1 00:00:09,240 --> 00:00:13,240 Friends, this morning our teaching scripture is from Micah 2 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:18,560 Chapter 2 as we continue in our series of the Minor Prophets. 3 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:25,640 Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on 4 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:29,760 their beds, when the morning dawns, they perform it because 5 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:34,200 it is in their power. They covet fields and seize them 6 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:38,160 houses and take them away. They oppress householder and 7 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,480 house people in their inheritance. 8 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:45,440 Therefore thus says the Lord, Now I am devising against this 9 00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:49,960 family an evil from which you cannot remove your necks, and 10 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:54,120 you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time on 11 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:56,440 that day. They shall take up a taunt song 12 00:00:56,440 --> 00:01:01,160 against you, and will wear whale with bitter lamentation, and say 13 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,680 We are utterly ruined. The Lord alters the inheritance 14 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:09,520 of my people, how He removes it from me Among our captors He 15 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,400 parcels out our fields. Therefore you will have no one 16 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:16,640 to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord. 17 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:20,720 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest because of 18 00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:24,600 uncleanliness that destroys with grievous destruction. 19 00:01:25,320 --> 00:01:28,680 If anyone were to go about utterly emptying falsehoods, 20 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,880 saying I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, such a 21 00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:35,640 one would be the preacher for this people. 22 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:40,840 I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob, I will gather the 23 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:44,920 survivors of Israel. I will set them together like 24 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:47,680 sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture. 25 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:52,160 It will resound with people. The one who breaks out will go 26 00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:55,120 up before them. They will breakthrough and pass 27 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:59,040 the gate, going out by it. Their king will pass before 28 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:03,760 them, the Lord at their head. This is the word of the Lord. 29 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:11,120 When I was in seminary, I enrolled in a class called 30 00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,000 Prophetic Preaching. The goal of the class was 31 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,960 twofold, learning how to preach the prophetic literature, which 32 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:19,400 we've been spending a lot of time in. 33 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:22,960 It's that section of the Bible of individuals willing to take 34 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:26,680 the time to believe that they are speaking for God when they 35 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:30,320 look out on the world. But this class also aimed to 36 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:34,400 learn how to embody the prophets, to kind of live into 37 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:36,800 that role. And as the syllabus said, to 38 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:41,280 speak truth in love in ways that are faithful, relevant, and 39 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:46,360 transformative for local communities of faith, which is a 40 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:49,360 great thing. Too often the church has allied 41 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:53,280 itself with the powerful, with the oppressor, with those who 42 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:57,160 seek their own gain and enrichment at the expense of the 43 00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:01,840 poor and the oppressed. Who God throughout the Bible 44 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:06,360 shows a preferential option for. The text of the Bible is clear. 45 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:10,600 God allies God self with the down and out the least in the 46 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:14,880 world who cry out to God for mercy and justice. 47 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:18,640 And if that's not part of our life and witness as the church, 48 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:22,000 then we've missed something important of the heart of God. 49 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,560 But for me, the danger in a prophetic preaching class, 50 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:30,480 particularly at 24 years old, was that I was really focused on 51 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:33,360 the part where I got to tell everyone what they were doing 52 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:37,040 wrong. In preparation for this sermon, 53 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:39,520 I read back through some of the short sermons I wrote for that 54 00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:42,080 class. And while I tried to gesture 55 00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:47,160 towards pastoral realities and care when reading them, I can 56 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:50,320 see through them the image of myself that I was trying to 57 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,400 craft. I was going to be the one who 58 00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:57,160 would change a congregation, who would rouse people up from their 59 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:00,760 complacency, who would speak with clarity, the message that 60 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:04,840 no one wanted to hear. And there's a part of me that 61 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:09,160 still wants to do that. But when I read those short 62 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,680 sermons, it feels like there's something missing. 63 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:15,680 And that's something missing is what we're going to talk about 64 00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:18,200 from the Book of Micah this morning. 65 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:21,959 So we've been in this series called the Gospel and the Minor 66 00:04:21,959 --> 00:04:24,560 Prophets for the last several weeks, and it's going to 67 00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:27,440 continue through Easter. In this series, we've been 68 00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:31,320 taking a close look at the prophetic literature, the book 69 00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:35,040 of the 12, which is a collection of short prophetic writings. 70 00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:38,160 There's also much longer prophetic writings in the Bible, 71 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,040 but those would be even more difficult to compress into a 72 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,320 sermon series. So we've been exploring it and 73 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:48,880 this truth telling and this book of the Twelves called to return 74 00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:51,960 to the Lord. And so this week we turn to the 75 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:55,800 prophet Micah. Micah was a prophet from the 76 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:59,880 village of Morisheth, which was a small village just outside of 77 00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:02,600 Jerusalem. It was this small village kind 78 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:06,600 of outside of the major power structures of the Kingdom of 79 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:10,720 Judah, but it was impacted by these powerful people around 80 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:13,320 them. Micah likely saw the 81 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:17,880 implications of these policies being decided far away and how 82 00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:22,000 they impacted the small, poor farmers that he lived with. 83 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:26,080 He saw the impact of this growing government power that 84 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:30,600 cared more for its own needs than for justice or for the life 85 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:34,280 of the people who needed care, Micah wrote. 86 00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:37,480 At a time when Israel was surrounded by war, caught 87 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:41,640 between these big competing powers of Assyria on one side 88 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,760 and Babylon on the other, and always in danger of getting 89 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:50,400 crashed in the middle, he and his people knew what it was like 90 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:54,720 to be worried about something beyond their control. 91 00:05:55,640 --> 00:05:59,960 To worry about the impact that the world might have on them and 92 00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:03,040 their children who are just trying to eke out a meager 93 00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:06,760 existence as farmers. If you're interested in history, 94 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:10,680 Micah was likely writing around the same time as the much more 95 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,320 popular prophet Isaiah. Maybe he was feeling like he was 96 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:19,520 in the shadow of this popular one who has preserved texts and 97 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:23,840 texts and texts in the Bible. And the book of Micah, like most 98 00:06:23,840 --> 00:06:26,760 of the prophets we've been looking at in this series, is a 99 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:30,400 collection of oracles and judgments that Micah preached 100 00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:34,240 throughout the Kingdom of Judah. But a striking piece of this 101 00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:38,320 book is how little biographical information the book has. 102 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:42,440 The only story in the book is the very first verse, the word 103 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:47,000 of the Lord that came to Micah of Morisheth in the days of King 104 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:51,520 Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah, which he saw concerning 105 00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:56,600 Samaria and Jerusalem. The entire rest of the book is 106 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:59,800 just the words that Micah heard from the Lord and spoke to the 107 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:02,880 people of God. We don't get to hear how anyone 108 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:05,360 responded. We don't get to hear about any 109 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:08,720 opposition that Micah faced. We don't get to see these weird 110 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,440 prophetic acts that some of the other prophets did. 111 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:17,920 Instead, we just have words. Words described as the word of 112 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:21,840 the Lord, endued with divine power, transmitting to us 113 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:25,840 through the person of this mysterious prophet Micah, the 114 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:29,480 words of God for his people in his place. 115 00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,920 But I think as you read it, these might be some of the words 116 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:38,280 of God for us too. Because while Micah is concerned 117 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:41,840 with these particular events going on in his own context, 118 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:45,160 much of the book is about these broader visions. 119 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:50,280 He has a bracingly clear look at how the world actually is, but 120 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:54,360 alongside that, he has an equally and surprisingly clear 121 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:57,160 account of how the world could be. 122 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:01,440 Because the book of Micah oscillates between judgement and 123 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:03,800 hope. So this movement between 124 00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:07,240 judgement and hope is pretty common in prophetic literature. 125 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:10,840 The prophet speak this judgement of God, and then they show the 126 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:14,320 way God will restore people after the judgement. 127 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:17,880 But in Micah, it's really particularly stark. 128 00:08:17,880 --> 00:08:20,960 It's a repeated pattern that you can't get away from. 129 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:25,560 He speaks words of doom and words of judgement, and then he 130 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:30,280 speaks words of hope over and over again, like there are two 131 00:08:30,280 --> 00:08:33,919 pieces of the same pendulum alternating back and forth. 132 00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:39,080 Judgment, hope, judgment, hope. I'd encourage you to read the 133 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:41,679 whole book to get some of this. I can't do all of that on a 134 00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:45,640 Sunday morning, but that's the movement that I think I was 135 00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:49,480 missing in that prophetic preaching class in seminary. 136 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:52,400 It was really easy for me to major on this move towards 137 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:55,400 judgement. It's not hard for me to imagine 138 00:08:55,600 --> 00:08:58,920 God's sadness and anger regarding injustice in the world 139 00:08:59,160 --> 00:09:03,000 because I find that same sadness and anger in my own heart. 140 00:09:03,560 --> 00:09:07,840 What I found harder was to make that move towards hope. 141 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:12,560 I lacked the imagination to see God is holding out something 142 00:09:12,560 --> 00:09:17,520 even better than truth telling. Instead of truth telling, God in 143 00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:21,360 alignment with God's character is always holding out hope 144 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:25,200 grounded in his love. And so that's what I want to 145 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:28,280 talk about this morning is the hope of Micah. 146 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:32,160 A hope that doesn't shy away from the truth, but a hope that 147 00:09:32,160 --> 00:09:36,440 speaks with clarity and specificity and beauty. 148 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:39,240 But when you read it, you can't really ignore. 149 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:43,360 So let's dig a bit into that passage that Tori read this 150 00:09:43,360 --> 00:09:46,400 morning because I think it's emblematic of the book as a 151 00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:49,880 whole is a longer reading. But I was trying to capture some 152 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:52,440 of this oscillation between judgement and hope. 153 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:55,920 So at the beginning of the passage, Micah picks up a theme 154 00:09:55,920 --> 00:09:59,480 of judgement. He begins, alas, for those who 155 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:03,680 devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds. 156 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:08,040 So what I'd first call your attention here to is that it 157 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:13,800 starts with the word alas. Alas is a word of regret, of 158 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:16,600 sadness. I think it's important to note 159 00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:19,360 about Micah and about the prophets more generally. 160 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,440 Micah doesn't start from this place on high looking down on 161 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,520 the people. Instead, he starts with a broken 162 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:31,160 heart, with sadness. So Abraham Joshua Heschel, who 163 00:10:31,160 --> 00:10:35,120 was a rabbi and who was involved in the civil rights movement and 164 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:39,760 his book on the prophets, writes that to be a prophet is to be in 165 00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:44,520 communion with the feelings of God, to be in communion with the 166 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:48,280 feelings of God. And I think that's really the 167 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,960 key to understanding what Micah is getting at in these oracles 168 00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:55,960 of judgement. He doesn't begin from a place of 169 00:10:55,960 --> 00:11:00,880 anger, but from a place of sadness, a place of regret. 170 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:05,760 I think that what Micah and Heschel are showing us is that 171 00:11:05,760 --> 00:11:08,320 there's something about the character of God, that God's 172 00:11:08,320 --> 00:11:14,080 first response to sinfulness or brokenness or injustice isn't 173 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:16,120 anger. Though I think if you read the 174 00:11:16,120 --> 00:11:19,600 prophets, you get a healthy dose of God's anger about the ways 175 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,760 that people trample on God's Beautiful Creatures. 176 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:26,760 But instead of anger, where Micah and God's start is 177 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,760 sadness. Micah begins this passage with 178 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:35,040 alas, because he sees the way in which human wickedness and 179 00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:39,000 wicked thoughts have deformed the people of Israel, but 180 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:42,560 they've also deformed the leaders who are thinking them. 181 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:47,600 He sees the way in which their participation and injustice has 182 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:52,960 taken away their humanity. They're trapped by injustice as 183 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:56,720 they engage in oppression rather than laying in their bed and 184 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:00,200 enjoying their I'll gotten wealth and thinking of how 185 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:03,960 blessed they are. Micah mourns because they spend 186 00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:08,480 their nights thinking of ways to increase their power and 187 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,480 worrying about what they will do next. 188 00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:14,520 What is it that they are daydreaming about? 189 00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:18,280 Micah tells us. When the morning dawns, they 190 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:21,120 perform it because it is in their power. 191 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:26,080 They covet fields and seize them houses and take them away. 192 00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:30,040 They oppress householder and house people and their 193 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:33,480 inheritance. So throughout Micah, his big 194 00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:36,880 concern is about this economic injustice. 195 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:40,760 He's utterly caught up in God's vision of the world, God's 196 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:44,480 vision of a creation where everyone is able to flourish, 197 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:48,040 God's vision in which through the mutuality of sharing 198 00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:51,000 together, everyone is provided for. 199 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:55,680 Micah speaks harshly against the leaders of the community who 200 00:12:55,680 --> 00:12:59,400 don't focus on the needs of the community as a whole, but rather 201 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:04,080 their own personal enrichment. His condemnation is about this 202 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:07,720 power that they are allowed to possess that makes all the 203 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:12,800 fantasies they dream about reality as they wake up and do 204 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:14,840 what they had been dreaming about. 205 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:19,640 And I wonder where we see that in our world today. 206 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:24,640 Seems like the news all the time has stories of people who are 207 00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:28,760 destroying the livelihoods of others in order to enrich 208 00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:32,600 themselves. God through Micah speaks very 209 00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:36,720 harshly against them, saying I am devising against this family 210 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:40,520 and evil from which you cannot remove your necks and you shall 211 00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:44,000 not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time. 212 00:13:45,680 --> 00:13:49,200 Now I recognize it's sometimes difficult to read texts like 213 00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:51,440 these in the Bible, these condemnations. 214 00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:54,760 It's hard to imagine God devising and evil. 215 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:57,520 Isn't that out of the character of God? 216 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:00,400 I don't want to sidestep this question. 217 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:02,960 Throughout the prophets, there's like statements like this all 218 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:06,760 the time that it's really much easier to kind of ignore. 219 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:11,240 But I think what's actually going on here depends on the 220 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:14,040 perspective from where you see the situation. 221 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:19,480 God seems to be devising this radical rethinking and collapse 222 00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:23,760 of the economic order of Israel, which is bad news if you're on 223 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:26,400 the top of it. But maybe it's the beginning of 224 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:31,200 justice if you're on the bottom. God's judgement, this evil he's 225 00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,680 devising, isn't about condemning particular people. 226 00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:37,760 It's about condemning the system that keeps the people on the 227 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:42,160 bottom, that reinforces over and over again these social 228 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,280 hierarchies. Rather, what Micah is aiming at 229 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:50,120 is liberation, a new thing that feels like evil if you're the 230 00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,000 one who is at the top doing the oppression. 231 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,880 And I also want to push back against when we read Micah is 232 00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:01,600 always seeing us on the side of Micah and these oppressed 233 00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:04,640 farmers. Some of us are there and we 234 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:08,280 should rightly hear God's condemnation of a society that 235 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:13,800 seeks to disenfranchise you. But for some of us, I think we 236 00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:17,760 find ourselves more at the top doing the oppressing. 237 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:20,560 Or maybe we're somewhere in the middle. 238 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:22,760 We're not the oppressor. We're not the oppressed. 239 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:26,040 I had to guess that's where most of us fall. 240 00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:31,120 We might not think that we lay on our beds devising evil at 241 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:35,640 night, but I do wonder, what is it that's keeping you awake at 242 00:15:35,640 --> 00:15:39,000 night? Do you way awake thinking about 243 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,880 God's response to injustice? Or do you think of the way you 244 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:47,160 can protect ourselves and our family? 245 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:51,440 Do we dream of the liberation of humanity into just 246 00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,920 relationships? Do we just think about the new 247 00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:57,240 material goods we want to possess? 248 00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:01,120 Do we ponder our complicity and injustice? 249 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:05,080 Or do we distract ourselves with doom scrolling, just letting 250 00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:09,320 media flow in front of our eyes until we can't feel anything 251 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:14,400 anymore? Because Micah seems to be as 252 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:18,120 bothered by distraction as he is by those who are actively 253 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:20,640 oppressing the householders in the house. 254 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,920 So at the end of this Oracle of judgement, he speaks really 255 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,760 sarcastically, saying if someone were to go about uttering empty 256 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:31,920 falsehoods, saying I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, 257 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,320 such a one would be a preacher for this people. 258 00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,000 Seems that Micah's message wasn't really well received. 259 00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:44,880 Instead, he condemns the people who would rather hear about 260 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:48,440 parties, about the wine and the strong drink that dulls the 261 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:51,600 senses and dulls their connection with reality. 262 00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:55,120 He condemns those people who would rather do that than the 263 00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:58,480 plight of his neighbors that he calls attention to. 264 00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:02,240 And I know that sounds true for me. 265 00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:06,839 Maybe not the wine and strong drink per SE, I have my own 266 00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:08,839 vices. But the distraction and 267 00:17:08,839 --> 00:17:12,760 unwillingness to face what is true about the world. 268 00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:16,880 Micah speaks with clarity about injustice. 269 00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:20,280 He clearly lays out the way that God sees the world. 270 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:24,400 And I think this vision has reality and purchase in our 271 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:28,079 world as well. But I think what's perhaps even 272 00:17:28,079 --> 00:17:32,400 more life giving for me when I look at this book, what I was 273 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:36,480 missing in my early attempts to be prophetic is the visions of 274 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:40,720 Micah's hope and God's hope that dot throughout the book. 275 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:46,240 Because on the whole, I think that CV is a church that has 276 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:50,080 been deeply involved in the work of mercy and justice. 277 00:17:51,760 --> 00:17:55,960 There are so many stories to tell of individuals in Columbus 278 00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,200 and children throughout the world that have been impacted by 279 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:03,440 C VS witness to God's radical welcome and care. 280 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:08,760 But at least for me, sometimes when I wake up in the morning 281 00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:12,800 and power up my iPad to read the paper, I don't feel very 282 00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:16,400 hopeful. These visions of hope don't seem 283 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:21,440 true for me a lot of the time when I'm not distracting myself 284 00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:24,640 and I am paying attention. Instead of the world getting 285 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,760 better and improving and moving towards God's Kingdom, it just 286 00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:31,320 feels like we're sinking into more depravity. 287 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:33,920 We're sinking into new forms of oppression. 288 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:37,840 More of a rot that's at the center of our life together is 289 00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:42,160 being revealed over and over and over again. 290 00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:46,240 How will we ever get out of this mess? 291 00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:51,160 Of course, of course we should keep working for justice, but 292 00:18:51,160 --> 00:18:56,320 sometimes it just gets tiring. I was talking to my spiritual 293 00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:59,920 director and she said that maybe the question of evil in the 294 00:18:59,920 --> 00:19:03,840 world was hard for me because at my work I have a front seat 295 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,760 every day. I'm a chaplain at a Children's 296 00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:09,880 Hospital, and I see really awful things that happen to children 297 00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:14,520 throughout Ohio all the time. But I think that that's not only 298 00:19:14,520 --> 00:19:17,520 me here. I think there's a lot of us who 299 00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:20,600 have a front row seat to injustice, whether that 300 00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:25,000 injustice is being perpetrated against us or against those who 301 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,440 you love and know and care about. 302 00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:32,320 Maybe we're a bit like Micah in that way, when he was living in 303 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:35,440 this small farming community, watching the powerful 304 00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:39,000 dispossessed others of their land and livelihood. 305 00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:45,040 And yet right after this clear condemnation of the elite, which 306 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:49,240 I can definitely get behind, Micah has this beautiful passage 307 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:53,040 that feels out of place and doesn't resonate with me in 308 00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:56,120 quite the same way. He no longer writes in this 309 00:19:56,120 --> 00:19:58,280 descriptive mode of what's happening. 310 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:03,240 Instead, he turns to address the people of Israel directly in the 311 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:07,720 voice of God. And he says, I will surely 312 00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:10,080 gather all of you. Oh, Jacob. 313 00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:15,480 I will gather the survivors of Israel, I will set them together 314 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:20,240 like sheep and a fold like a flock in its pasture, and it 315 00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,720 will resound with people. Then jumping down a few verses, 316 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:28,360 their king will pass on before them the Lord at their head. 317 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,200 So Micah isn't only gloom and doom. 318 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:37,000 Rather, he digs down into this reservoir of hope, of longing 319 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,440 for this future restoration of God. 320 00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:45,920 Micah, despite seeing so clearly the injustice of the world, it's 321 00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:49,720 being so caught up in the feelings of God, and God's 322 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:54,960 sadness about that doesn't lose his hope for this time of 323 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,280 redemption. There are a few things I want 324 00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:02,240 you to notice about them. Hope that Micah cultivates here 325 00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:05,040 1st. It's not like this Pollyanna 326 00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:08,680 hope, a refusal to acknowledge the brokenness of the world. 327 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,240 The people that God is gathering in this passage are the 328 00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:16,800 survivors of Israel. Like the breakdown of everything 329 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:20,080 is still coming. This hope is on the other side 330 00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:22,480 of the judgement that Micah talks about. 331 00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:28,760 The hope for Micah is for those who are oppressed to come and to 332 00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:35,280 see the world being made right. The second the restoration that 333 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:39,400 Micah's talking about here isn't just this general hope that 334 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,080 things are going to go right in the future. 335 00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:45,720 He's not just an optimistic person who always sees the 336 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:51,520 bright side of life. Rather, in this redemption, God 337 00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:54,200 is the one who is enacting justice. 338 00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,640 I think people think sometimes about the quote from Doctor King 339 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:02,040 that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends 340 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,320 towards justice. But what is true about that is 341 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:09,280 that God is bending the arc towards justice. 342 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,560 It's not just that the world is going in that direction. 343 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,400 God is bringing about God's Kingdom, his rule for the way 344 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:21,080 the world will work, the way that God aims for it too. 345 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:25,920 And this is the ground of Micah's hope, the character of 346 00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:29,720 God who will not abandon God's people and God's creation 347 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,880 forever. That's how Micah maintains hope. 348 00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,320 It's not about ignoring the reality of the world, of looking 349 00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:41,560 away from injustice. But at the same time, it's not 350 00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:45,720 about giving into a cynicism that feels like realism when 351 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:52,360 it's actually just despair. Instead, Micah finds the space 352 00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:56,200 to look for the future world that God promises. 353 00:22:57,360 --> 00:23:00,800 I wonder what it is that makes it hard for me to keep that hope 354 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:03,680 in mind. And I wonder what it is for you. 355 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,920 What is it that grounds Micah's hopeful vision of the world? 356 00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:14,840 A vision of the world where God is restoring all things because 357 00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:20,800 Micah is able to push back against despair, and despair is 358 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,840 something that the tradition, Christian tradition, has 359 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,080 historically had a lot to say about. 360 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:31,120 When I think about despair, the first thing that comes to mind 361 00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,080 is this line from Macbeth that we would use to warm up when I 362 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,720 was a high school theater kid. And the line is tomorrow and 363 00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:43,280 tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day-to-day 364 00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,000 to the last syllable of recorded time. 365 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:50,360 And there's something about despair that I think that image 366 00:23:50,360 --> 00:23:53,800 captures, this image of tomorrow's just reaching out 367 00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:59,760 over and over and over again, this repetition of tomorrow not 368 00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:04,040 finding hope, but only more of the same place that we're in 369 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:08,280 now. So when we read the prophets, we 370 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,360 get stuck on these passages of judgement. 371 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,200 We can become cynics. We can see the brokenness of the 372 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:19,680 world just stretching out forever, tomorrow and tomorrow 373 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,600 and tomorrow. But what happens for Micah is 374 00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:25,720 that the tomorrow's have an interruption. 375 00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,640 Suddenly God will act on the remnant. 376 00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,360 A truly new tomorrow, a new thing will come. 377 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,960 And that's the ground of our hope, the gracious action of God 378 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,240 moving and interrupting the way in which we lay out the world. 379 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,440 The hope of Micah gets deepened as it's picked up in the New 380 00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,240 Testament, as we think about God's full revelation of God's 381 00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,720 character in the person of Jesus. 382 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,520 The later passage of hope. And Micah, after a few more 383 00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,320 oracles of judgement, Micah picks up an Oracle of Bethlehem. 384 00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:06,040 And he writes, But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, for one 385 00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,920 of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for 386 00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:15,120 me, one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from old 387 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,600 of ancient days. And he shall stand and feed his 388 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,800 flock in the strength of the Lord, and the majesty of the 389 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:28,160 name of the Lord his God, and they shall live secure. 390 00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:32,840 For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall 391 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:38,760 be the one of peace. So when Micah wrote these words, 392 00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:43,160 there are expressions of hope for desire for a godly king, a 393 00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,640 Messiah who's going to come and interrupt this list of 394 00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,440 tomorrow's with the redemption that God promises. 395 00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:55,200 And this very line is picked up in the Gospel of Matthew and 396 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:58,720 quoted verbatim in the story of the wise men coming to visit 397 00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:02,800 Jesus. The Gospel See, this hope that 398 00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:07,360 is promised in Micah is finding its ultimate reality in the 399 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:12,320 person of Jesus. And I think that's our answer to 400 00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:17,320 despair this morning, to find ourselves in touch with this 401 00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:22,040 person of Jesus who reveals to us what God is like. 402 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,480 The passage of hope and Micah is the promise towards which the 403 00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:32,040 moral arc of the universe bends. What we hope for is the time 404 00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:36,280 when Jesus will stand and feed his flock and the strength of 405 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:41,400 the Lord Jesus is the one of peace for which we long. 406 00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:46,280 And this is the final end of the judgement and hope pendulum and 407 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,840 Micah. As the book goes on, the 408 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,080 explorations of hope become longer and longer until you get 409 00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,680 to the end. And it feels like hope is all 410 00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,680 that's there remaining because it was Jesus who was at the 411 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:04,360 beginning of everything, who will also be there standing at 412 00:27:04,360 --> 00:27:07,480 the end. And that's how we maintain hope, 413 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,960 by coming to know Jesus and to know his character. 414 00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,800 And when I think of Jesus transforming our hope, I think 415 00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,160 of the work of some friends that I had when I lived in Waco, TX. 416 00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,880 So Janet and Jimmy, there's a picture of them. 417 00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:28,080 They met when they were in College in the late 1970s, and 418 00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,240 after graduating, they bought these tickets on Pan Am that you 419 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,840 can't buy anymore, where they were like your rail passes for 420 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,560 the world, where they could go for six months and as long as 421 00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,160 they kept going, that was fine. They spent a year traveling 422 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,040 around the world and they would just stop as they felt the 423 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,360 spirit leading them. They spent a particularly 424 00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:51,920 impactful time with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, caring for 425 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,360 some of the world's most abandoned people. 426 00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,960 While they were there, what they were struck by wasn't only the 427 00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:03,360 intense poverty they saw, but they also saw the love and 428 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:07,880 dignity and hope that the Hospice in Calcutta was able to 429 00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:12,080 give people, revealing God's heart of love. 430 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:17,440 And when they were there, rather than continuing their world 431 00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:21,440 travels and finding this place where they could emulate Mother 432 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,640 Teresa, Jimmy and Janet were instead struck by the place they 433 00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,600 came from, the down and out streets of North Waco, where 434 00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,120 people were similarly missing hope for a future. 435 00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:35,880 Their lack of hope and despair looked different, but it was 436 00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,960 still there. So they began to imagine what 437 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:43,360 the heart of Jesus might be for their own home, not just the 438 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,480 faraway places in the world. They moved into one of the 439 00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,920 roughest neighborhoods and engaged in an incarnation 440 00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:55,520 ministry that, through decades of prophetic witness, has 441 00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,400 changed the approach of the city of Waco to some of its poorest 442 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,080 neighborhoods. But when you meet Jimmy, you 443 00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:05,840 don't meet this angry prophet who's just always trying to say, 444 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,720 like, look at how broken everything is. 445 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,200 Instead, you meet someone who tells you about table tennis and 446 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,320 playing basketball with kids in his backyard. 447 00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,240 And we meet Janet. She doesn't talk about the 448 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,680 brokenness that she sees as she continues to travel the world. 449 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,200 You hear about her pottery studio and her frustrations with 450 00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,880 the people in the neighborhood who keep sitting in her hammock 451 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:34,880 when she wants to sit at it. But most of all, what they tell 452 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,800 you are the stories of the people they know, who have seen 453 00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:42,640 the heart of Jesus and found their hope transformed. 454 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,080 They'll tell you about their unhoused friends who've come 455 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,720 together to pay school tuition for four children in Haiti. 456 00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,120 They'll tell you about the neighborhood kid who started 457 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,960 acting in one of their after school programs and in 2023 was 458 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,440 nominated for a Tony Award. In short, they will tell you 459 00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:06,960 stories of hope, Hope inspired by their deep knowing of the 460 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:11,280 heart and character of Jesus. And even when they live in a 461 00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,960 place where despair would be really easy, they tell you not 462 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,560 of the judgement of God, but of the hopeful Kingdom of God that 463 00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,480 is breaking in and even the most unexpected ways. 464 00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,880 So this morning, if this deep hearted knowing of God isn't 465 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,200 something that feels true for you, in a little while we'll 466 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:37,040 have time to pray for you. I get a sense that some people 467 00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,040 here, we're on kind of a last step on the road to despair. 468 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,240 And I want to reassure you that there is hope. 469 00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,880 There is space for the renewal of your heart and its capacity 470 00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,880 to hope. And that space is found in 471 00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,880 encounter with Jesus. And we just love to welcome you 472 00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,640 into that. This morning, before we get to 473 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,600 prayer, I think that Micah leaves us with just a little bit 474 00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,640 more. But I don't feel like I can end 475 00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,480 this sermon without at least gesturing towards. 476 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,800 So where does this leave us? Where does this reflection on 477 00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,080 hope mean for us at Central Vineyard today? 478 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,880 I think that Micah reveals to us in the passage that's maybe the 479 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,600 most famous in the book that I felt like I had to include from 480 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,240 the 6th chapter of Micah. This is Micah 68. 481 00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,080 So he's told you, O mortal, what is good? 482 00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,800 What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to 483 00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,760 love kindness, to walk humbly with your God? 484 00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,720 So when Micah looks out throughout the world, he's 485 00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,800 holding judgement and he's holding hope together. 486 00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,520 This is his conclusion about what that means. 487 00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,920 I think it's the conclusion for us as well. 488 00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,400 When we look out at the brokenness of the world, our job 489 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,080 isn't to style ourselves as a prophet who's standing above and 490 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:03,000 looking down on everyone else. Instead, we're encouraged to 491 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,520 roll up our sleeves to begin doing justice, to begin 492 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,360 partnering with the God who's already at work and bringing 493 00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,320 about right relationships between people. 494 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,120 And our job is to love kindness. Or in other translations you may 495 00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,720 have heard, Love Mercy. Notice that where Micah lands, 496 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,960 isn't this like resignation to the brokenness of the world? 497 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,520 It's a transformation of his heart to love as God loves. 498 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,280 And how do we do that? How do we nurture in ourselves 499 00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:39,160 the kind of hope that Micah holds up so clearly? 500 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:41,600 We do the end of the verse there. 501 00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:47,160 We walk humbly with our God. So what does that mean in the 502 00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:51,080 face of injustice? What does it mean to walk humbly 503 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,880 with our God? It means to be the kind of 504 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,800 person that I talked about the prophet being earlier, one who 505 00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:02,240 is in communion with the feelings of God. 506 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,640 Though I've been taking this time to look at the minor 507 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,160 prophets, the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit in the 508 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:15,000 New Testament is that all of God's people, that is, all of us 509 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,600 might become prophets, become people who are caught up in the 510 00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,760 feelings of God. We might caught up in the 511 00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,440 feelings of God as we walk faithfully with him. 512 00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,320 So that's where I want to leave us this morning as our worship 513 00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,160 team comes back up. And if you're on our prayer 514 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:35,160 team, make your way to the sides. 515 00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,040 I just invite you to take a second and think about where do 516 00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:44,440 you feel an invitation of your heart stirring in communion with 517 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:48,280 the feelings of God? Where is your heart stirring 518 00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:53,440 with sadness and passion that God displays towards brokenness 519 00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,760 in the world? Being the people who are 520 00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:01,760 following the way of Jesus the King who was, is, and will be 521 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,760 the one of peace walking alongside him. 522 00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,520 Getting caught up in Jesus's emotions and love for the world. 523 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:11,440 But maybe that's been hard for you recently. 524 00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,320 That's OK too. Maybe you've given in to despair 525 00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:18,760 this morning. If that feels true for you, I'd 526 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,120 invite you to receive hope again. 527 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:26,360 Hope that comes not through working really hard to be 528 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:31,280 optimistic, but hope that comes through walking in step with the 529 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,719 way of Jesus. We'd love to welcome you into 530 00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:36,360 that. She received prayer this 531 00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:36,719 morning.