"Here Comes God!" Judy Skaggs
Micah 1:1-7a; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
During Advent this year, San and I decided to preach on texts from the prophet Micah. For one thing, the message of Hebrew prophets centers around a longing for a redeemer, the Messiah. But also, UPC is a Micah 6 church, and having the Micah 6 ministry right here in our midst makes us very aware of the needs and injustices in the world around us – another theme played out in Micah.
We are becoming very familiar with Micah 6:8 (What does the Lord require of you – to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God)– it keeps showing up in youth mission projects, and as the session and deacons vision what UPC could be doing in this time and place. Some of you may remember that President Jimmy Carter quoted these words at his inauguration in 1977. So perhaps it would be helpful to us if we knew more about this prophet and his world so that we could put this verse in a greater context.
We read in the opening verses that Micah’s hometown was the village of Moresheth which was near Gath. His writing was during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah who were kings in Judah, the southern kingdom, during the last half of the 8th century BCE. Even though Micah lived in the southern kingdom, he also spoke to the northern kingdom of Israel. The text we read this morning concerns Samaria which was the capital in the north, and so was written before the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE.
We don’t know anything else about Micah himself except for bits and pieces we pick up as we look at the whole book. He writes with lots of metaphors and is very poetic. He seems to be a very sensitive person, a champion of the poor, grieving over the message he must bring to his people. In chapter 3 we get a hint of what he understands about his call, “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.”
Micah’s understanding of his call helps us understand the Hebrew prophets who were called to speak on behalf of or speak in the place of God. The Hebrew word for prophet is nabi and actually means to bubble, to boil, to spring forth. The Hebrew prophet was called to speak whatever he received from God.
The prophets were called by God during a time of great peril for the people of Israel. After Moses had led them out of Egypt and they had returned to the land, they were a loose confederation of tribes led by judges until that time when the people asked to have a king like their neighbors. Under Saul, David and Solomon, the government was centralized for the first time. But when Solomon died, the kingdom divided – Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The kings of the northern kingdom were all evil. Some of the kings in the southern kingdom followed the ways of God, but many did not. The nation suffered from enemies outside their borders, but what seemed to be more dangerous were the perils from within. Those dangers called forth the age of the Hebrew prophets.
Many of the prophets watched with horror as the people turned to other gods. They saw priests dedicated to empty ritual rather than true worship. They saw a new class system developing where the rich were getting richer and in the process the poor were exploited and oppressed. People began to watch out only for their own welfare without any consideration for their neighbor’s. They saw blindness and indifference, a turning from the covenants made they had with God.
This was the world of Micah who was a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea. The Hebrew prophets were men of conviction and vision, bringing a message of disaster, but always with a word of hope and deliverance. And their words have tumbled down through the centuries. Jesus quoted the prophets again and again.
One of the themes of Micah and of other prophets is of a God who comes. (V. 3-4) Micah saw God as a personal God. That even though they had sinned against God, nevertheless God was coming among them.
God would come to demand right living. God would come to demand justice and righteousness in their normal daily lives, in their dealing with each other. God would come to demand that they put away the worship of idols and other gods. Micah spells it out in the verses we know so well. “God has shown you, O people, what is good and what the Lord requires of you – to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
The word which I translated as mercy is the Hebrew word hesed which is one of those wonderful Hebrew words so full of meaning that it just cannot be translated by one English word. Often it is translated as loving kindness when it refers to how God looks upon us. So what God requires is that we look upon others with that same loving kindness - mercy – compassion. God is calling us to see as God sees, to love as God loves, to have mercy as God has mercy.
And living that way, walking humbly with our God, will lead us to worship rightly. Other gods, images, idols will be crushed, laid waste.
The prophets believed that God was active and participating in all the parts of their lives. They called and called to the people of their time to be aware of God’s presence. They called and called people to turn back to God with all their hearts – with their whole beings. They called and called their people to watch and wait for their deliverance in the promised one to come.
So we hear their call even today, to be aware, to turn to God, to watch and wait. And during Advent, we reflect on how God has come into our lives and will continue to come.
Advent comes quietly to invite all of us to ponder a most incredible, even unbelievable idea - that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us – as John writes. A humble birth in a barn is the advent of God, the coming of God into our lives. That behind all the great theologians and thinkers of this world, there is a baby and a mother’s and a father’s love and awe and gratitude.
It is always interesting when Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent come so close together as they often do. And it is as if they become one – thanksgiving for creation and the blessings of life. Thanksgiving for the promises we hear from the Hebrew prophets which we have seen fulfilled by our God who comes to show us hesed - steadfast love, kindness, mercy. Let us watch and wait! Amen.