Lectionary: Micah 6:1-16
Hebrews 9:1-15 St. Luke 4:16-32 Micah 6:1-16 Our world doesn’t think too kindly about judgment. We don’t like being told we did something wrong. We don’t like having to hear that our lifestyle may be flawed and not in line with God’s way. This is a human problem that is not unique to our times. The trouble that we face is concerning our flesh. The flesh likes to be gratified. Our thoughts and intents of the heart sometimes gravitate towards the things of the world, which are not good for us. Micah’s prophecy moves quickly to what we would call “judgment proceedings” and the language in chapter 6 is that of a court hearing. The Hebrew is very judicial, for the Lord contends and pleads His case against Israel. The Lord wants to know what He has done to deserve such unfaithfulness. One can understand why considering the fact that the God and man relationship is such that it is God who gives so much. God took Israel out of the land of bondage in Egypt and gave them new life and a new hope. The Lord is unwavering in His faithfulness to mankind. It is the Lord’s way to offer His love and grace. When men and women falter, God stays steadfast, seeking only that people would return to him in repentance. But, this is precisely what Israel is not doing. We see an example of God’s faithfulness toward Israel in Leviticus 19. What is found here gives color to the entire Old Testament relationship between Yahweh and His people. God told Moses to gather the entire congregation of Israel together and say: “You shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy”(vs. 2). Implied in this is the realization that God has made those people His people. Throughout the chapter, then, God tells the people what it looks like to be His people through dos and don’ts and after each “do and don’t” God concludes by saying: “I am the Lord your God,” which is another way of saying “You are mine.” To say “you are mine” or “I am the Lord your God” is gospel. It denotes ownership. It speaks more of God’s faithfulness to the people than anything. The emphasis is on God’s love for His people. While the divine injunctions are given, the people hear the blessed realization that they are precious to Him. In their failings they are to repent and then live in His grace. But Micah’s day witnesses a failure on the part of the people to rightly understand what it means to be God’s people. In the earlier days of the church, a Latin phrase was often used to describe life as Christ’s children: Imago Dei--”Image of God.” To be in the image of God was to live as God’s children. For the church to live in the element of Imago Dei required the observance of the first commandment--You shall have no other gods....but you were to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Micah 6 lays out Israel’s misconceptions concerning their relationship to Yahweh. They were so taken away by their false gods and the gratifying of the flesh, that we hear their response to God’s charges in chapter 6, and this gets to the heart of the text. Verses 6-8 deal with, what is called “Torah Entrance Liturgy.” Our liturgy of confession and absolution is modeled after it. “Torah Entrance Liturgy” is, in essence, leaving the sin which binds the person or community and entering God’s presence. In the Old Testament this was done in terms of the Temple. With the Temple came the priest. The people would come to the priest and seek God’s mercy for their sins. Verses 6 and 7 is exactly this but it is flawed. It is petty, in fact. The people respond to God’s judicial complaint by asking the priest: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Hidden in this last statement is a twist because it is God’s firstborn and only Son, Jesus who gives His life for the sins of the world, but listen to the priest’s response in verse 8: “He has shown you, o man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Therein is the dagger in the heart. It was the one thing the hearts and souls of the Israelites could not do. Their hearts were far from the Lord. Their repentance was only for show, but they didn’t really mean to repent. They wanted to go through the motions in order to justify continuing to live in their sin. The Lord’s response is that His voice thunders with disapproval. St. Paul’s words to the Romans echoes the necessity of the mouth and the heart being one: “that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”(Romans 10:9-10). Our trouble in our sin is in the sin itself but also in our inability to see it and confess it. Then, while our flesh is clouded with sin, we cannot even see what it looks like to be in the Imago Dei--the “image of God.” Instead of repenting, we seek to rectify the situation with our own deeds (like the Israelites tried to do), and we find ourselves even further from God. One cannot escape from the sins of the flesh and the deceit of the heart. When we are bound, we are helpless. To see God, to be in the presence of God once again, to enter into the “Torah Entrance Liturgy” we are to go to our great high priest and make our appeal to Him. This high priest is Jesus. Jesus’ response to you and me is much like the priest’s response to the Israelites: “to love mercy,” in our case to love Christ’s mercy and to walk humbly with thy God is much akin to the Emmaus disciples walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. To walk humbly with God is to confess our sins to Jesus and let Him preach to us on the road as we journey. This is the Imago Dei.....to be purified by Christ and to live in Him. To be in the image of God is to be clothed with Christ in holy baptism....to be hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 2). To rest in this image of Christ is to bask in His goodness and to be restored in holy living precisely because we are His. The Lord does not tire of reminding His people as in Leviticus: “I am the Lord your God.” He places His name on you in the waters of baptism and you are, therefore, His. Even in the midst of God’s word of judgment in Micah 6, he ends the chapter by calling them His people. What God has claimed to be His own is kept close. The Lord is ever near you beckoning you back to Him, and in Him is your redemption, for your high priest is the Lord Himself who intercedes on your behalf, who shed His blood on the cross for your sins, and declares each of you to be His own who rest in His presence...clothed with His holiness, thereby making you the Imago Dei--His church in the Image of God. Amen. -- Rev. Chad Kendall Trinity Lutheran Church Lowell, Indiana www.trinitylowell.org http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=243282012833
