Fulfillment

Fulfillment
Reading the Prophets Again for the First Time
Micah 6:1-8 Luke 4:14-24
August 17, 2008
Rev. Alan Claassen

My first class at the Pacific School of Religion was Old Testament taught by Dr. Herb Otwell, may he rest in peace. I have already shared a little about Professor Otwell with you in this summer series on Marcus Borg’s book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally. I shared with you how stories about how strict, how tough, how demanding he was reached us new students almost as soon as we walked on the quad of the campus. And I shared with you how I found all those frightening stories to be true, but only half of the story, because Professor Herb Otwell was also the most inspirational, well-informed, and passionate teachers that I had while in seminary.
I have already told you about Herb Otwell. Today I want to tell you something about the classroom in which the brilliant lectures were held. It was a long room, holding up to 60 students. Windows facing the west on one side and a long wall on the east side. On that wall was a simple drawing of the ancient near east. And on that map were written these words, both in Hebrew and English.,
“What does the Lord require of you?
Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”
Those words were written by the Prophet Micah, one of the so-called Twelve Minor Prophets.
The ancient Hebrew people were freed from slavery by God. They were led by Moses through the wilderness and in their years of wandering, as the story is told, their law codes were developed. Their laws helped them become a people. Their laws created a culture and ways to be holy in relation to God, their neighbor, and the land.
One thing that unified all the law codes was their memory of being slaves in Egypt, strangers in a strange land, foreigners, and sojourners. Their law codes put into their memories that they would always care for others as they had been cared for by God. They were commanded to give special treatment to the poor, the widow, the least among them.
Micah put this all together with these words that I read every Tuesday and Thursday morning for my first year of study.
What does the Lord require of you?
Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.
This quote comes from chapter 6:8.
In light of what I have been sharing with you the pats two weeks of this summer Chatauqua on Marcus Borg’s, Reading the Bible Again, it is interesting to read a passage that appears earlier in the 6th chapter. Micah is speaking on behalf of God who has a question for the God’s people.
“O my people what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Give me an answer!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from slavery; and I sent Moses to lead you, and Aaron, and Miriam!”
Why is God asking such a question?
Remember last week when I shared the word, “covenant” with you? How out of the affirmation that God is Creator of the Universe, and Creator of Humanity which God gave the particular task of choosing goodness and caring for the integrity of creation, God established a Covenant with the people saying, I will be your God, I will provide for you, I will care for you, and I ask something of you in return.
Last week I said that what God asks of humanity is that we show compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility.
And that this compassion and restraint comes directly from the affirmation that life is a gift to us,
and community is a gift to us,
and freedom is a gift to us.
And the right response to this abundance, to this human family, to this unique place that hold in creation, is, compassion and restraint.
Remembering all of that, and then knowing what happened next in the lives of the people as they made their home in promised land, will explain why God would ask a question such as, “Have you forgotten all that I have done for you and little that I have asked of you?”
As the ancient people of Israel came into the promised land they eventually developed a tribal confederacy, each tribe being rules by a chief or what was called, a judge. It is interesting to note that there were male as well as female judges.
Eventually the tribes wanted to have a king. And as the story is told God was not happy with this desire for a king. Why do you need a king, you have me? I have given you all you need to live, why do you need a king?
The people cry out for a king and God begrudgingly grants their request, as the story is told. But the kings are to remember the covenant. Care for the least among you. Care for the widow, care for the sojourner, the traveler, the poor. Show compassion and restraint.
And this is not what happened. In this ancient civilization, “the social systems (comprising economic, political, religious, and social structures) were controlled by elites of power and wealth to serve their own interests. This type of society began to develop with Israel with the emergence of the monarchy around 1000 BC. By the time of Solomon, Israel’s third king, the major features of the ancient domination system were in place: a politics of oppression centered in monarchical authority; an economics of exploitation centered in the monarchy and aristocracy; and a religion of legitimacy centered in the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem.” (127)
“…by the time the classical prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, began to speak in the eighth century, Israel and Judah had become miniature versions of the ancient domination system that had enslaved their ancestors in Egypt. The victims (the majority of the population) were Israelites, of course, but now the elites at the top were also Israelites. Egypt had been established in Israel.” (127)
And the prophets, whether they were Major or Minor, all had angry words for the rulers who were exploiting the poor to make themselves rich. The kings and merchants had “deformed Israel, changing her from the exodus vision of an alternative community living under the lordship of God to just another kingdom living under the lordship of a native pharaoh.
The prophets were “prosecuting a covenant lawsuit on behalf of God against Israel.”
Listen to some of the words of these ancient prophets speaking on behalf of God and on behalf of the poor, the widow, the elderly, the sojourner, the common person.
Listen to the prophet Amos, whose words had a transformative, life-changing impact on Marcus Borg when he first read them while college.
“Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell those who have done no wrong for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way. You oppress the poor and crush the needy. You trample on the poor and take from them taxes of grain. You trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.”

Those words from Amos are mild compared to these,
“Thus says the Lord,
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings, and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of your fatted animals, I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

It isn’t that worshipping God is a bad thing. It is wrong only if that is the only thing we are doing we keeping our side of the covenant. And it isn’t enough to care for the poor that are cast aside by the oppressive ruler or system. The prophets are calling for a critique of the social structures themselves. They are calling for social justice.
“Social justice is concerned with the structures of society and their results. Because it is results oriented, it discerns whether the structures of society are just in their effects. Do they produce a large impoverished class or result in a more equitable distribution of resources? Do they benefit some at the expense of many or serve all equally? Do they produce conflict or peace? Do they destroy or nourish a future?” (128)

When I was putting this series together and writing about it in the Nugget, our church newsletter, I put a question under the heading for each Sunday’s theme for the sermon. I am especially proud of the question that I wrote for the prophets,
“Why are the prophets so angry and so hopeful.”
The prophets, whose writings span two centuries, were blessed and cursed to be living in challenging times. They were called by God to speak the truth to power, with power at a time when the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. They lived during a time when the monarchies fell under their own weight of greed and oppression. They lived during a time when the officially sanctioned prophets of the Temple who provided divine sanction for the all that the governments were doing were saying, “Peace, Peace, when there was no peace.
The prophets had to speak the word of God to a people who lived during a time of occupation when their God-promised land was overrun by the nations of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. The prophets had to speak the word of the Lord when the ruling elites of Jerusalem and Israel were taken away from their God-promised land to live for almost three generations in exile.
The prophets were angry because they believed that all of this calamity was a direct result of the rulers and the wealthy of Israel who had abandoned the Covenant with God to compassion for others and conduct themselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility. A sense of responsibility to the whole body, the whole society, the whole world.
But herein lies the source of the prophet’s hope. Instead of seeing the exile as a time when God had abandoned the people, the prophets new task in Babylon, and back home in Jerusalem was to tell the people that God is incapable of going back on the promise to fulfill the vision that was planted at the first moment of creation.
Micah gave voice to that vision when he said,
“God shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah 4:3)
And in the Book of Isaiah, beginning at 40th chapter and following we hear a new voice. It is such a new voice that contemporary biblical scholarship refers to these chapters as Second Isaiah, believing that the author is different that the one who wrote the first 40 chapters. Second Isaiah was writing from Babylon, during the time of exile and during the time of return home to Israel.
His task, also born out his experience of the presence of God, was to give his people hope, strength, courage to return home and see it again for the first time.
There are so many beautiful passages to choose from Second Isaiah. I selected Isaiah 43:15-19 because the language spoken to a people discouraged, broken, homeless, and called to return home, reminds the people of God’s presence in the creation of the universe, the exodus from slavery, and the Covenant of compassion and restraint that made them into a nation. These words are:
“Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished like a wick. Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
“The solution for exiles is, of course, a journey of return, a way or path through the wilderness. Both Judaism and Christianity are about a “way.” Indeed, the word “repent,” so central to the Christian tradition, has its roots in the Jewish story of exile. To repent does not mean to feel really bad about sins; rather, it means to embark upon a path of return. The journey begins in exile, and the destination is a return, to life!, in the presence of God.”
This way of life includes many spiritual practices. It includes worship, prayer and singing! It includes education for all ages. It includes a commitment of our God-given resources to build a God-given community of faith. It calls for caring kids, caring young-timers and old-timers. And it calls for service, which not only cares for the least among us, but also calls some, not all of us, but some of us, to prophetic witness to call the principalities and powers to account when they care more for themselves than the community. The path brings the earth into balance love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self.
One of the reasons why I am a minister in the United Church of Christ is because the UCC and its forebearers; the Congregational and Christian Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, have a long history of making and living the connection between the presence of God and the call for social justice.
We were the first denomination to ordain an African-American man, Reverend Lemuel Haynes, the first to ordain a woman, Rev. Antoinette Brown, the first to ordain a gay man,
Rev. William R. Johnson. Our ancestors were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement of the 1830s and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Members of our church stopped a General Synod meeting flew out to Cochella Valley to support Cesar Chavez and the farm-workers who were striking for a fair wage.
I could go on. I love to tell the story.
But there is only thing that I want to say at this point.
Not everyone is called to be a prophet. Not everyone is called to be engaged in social justice work. Not everyone is called to push the frontiers of social change to end oppression.
I just want you to see that when people of faith are engaged in this work, its source is not some democratic socialistic pinko commie leftist propaganda agenda.
How do we know these things to be the call of God?
The Bible Tells Me So.
You can find it the book of Exodus, the book of Isaiah, Amos, and Micah.
You can find it in the Gospel of Luke when Jesus says in his hometown synagogue,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Today this words are fulfilled in your hearing”
There is a saying in the United Church of Christ. To believe is to care. To care is to do.
What is that the Lord requires of us? Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
Let these words be fulfilled not only in our hearing but also in our doing, in whatever way calls us forward on this day, which the Lord has made. Let the people say: Amen.