"Blessed Are..."

A sermon by the Rev. Amelie M. Sell

Preached at Pleasantville UCC, January 30, 2011

   Last Sunday, our congregation had the opportunity to hear sermons prepared by four members of our Confirmation class.  Our young people articulated a deep understanding of the ways God is present in our lives and in the midst of our personal suffering and pain.  Throughout the week, I talked to countless members of our congregation who were impressed and personally reassured by the words of our young preachers.  Our young preachers reminded us that God will not only stand by us when we are suffering, but will work to bring our sufferings to an end.

   Today, we have as our scriptural text one of the best loved and most read passages from the Prophetic writers of the Bible.  We hear in today’s scripture the most direct call by God upon God’s people to act with Godly justice and mercy towards others.  This text was the Biblical focal point used by the youth who went on our last mission trip and it has been historically used as a rallying cry by Evangelists, Pastors, and Martyrs for the faith.

   Our text today comes from the short book of the prophet Micah. Micah lived and wrote 700 years before Christ’s birth.  During the years Micah was a prophet, the Assyrian Empire began to expand trade with Judah.  In defiance of Hebrew law, many wealthy Judean merchants began to illegally purchase small farms and consolidate the land as a placeholder for their money.  They forced poor farmers to sell what had been their ancestral land and source of livelihood.  Farmers who were dispossessed of their land moved from the countryside into cities, where there was overcrowding. The landless peasants of the 7th century B.C.E. experienced the same pressures faced by contemporary poor, landless farmers who have resettled in urban slums.

   As a reaction to the disharmony Micah saw in his land, Micah described a theoretical court trial between God and Israel.  During the legal debate, God accuses God’s followers of breaking covenant with God because they have rejected God’s laws.  Hear now the words of this trial as found in Micah Chapter 6 verses 1 through 8:

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."

Israel responds:
"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?"

Micah reminds us:

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?

   Micah reminded God’s followers that God, more than anything else, wants God’s followers to work to make this world a better place.  Our positive actions are more important than empty rituals.   We must strive to change the world for the better.  We must strive to follow God’s laws and teachings.  We must strive to not take advantage of those people who are economically or socially weaker than ourselves.

   Sometimes it feels like we have too many tasks on our plates.  We have a zillion errands to run, more assignments to accomplish at work than we will ever complete, our parents need us to help them clean out their attics, and our children need us to prod them to complete their school projects and drive them to basketball practice.  It never stops.  And, sometimes our relationship with God is just one more thing on our “to do” list…at some future time, we may carve out time to read the Bible from cover to cover, take a Christian Education class, join the Bell Choir, and raise money for the crop walk.  Our text from Micah reminds us that God is not interested in us perfectly fulfilling the tasks on our list.  Instead, God is interested in having an authentic relationship with us.  God wants us to live like we believe in the Gospel—inspired by God we will live justice into our lives.  Inspired by God we will extend mercy to all we meet.  Inspired by God we will think about God and pray to God and remember God in the midst of the choices we make.

   God wants us to seek justice for other people, people who are not fully in a position to claim justice for themselves.  This week, I read the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  You may have read it as it has been on the Best Seller list for a long time.  It has been advertised as the perfect book club novel.  The book tells the story of three women during the civil rights movement of the early nineteen-sixties.  Two are housekeepers and the third is a recent college graduate.  The young college graduate rebels against the racism of her mid-sized Mississippi town by working with the housekeepers to write a book sharing their experiences and the experiences of several other housekeepers.  The young woman has a lot of free time and energy, which allows her to spend the hours needed to gather the stories of the housekeepers and type them out.  She blindly pushes the boundaries tolerated by the racist status quo in her town, and in doing so helps the women who work as housekeepers have a vehicle through which to express themselves and throw off a few of the ties that bind them in degrading jobs.

   I know that sometimes “do-gooders” inadvertently cause more harm than good.   The fictional story I read worked out in the end in a way not possible in real life.  Our reality is a lot messier than fiction.  But, I liked the spirit of the book and I think it is with a similar spirit we are called to live out the instructions of Micah 6:8.  We are called upon to be observers of the world and what is happening around us.  More often than not, if we look at things closely we will find evidence of people suffering.  We will find people struggling with illness.  We will find people with broken hearts.  We will find people who can’t seem to find good employment no matter how long they search.  As we start to pay attention and observe the challenges others face, it is our turn to do what we can to alleviate those sufferings.  Fortunately we are not alone in our task of figuring out how to end that suffering.  Our church, working together with other churches near and far, provides us a mechanism with which we can do good works for others.  Next Sunday, as part of the Souper Bowl of Caring, we can bring gifts of food to be distributed to hungry people by the New Britain Food Larder.  In a few weeks, we will collect the “One Great Hour of Sharing” offering which will be used to resettle refugees, provide emergency relief after natural disasters, and provide health care to people in over 80 countries.  Yesterday, many of us came together to share a meal and help the youth raise money for their mission trip to the Heifer Project’s Farm this summer—in turn, the youth will become ambassadors for the good work Heifer does to alleviate hunger and poverty throughout the world.

   The Prophet Micah may have lived twenty-seven hundred years ago, but he still has an important message for us.  God does not want us to blindly check off tasks we have completed in order to be more “Christian.”  Instead, God cares about how we treat other people.  We are called to bring justice to those who are hurting.  We are called to act with kindness towards those who are suffering.  And we are called to integrate our faith in God into all of the choices and actions we take.  What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  May it be so.  Amen!