The texts are great today.
Micah summarizes the whole of the law and the prophets:
“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?”
The psalmist lays out who will abide with God:
He has sworn to do no wrong
and does not take back his word.
He does not give his money in hope of gain,
nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
Paul makes it clear that following Jesus
doesn’t make sense.
“The message about the cross is foolishness ..
we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews
and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called,
both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Then Jesus in his inaugural messianic address
challenges everything we think we know
about who is blessed.
Blessed are those whose poverty
has impacted their spirits
and has them feeling stuck in a class system
with no reform or way out.
Blessed are the meek
because they will inherit the earth.
How blissful are those who are deep in sorrow,
for they will be comforted.
Jesus has called the twelve and appointed them
and now he sits down with them to begin teaching them.
He starts with telling them
that what they know to be true
isn’t.
He starts with telling them that in God’s realm
which is at hand
the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemaker
not those with the most power
or those who command obedience
or force behavior
are those who are already being elevated.
As we’re here today hearing these words
from Micah, the Psalmist, Paul, and Jesus via Matthew
the country is mourning again
and confused and mad.
Over a decade since Trayvon Martin was killed —
the first time some of us became acutely aware
of systematized violence against Black people —
the video of Tyre Nichols’ murder
has been the center of media buzz.
Eight years since the country rose up
with mass demonstrations from coast to coast
against police violence after Mike Brown was shot
and left in the street
people are again calling
for peace and restraint in demonstrations
when police consistently exercise none.
The names are a litany that keeps getting longer
a litany that we’d be able to build out from memory
if we all contributed.
Charleena Lyles.
George Floyd.
Sandra Bland.
And on and on.
More training,
more diverse hiring,
more reforms
aren’t working.
Body cams haven’t been a deterrent.
We plead with God
“How long, O Lord, how long?”
James Baldwin observed,
“It has taken my father’s time,
my mother’s time,
my uncle’s time,
my brothers’ and my sisters’ time,
my nieces’ and my nephews’ time.”
before inquiring,
“How much time do you want for your ‘progress’?”
How blissful are those who are deep in sorrow,
for they will be comforted.
God’s foolishness
is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness
is stronger
than human strength.
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?
In the midst of our individual and collective sorrows,
Jesus is there to offer comfort.
As we long for the day
when all is made well
Jesus speaks these words of blessing
making them the truths of God’s reign
breaking in around us.
As we discuss our annual business
and discern how to focus our time in Christian community
Jesus tells us that peacemakers —
not those who go along to get along
but those who bring factions together
and build God’s justice in the world —
will be called God’s children.
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
for what is true, right, and justice,
is foolishness to the world.
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness
is self-sacrificial,
watching out for our neighbors before ourselves
loving our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
That’s our call beloved,
like James, Andrew, John, and Peter last week.
Not something we strive for
out of our own goodness
or reach through being #goodenough.
It’s a holy call from Jesus
who has given us the gift of the Spirit
which we know in scripture read
and sacraments celebrated.
It’s a holy call from Jesus
who gathers us together
transforms our lives into his cruciform life
and sends us to do the work
we have been given to do.
The Beatitudes,
the blessings Jesus pronounces this week
aren’t a list for how to live,
they’re promises of assurance
for those who break the mold
that feels so natural to us
promises of assurance for those whose way of life
is foolishness to the world
because it doesn’t value itself the most.
While the Beatitudes aren’t a checklist of how to live
Micah makes clear what our marching orders are:
Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with our God.
As Bree Newsome Brass put it two weeks ago
“Community service and social justice
are not the same thing.
Community service
is when you volunteer at a homeless shelter.
Social justice is when you demand housing
for everyone as a human right.”
As we discuss our annual business
and discern how to focus our time in Christian community
I know we’ll be thinking about ways
of doing justice and loving mercy.
As we’re mourning the death
of another Black man at the hands of police
we’re walking humbly with our God
even if it seems pointless
even as we cry “How long?”
How blissful are those who are deep in sorrow,
for they will be comforted.
God’s foolishness
is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness
is stronger
than human strength.
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?