Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors wk4 - Micah, on mercy

This morning we welcomed members of the Guild and marked the beginning of a new session by dedicating the year ahead, and remembering the many projects supported by the Guild.

We continued with our series on the Minor Prophets
and this week, spent time with the prophet Micah.
Rather than one sermon, there were several reflections across the service...

READINGS: Micah 1:1-2 and 5:1-5; and Micah 6:1-8; 7:14-20

REFLECTION 1/ 'Meet MICAH: an introduction'
As we move into our time of listening to God’s word,
we’ll be hearing from the book of the prophet Micah –
set in the mid 8th century before Christ. So, a very brief introduction.
Underpinning all of the books of the prophets is power:
what is power,
who has power,
how is power used,
and what are the effects of how that power is used?
There’s an interplay between how people understand and use power,
and how God understands and uses power –
and for the most part, there’s quite a difference in understanding and use.
Often, the work of the prophets is to speak truth to earthly power.
And we see this underlying theme at work within the Book of Micah.

Micah was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea –
both of whom God called to work in the northern kingdom of Israel
and whose task was to urge the people there to turn back to God.
The people of the north had fallen far below what God required
when it came to living as God’s people:
the rich elite grew wealthier and wealthier off the backs of the poor,
they had corrupted the legal system so that judges and officials
could be bought with a bribe;
everything was set up in such a way that most of the population
bore the brunt of the ruling elite’s ongoing greed and misuse of power.
Added to that, as we saw from Hosea, they were unfaithful to God:
decided that other gods might be more fun,
might give them what they wanted...
might even give them more power.

Micah was called by God to work in the southern kingdom of Judah.
He lived 25 miles south-west of Jerusalem:
a man from the country who God sent to work in the city.
Reading his words, you can see that the southern kingdom
was going the same way as the northern:
the rot was setting in,
and Micah was sent to Jerusalem,
the seat of power in the southern kingdom,
to warn the people – especially those in power –
to turn their hearts to God and change their ways.

As you read the book, you find the way it’s set out is a wee bit
like being in the midst of a court room:
God arguing his case against the people...
the people making their case against God.

Micah’s name means ‘who is like God’
and, as the people are confronted with this prophet of God,
whenever they see him,
whenever they hear his name,
the great question quite literally facing them is:
‘who is like God?’
And the answer...
is no-one.
Toward the end of the book,
there is another big question:
‘what does the Lord require?’

REFLECTION 2/ ‘A "powerful" tale’
Let me tell you wee story...
from another world, and from another time.

The great lords ruled the world, protecting it with their power.
They were seen as wise, as benevolent.
Surely, the very least the peoples of the world could do
was to bring offerings,
to pay tribute by way of thanking the lords and by way of caring for them –
providing the bounty of the land
to ensure that the lords kept up their strength,
retained their powers.
Caring and giving offerings to their lords meant that, in turn,
the peoples of the world would continue to remain under their kindly protection.

But the people had been sold a lie.
Far from protecting them, the lords had come to their world
on a quest to preserve and protect themselves.
They had taken the real power that had protected the world,
and hidden it deep within the foundations of their mighty castle.
This power –
a great crystal which was the life-force of the world –
had been harnessed by the lords so that they could feed upon
its lifegiving energy
and so cheat death itself.

However, as the years drew on,
it seemed that the more the lords drained life from the crystal,
the less life there was –
for them, and for the world.
Even as the lords felt their powers waning,
beyond the walls of the castle, the world itself was beginning to wither and decay.
The lords, desperate to be immortal,
through cruel experimentation,
discovered that if they drained the life out of the people
and fed it back into the crystal,
they could extract and drink the pure life-essence of the people,
and in doing so,
retain their strength,
their power,
and their lives.

When the time came for the different villages and peoples of that world
to make their offerings,
a new request came from the lords:
to provide seven volunteers from each village to come and work at the castle.
As weeks went by, odd stories began to surface.
The people began to hear of strange happenings in the castle;
whispered rumours of those who entered the gates never being seen again.

To cover up their deception the lords told more tales –
span a web of lies that seemed credible and yet, somehow, didn’t quite ring true.
Craftily explaining the strange disappearances away,
the cunning lords continued to act the part of benevolent rulers
even as they drained the very life from their people.
But in time, the lie was uncovered:
instead of merciful and kindly lords who ruled justly, and who protected them,
the people discovered that they needed to protect themselves from their lords,
or perish utterly.
With all pretence now gone,
the arrogant lords began to systematically round up the peoples of the world,
and congratulate themselves for their cleverness -
‘Who is like us?’ they would proclaim from their palace,
‘The peoples bow before us and comply, and those who resist are crushed like gnats.’
And a darkness and fear fell upon the land and its peoples...

It’s a tale of power,
of selfishness, cruelty, and greed;
a tale of rulers who would do everything
to ensure that their needs were met whatever the cost.
In their desperate quest to cheat death and to stay at the top,
they would sacrifice the people of that world
and the very world itself until nothing remained.
They would do it through deception, and false news at first,
and show their true selves at the last through cruelty and brutality.
They wielded their power unjustly,
without mercy,
and with supreme arrogance...
and the consequences were disastrous....

REFLECTION 3/ 'Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God'
The story we heard before our hymn, is essentially the prequel to
the story told in the movie ‘The Dark Crystal’,
but, it could easily be the story of the rulers and peoples of the
northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah...
and perhaps it even serves as a cautionary tale for our own times.
As the prophets watched those in power,
so too, as God’s people, we must watch those in power carefully;
scrutinise their words and actions,
and read between the lines of news reports.
And having done so,
ask ourselves,
our communities,
and those in power:
how is power being used?
Who is benefitting?

Prophets like Amos, Hosea, and Micah
show us what both good and bad governance looks like.
And power used to serve its own ends,
power used without consequence or mercy
never ends well for those who are the most vulnerable in society.
In this, the words of Mahatma Gandhi are as fresh now,
as they were when he uttered them, that:
‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.’

Micah reminds us of what the Lord requires,
of how we should use our own power,
of how we should live our lives,
of how the community of God’s people should live...
of the ideal community
that is pointed to by God through the prophets,
and through his Son,
namely the kingdom of God.
‘What does the Lord require?
To do justice, 
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God.’ 

Justice, without mercy, is vengeance, retribution:
eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth stuff.
If we only followed pure justice,
eventually the world would be completely full of blind and toothless people.
Justice without humility –
without a sense of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’
is about ego:
a wee power trip,
and even taking pleasure in bringing someone down.
In God’s kingdom,
the proper use of power is found in the way that it weaves
both justice and mercy together;
justice, with mercy,
extends a hand and raises people up;
justice, with mercy,
demonstrates a letting go of ego:
to walk humbly means to have the imagination
and the ability to walk in another’s shoes –
empathy.

As Amos explored justice,
so Micah examines mercy,
but what is mercy?
We hear the word bandied about time and time again throughout the Bible.
Mercy was famously defined by Shakespeare in his ‘Merchant of Venice’,
the verse that begins with:
‘The quality of mercy is not strained...’
Shakespeare sees the power of mercy,
and the use of mercy when in power:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.’
He goes on to say that,
as mercy is an attribute of God,
so a ruler who exercises mercy with power
is then modelling the power
in the right way,
in God’s way.

Yet the quality of mercy,
and the exercise of it,
is not just confined to those who rule nations.
We, each in our own way have power –
in the way we make choices:
in the way we see others around us,
in the manner in which we act toward others
who may be more vulnerable than ourselves.
So, as a community –
one way we exercise our mercy as God’s people in this small corner of the kingdom –
is through practical projects such as our food bank initiative.
I have personal experience from this very week that our small efforts
truly did help one of our neighbours.
I can’t say more than that, but know, please know, that your mercy,
shown in supporting our food bank,
made a difference this week within this very parish.
We may not rule over nations, but we have our small spheres of influence.
When we think:
‘how can I, one wee person, make a difference in a world so full of need?’
remember the words of Anita Roddick:
'If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.'

As God has shown mercy to us,
redeemed us, loved us,
called us to be his people,
and called us to speak truth to power...
how might we show mercy and love to others?
How will we choose to use the power we have?
What choices will we make?
How will both the qualities of mercy and justice combine
as we navigate our life of faith
and try to do what the Lord requires?
And...
‘What does the Lord require?
To do justice, 
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God.’ 
Amen.