The congregation is discussing some weighty topics and I thought I would address those in the message but it kept veering off. I suppose I addressed the same underlying concepts but all I could think about is how, if everyone had gotten even a little closer to God's justice the people of McDougald Terrace would be in their own decent homes tonight. But they aren't, and they won't be for another month. And bizarrely enough, God still loves us and encourages us to keep going, to do a little better. To live out God's particular love-centered brand of justice.
There was a recording but it will need some editing to make it online. If it does make it online it will be on SoundCloud here.
The texts for this week (some beautiful ones for sure!) are:
Micah 6:1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
Come, Lord Jesus. Speak your riches and goodness into our lives and our hearts. Encourage and love us. Amen.
In today’s revised common lectionary, one of the passages that we did not read is that much-beloved passage from Micah 6:
8 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?
I have a sense that this congregation has a deep and ongoing relationship with this passage so I am not going to preach about it directly, but I can’t let it go entirely, either, because there is a bit of a conundrum in those words for me. Let me give you an example:
My brother is an attorney. When he was still young in his career and before I had any notion of becoming a pastor, he and I had an exchange that has stuck with me. He said that he was seeking justice. I envisioned his privileged, high-income life and thought …. Oh …. No … I don’t think justice would work out well for you.
I was taken with the thought that justice would mean I would have to give up a lot: my access to top educational institutions, my financial stability, even my privilege to decide where I would live and do pretty much anything I wanted. I claimed that I did not want justice, because justice would not be good for me. I wanted grace.
But now I *am* a pastor and things seem less clear. And here’s Micah saying “oh, yes, definitely do justice.”
I realize that I was afraid of justice because of how it would affect me personally. I wanted grace so maybe I did not have to suffer from the justice that would surely not improve my lot in life. Sure I wanted others to have nice lives… but I was afraid that justice meant I would have to live the not-so-nice lives of people who do not have my privilege and access to resources.
It’s hard to figure this stuff out, y’know? So today I have turned to Matthew’s Beatitudes.
****
Let me begin by saying the Beatitudes certainly do not seem to point to a Me-First kind of justice. Not an America-First justice. Not a European-First justice. Not any justice that puts anyone or anything other than God first.
The justice of the Beatitudes appears to be about something else entirely. It isn’t just a shift of who is in charge. It is a completely different thing than our human structures with their hierarchies and winners and losers. There is no unevenness in God’s justice because it is a completely flat hierarchy: God above, everyone else exactly equally not-God.
In God’s justice there is no space for suffering among some so others can accumulate more. In fact, God’s goodness and grace and riches go to people who seem to be suffering by worldly standards.
If God’s justice was our justice, there would be no McDougald Terrace situation. Because in God’s justice it is not possible that maintenance would be delayed in a way that leads to sickness and death. Because God’s way never leads to sickness and death. The McDougald Terrace is a situation of suffering for all of us, regardless of whether we have ever lived in a carbon monoxide tainted home.
The effort to have financial savings deferring maintenance over the last six decades are now resulting in massive outlays of money, time, and energy.
As a beneficiary of the lower taxes, and the luxury of not thinking about the lives of people in public housing, and the privilege of thinking that my life among people who are educated and comfortable in material things is reasonable and fair, I find myself in the position of some discomfort:
* Working longer than usual hours
* Carrying in my body the frustration and sorrow of so much pain and clear injustice
* Struggling to distinguish between a cry for help and a scarcity-bred greed
* Trying to determine what is reasonable to ask of others
For example, some of the women at one of the hotels suggested they might like to learn to knit or crochet. I know of a group and thought perhaps they could meet at the hotel and include McDougald Terrace residents in their group, and somehow build some relationships in that way.
As I was wondering whether they would be open to that potentially inconvenient change to their routine I realized that nobody had asked the residents of McDougald Terrace about their routine change. And then I realized that if there had been something like God’s justice many decades ago, we would not be thinking about the inconvenience to a knitting group now.
Even if taxes had been higher.
Even if some comfortably wealthy people had less wealth.
Because other people would be living in decent circumstances and there would be no need for inconvenience for anybody now.
***
We are so accustomed to thinking primarily of our own little sections of humanity that we miss how our “normal”, how our “reasonable expectations” cause harm to those outside of our own communities.
So much so that when a McDougald Terrace situation invades our community we are shocked. We are outraged. We are surprised to find out that this situation has been growing for decades. We cannot stand it. We want to give food and toiletries, diapers and plastic bins. Maybe even show up with a hot meal. Anything to fix it.
But we are less likely to dig deeply into how this happened, how we are complicit, how a 400+ year history of enslaving and disrespecting some groups of people has led to this moment.
How this situation cannot be fixed by donations, or new stoves, and certainly not in two months, even if that is when the residents will be able to start going back home.
How the need is on every level: individual relationship, small- and mid-scale relief efforts, local, state, and federal political levels, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical levels. Need upon need upon need.
And we certainly are not eager to consider what it would take for the problems to actually be fixed. That it would require something of us and not just of the people who – even in their particular kind of brokenness – are not the only ones responsible for their situations.
We have created human systems built on a redefinition of justice, a devaluing of kindness, and no place at all for walking humbly with or without God.
***
Given all that what does Micah 6:8 even mean? What hope do we have?
Well, I have an answer. We have exactly one hope: GOD
I believe that in the Beatitudes Jesus is saying “God will have it ALL – justice and kindness, richness and life for everyone.” And in order for us to stop being complicit in all this pain, in order for us to walk humbly with God, for us to participate in those riches we will need to
* Mourn our complicity in creating this situation
* Meekly realize that what we consider power is not
* Hunger and thirst for righteousness so strongly that we admit and redefine our own relationship with what is righteous –
* And in so doing… with each other.
It will mean taking the deep dive
* Into mercy for the evils our eyes are opened to see
* Into not beating up ourselves OR blaming others
Into the reality that when we try to walk humbly with God some people will be threatened and outraged.
That those who perceive they have the most to lose will take big steps to squash that threat.
There will be sanctions and rumors.
We may not fit the mold of denomination or political party.
And we will not be able to declare our innocence, because none of us are ever innocent, never completely right.
AND YET…
In seeking the universal richness of God’s justice you will find yourself rejoicing and being glad because you will be living God’s call for your beautiful life.
You will no longer be bound to earthly patterns and structures and organizations that diverge from God’s patterns.
You will be freed to encourage others to seek God’s riches for their own beautiful lives.
Because once you have God’s richness
Once you have embraced God’s justice and kindness
Even if there is persecution and mourning, meekness and mercy
Recognition of your own spiritual poverty
ALL WILL BE WELL.
Because you are truly and infinitely blessed.
AMEN
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