Epiphany 4A, January 29, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of the strangest blessings, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

What a week. The other day, one of my colleagues asked a group of Central Boston clergy, “how are you preaching in times like these?” The swift and wise answer from another esteemed colleague was, “stay close to the Bible.” At first, I thought, “hey, my approach to preaching may be coming back into style!” That thought was quickly followed by my memory of a scene from the 1974 movie, Young Frankenstein, in which Frau Blücher, carrying a candelabra with three unlit candles warns, “stay close to the candles…the stairway can be treacherous!” But staying close to the sacred story, the Bible doesn’t work so well without the illumination of wisdom and learning, without the illumination of engagement of diverse communities across space and time, and without the illumination of Love (capital L). Wisdom and learning. Engagement of diverse communities. Love. If those three candles are lit, the stairway to the realm of God is not so treacherous.

With those candles lit, what might we learn from the prophet Micah? Micah was a contemporary of first Isaiah toward the end of the 8^th century before the common era. Unlike Isaiah, who was based in the city of Jerusalem, Micah was from a small town southwest of Jerusalem. For Bostonians, think Norfolk or Millis. (“Where’s that?” some of you say. Exactly.) Micah starts with the announcement of God’s complaint that the leaders of the people plan wickedness and design evil at night and carry it out when morning dawns because they have power. They covet fields and houses and seize them and defraud people of their homes and of their land. They make a big show of their religiosity but they do not respond to the suffering and the misery of others. The wealthy have made peace with oppression and this is not the peace of God.

Micah charges them, on behalf of the Holy One, that they seem to have forgotten Who [1] brought them out of Egypt five centuries before. They seem to have forgotten Who redeemed them from the house of slavery. They seem to have forgotten Who gave them the leadership of Moses, Aaron and Miriam. (By the way, this is the only place in the Bible outside of the Torah that Miriam is mentioned.) Micah charges that those in power seem to have forgotten that their own ancestors were once poor, once enslaved, that their own ancestors were once refugees and aliens in the land. (I am not making this up.)

Micah insists that burnt offerings, thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil, or even the offering of a firstborn son are not what the Holy One desires as a sign of repentance from these people who have strayed far, far from the teachings of the Torah that they are to love their neighbor as themselves. What the Holy One desires, indeed what the Holy One requires, Micah says, they already know. It is to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Love (also known as God). Justice – mishpat (in Hebrew) – has to do with right judgment, right relationship, redemption. In Hebrew, the verb “to do” and “to make” are the same word. To do justice in Biblical terms means to make relationships right: relationships with neighbors and relationship with God. Justice here is not to be retributive, but restorative.

To love kindness – hesed (in Hebrew) – has to do with loving steadfast goodness, merciful solidarity, to love evidence of grace. To walk humbly is to behave modestly, full of care, without arrogance or haughtiness. In the margin of my study Bible there is a note that I wrote in class many years ago next to this verse. It’s in the form of an equation: Mishpat + hesed = covenant. The Biblical word for covenant is literally “deal” (as in, let’s make a deal). Making restoration of right-relationship + loving evidence of grace is the deal that the Holy One is longing to make with the people. I think that one cannot help but walk humbly when trying to live into this deal because it’s really hard, and the more power and wealth one has, the harder it generally is.

By the time Matthew was writing his account of the life and love of Jesus, some 800 years had passed since the prophet Micah issued his prophetic warning to not make peace with oppression, and his prophetic reminder of what repentance means. As I mentioned last week, Matthew describes the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry this way: Jesus withdrew to the relatively rural Galilee, to a relatively small town of Capernaum and recruited some fishermen to help him with his healing work. Between the end of our Gospel portion last week and the beginning of our Gospel portion for this week, some time has passed. Matthew writes that Jesus’ fame spread throughout all Syria, and he cured people who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics, and so great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain (just like Moses) and after he sat down (just like a rabbi), his disciples (in other words, those who were learning from him) came to him for some instruction. Here’s what he told them: you may feel cursed, but you’re not. You’re blessed. You may feel as if God has abandoned you, but God has not. God is right here. You may feel like you don’t have any luck except bad luck, but you do. Your exhaustion, your grief, your humility, your hunger and thirst for right relationship, your mercy, your integrity, your rejection of violence – these are all signs of blessing. These are all signs of the nearness of God. Jesus was teaching, you are blessed, so act like it.

If Micah was all about telling people with privilege what to do, Matthew is all about telling people without privilege how to be. My friend Gretchen Grimshaw is fond of pointing out that these are the Be-attitudes and not the Do-attitudes. Jesus is not pronouncing blessing on people who have done anything here, he is pronouncing blessing on people who are at the end of their ropes.

I’m sure you know that one of the significant debates in the history Christianity has had to do with whether salvation (that is, deliverance from sin) comes through faith or works – is it how you are or what you do? The debate is documented in the New Testament and continues to this day. Lately, I have been wondering if it depends on how much power and wealth one has. With a lot of privilege, of power and wealth, perhaps closeness with God has more to do with what we do (making right relationship, doing restorative justice and loving mercy or kindness or grace, and humbling oneself). Perhaps without privilege, without power or wealth, closeness with God, deliverance from sin is more about how we are and not what we do. This is a scandalous idea, isn’t it?

Perhaps in any given situation, salvation, that is deliverance from sin, depends on your relative power and privilege. It’s always shifting, then, isn’t it? You might be the wealthiest person in the room or the poorest, depending on who else is here today. The rest of you are somewhere in the middle. You might be the most joyful person in the sanctuary or the most grief-struck. The rest of you are somewhere in the middle. You might be the healthiest or the most infirm, and so forth. For those in the middle, some have less privilege than others. For those who have more, there is an obligation to make restorative justice. For those who have more, there is an obligation to love mercy – to love kindness. For those who have most, there is an obligation to walk humbly with Love (that is, with God). For those who have least, there is blessing in just being, but Lord knows, you can’t stay there for long. Someone will come along who is in worse shape than you are, and then you’ll be the one with more of whatever it is – more money, more joy, more health, and so on, and you will be the one with the obligation to do something.

It strikes me that part of the brilliance of the Emmanuel Movement begun here more than a century ago, was the enduring idea, now codified in all kinds of 12-step programs, that those who have made some progress in recovery will benefit from reaching out a hand in love to another who is struggling to get out of the ditch. Once you’re on the path of recovery, the path of deliverance, you can help someone else up. Not only can you help someone else, you must. It’s required for the people of God.

Yesterday, a small group from Emmanuel Church joined small groups from parishes around the deanery to package 10,140 meals in about an hour and a half as part of a program that has been called “Stop Hunger Now,” and has just had a name change to “Rise Against Hunger.” As the program director for the event gave us some education about eradicating hunger, he mentioned that part of the challenge was mobilizing available resources. And then he said, “you might not have known it, but you are the available resources!”

Yesterday afternoon and into the night, available resources showed up at airports – lawyers with their computers – and lots and lots of other people to protest unjust immigration detention and deportation – all over the country. Judges in Boston and New York showed up in their chambers late on a Saturday night and issued temporary stays.

You know, the guy from Rise Against Hunger was right about mobilizing available resources yesterday. I think that it’s true this morning as well. You might not have known it, but you are the available resources. Today, for example, at 1:00 in Copley Square, the Council on American Islamic Relations has organized a rally to protest the travel ban, and the mistreatment of immigrants. I hope you will join in if you are able. If you’re not able, there will be more opportunities soon, I’m afraid. If you are at the end of your rope, know that you are blessed, and we are blessed that you are with us. If you have any rope to spare, join in the work of repairing the world. Your contribution, your participation, is desperately needed!

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