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A man decided to make up with his wife after a fight. Before going home he showered, shaved, put on some choice cologne, and bought her a bouquet of flowers. He went to the front door and knocked. His wife answered the door and exclaimed, "Oh no! This has been a terrible day! First I had to take Billy to the emergency room and get stitches in his leg, then your mother called and said she's coming for 2 weeks, then the washing machine broke, and now this! You come home drunk!" When the desire to reconcile with someone comes upon us, we often think we know what to do. But our actions do not always achieve what we want. The same thing can happen with God. What do you do when you want to get right with God? In Old Testament times the people of Israel had their own ideas. From the only offering that might be available to a poor worshiper (bowing down) to the costly and highly prized offering of a yearling calf to the outrageously lavish demonstrations of sacrifice that would be available only to a king ("thousands of rams," "rivers of oil") finally to the forbidden, dark sacrifice of a child, the "firstborn," this list in the book of Micah runs the gamut of sacrificial possibilities. Speaking through the prophet Micah, God says there is another way: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. It is significant that when asked what Israel must do to get right with God, two of the three behaviors involve establishing right human-to-human relationships: doing justice and loving kindness. It is not too far fetched to think that when we want to get right with God, we should think about the people around us whom we may have offended. The third command, walking humbly, invokes an unusual verb form. "To walk with" may best be understood as "to live with in communion". Taken together, these three attitudes outweigh any and all sacrificial actions that the Israelites have traditionally relied upon to keep them on God's "good side." Except for the first-born sacrifice which modern humans would have great difficulty understanding, isn’t it easier to offer material sacrifices than it is to do justice? Isn’t it easier to put money in the offering plate thinking that this will put us in right standing with God than to act in kindness to our co-workers who constantly irritate us? Isn’t it easier to say a prayer once or twice a week than to walk in communion with God every moment of the day? Once there was a small oak seedling growing in the forest. It looked around and saw that some seedlings turned into great oak trees while others became no more than little shrubs. One day the forest ranger was passing through. "Excuse me," the seedling asked, "Will you help me grow into a great tree?" "Do you really want that?" asked the ranger. "It will be a very painful process, one that will require great patience and incredible discipline. It is much easier to be a shrub." "No," said the seedling, "I really want to be a great oak tree. I don’t care what it costs in time and patience. To be an oak tree is my only desire." Every day the ranger poked at the seedling’s soil, forcing it to stand straight. He even pulled off some of its leaves and branches. One day the seedling complained, "Why do you treat me so harshly? Why don’t you let me do what I want to do? Why can’t you just let me be?" The ranger replied, "There is only one way to be an oak tree. Because I want to help you, I must cause you some pain. That is the way of growth. Without pain you will never become what you want to be…a full grown tree." Doing justice, loving kindness, walking with God…these are behaviors that will cause us discomfort, even some pain at times. But the rewards are not always immediate. We need a to stick with this course of action over the long haul, and we will see the difference it will make in our lives. It may be easier to be a shrub, but the promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we can be oak trees! We can see justice done in our work places! We can see acts of kindness increase in our families. We can experience life with our hands in the hand of God. Do you enjoy taking a walk? To answer this question I suppose you would need to know the answers to three questions: 1. Where is the walk? 2. What’s the weather like? 3. Who would be walking with me? I love walking through the Alaska backcountry. I particularly enjoy walking with a friend or family member on a wide trail because we can walk side by side. Then we can talk as we walk. But not everyone on the trail wants to walk at the same speed. I have a dog who has to be in front all the time. If we are to have God as our walking partner then it is important that we not get ahead of God. Because God is more interested in being with us than how fast we walk, we need to pace ourselves and remember that God is always walking with us. God wants to hear from us as we walk together. God wants to speak to us along the journey. God wants to hold our hand through the darkness and storms of life. It’s hard to do any of these things if we’re not walking side by side. The ancient Israelites thought that God required all kinds of sacrifices. There didn’t seem to be a desire to want to walk with God, only a desire to get rid of guilt. They missed the point of the Law, which was to guide them along the path so they could enjoy their walk with God. J. Ellsworth Kalas, in his book, The Ten Commandments From the Back Side, tells of a mechanical engineer in his congregation who brought an intricate model to show how he had devised an artificial heart valve. Kalas says, "His device was already being used by surgeons and was already saving lives. But his display - a confusing collection of pipes and parts - made no sense to me, and it certainly wasn't beautiful! Then the light dawned on my rather dull mind. The beauty of the gadget was that it worked. It had led the way to a funny little object that was now saving lives. With that realization, I could just imagine someone who was living because of this valve; they might well stand at the collection of pipes and pulleys and say, 'Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! I've never seen anything lovelier.' Kalas goes on to write, "I think that's the way the long-ago poet felt as he looked at the law of God. His pagan neighbors saw it as a frustrating collection of pipes and gadgets that seemed intended to take all the fun out of life. But the devout poet had discovered that the law was a lamp to his feet, an instrument to keep him from stumbling in his perilous walk through life. Yes, and more; it was his best provision for finding a lifestyle that would bring a special measure of health and fulfillment. No wonder he spoke of it in the same breath, and with the same enthusiasm, as the sun and the stars". Kalas has it right. Here's the deal: Kindness, justice, humility look like an odd collection of gadgets, pipes, thingamabobs and whatnots to the world. And no matter how hard we try to explain it, the world doesn't get it. Our challenge as God’s people is to put these gadgets together. It is to make justice a real, tangible thing. It is to practice kindness right now and tomorrow, especially with those who are not easy to love. Our challenge is to put our hand in the hand of God for life. Yes, with God’s help, we can become oak trees. |
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02.03.02 - God’s Requirements (Micah 6:1-8)
