and avoids the flash-in –the-pan sort of human.

GOSPEL

One could spend the whole time exploring the parameters of the Beatitudes, this passage from the Sermon on the Mount. This is a fascinating counterpoint to the Epistle for today, for much of the world would regard the Beatitudes as totally beyond value or usefulness. In fact, for many decades, some commentators saw these verses as having only possible expression in heaven!
The reality is far closer to home. Read them through again and catch sight of all that is being said. In terms of Jesus and that ‘extra mile’ that he called for as people responded to people in need, and realize that the only way to remove most of earth’s human ills is for almost total self-giving, then see whilst it may be idealistic, it would be totally effective --- if there is a genuine response from other humans.
Mind you, that will always beg the question, for there is ever that human element that determines to operate in the Adamic, self-obsessed manner. On the other hand, much of the great value of the Gospel is that it offers that new life, that completely different way to operate. And thank heaven for that.

NOTES FOR A SERMON

Do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
The first time I ever encountered this most remarkable of quotes from Micah it resonated with great power and purpose. On top of that, it revolutionised my perception of the old Hebrew Faith – as well as the role of the prophets in their contribution to the formation of Judaism. Sadness remains that, in modern expression of the Jewish life, so little of those worthy contributions still seem to have power to motivate the ancient people of God.

There, of course, is the line in the sand, the great divide between those of conciliatory mood and those who are not. History is so totally full of examples and illustrations of the battle between human concepts of power and control, and the Divine perception of what life could and should be like.

May I make the position clear, as I do from time to time, that this Judaic/Christian Faith has, as a major part of its genius, the very factor that provides real and substantial answers to what used often to be called the ‘human dilemma.’ It is a little like the proverbial ‘Murphy’s Law’ which states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and that ‘Murphy was an optimist.’ More to the point, this human dilemma includes all that makes nonsense of human life, aspirations and history – and I doubt very much if you need any illustration of this awful fact of life.

The fact that this solution is more often despised than taken seriously is a blot on the landscape too. Certainly it has to be said that the Christian witness to what is the real Gospel is rarely heard or advertised. Part of that very dilemma is that ever faith and Church are riddled with the incapacity of humans to live out what they believe. In fact, it was a rare experience for me even to hear from any source what is real Gospel, especially as a young person. ‘Religion’ was sacrosanct, beyond discussion or debate, and I recall being told very firmly from my own priest that I was not to ask questions such as I raised. Small wonder that the faith even survived!

There is nothing new in that, for such refusal to face or answer questions was the common experience of most lay people. It was all part of the power game, which is itself a denial of the ‘faith once delivered.’

So if this monologue rings any bells in your own mind and heart, do not hesitate to push your way through the baloney – and see what the Faith really is all about. It is designed to overcome precisely those resistances and reservations.