Keep us forever grounded in your blessing, O God of love. Amen.
Faith is a dialogue; a conversation between Creator and Creation. In Genesis, we read that God created not with the snap of the fingers, or by assembling various parts, or by a thought, but with a word – “Let there be.” God spoke to nothingness and nothing responded by becoming something. God’s relationship with Israel is rooted in speech to Abraham, Rebekah, Moses, Deborah, Daniel, Isaiah, and Micah. One way of understanding the faith of Israel is as a holy conversation with God.
When this God came among us in Jesus, it was described as the Word becoming flesh. The dialogue came alive. And when the Holy Spirit was gifted to us, Scripture describes it happening as translated speech so that we might continue in this conversation with God and one another.
Faith is a dialogue. More than being a set of practices, beliefs, or structures, faith is a dialogue. When the Church forgets this, we end up losing our focus. When we drop out of the conversation with God, that’s when we get into trouble.
There’s a description of Evensong, which is coming up this Thursday at 7pm, that says “Evensong is a tiny fragment of something else: it is a part of the worship that is offered to God by Christians every hour of the day and night, in every part of the world. When you come to Evensong it is as if you were dropping in on a conversation already in progress – a conversation between God and humanity which began long before we were born and will go on long after we are dead. So, do not be surprised or disturbed if there are some things which you do not at first understand. For a brief moment, we step into the continual stream of worship which is being offered today and which will be offered to the end of time.” It’s a lovely way of thinking about prayer and liturgy – we are stepping into the dialogue.
Faith as dialogue is a helpful lens because that’s what most of us are longing for – to be encountered by the Divine, to hear the gracious words of forgiveness, peace, and love spoken to us, and to be given a sense of direction and purpose. A question that I’ve heard a lot of people asking recently, including the guy I see in the mirror every morning, is “What are we supposed to do?” How do we reflect the light of Christ that we have received? Given the grace and love of Jesus, how shall we live? Essentially, we want to know how to enter into this dialogue.
Both the texts from Micah and Matthew bring us into this holy dialogue as Micah delivers the Lord’s speech about what is good for us, and in Matthew, Jesus describes the sort of living that is most receptive to God’s blessings. I’m going to give a bit of brief background to both passages and then I want to put Micah and Matthew into conversation and listen in.
If we had to give a title to this section of Micah, it would be “You’ve been served.” This is a courtroom scene in which we are being put on trial, and the mountains and hills have been called as witnesses against us. The Lord lays out the case – “How have I failed you? I brought you out of Egypt, gave you strong leaders, and brought you into the land in which you now live.”
Indeed, we have received much from God; we have many blessings to count. And how does God expect us to reflect these blessings to the world? With burnt offerings? No, the Lord is not interested in our rituals. As I often say, we worship not because God needs it, but we do. We need to be drawn together across difference, we need to be steeped in the sacred stories, and receive the Sacraments so that we will be a properly formed and fed people.
Well, how about thousands of rams, would that satisfy God? I know we don’t measure wealth in units of rams, but it’s an absurd amount. While generosity is a great spiritual practice, God isn’t after your wallet, but rather your heart. How about tens of thousands of rivers of oil? The absurdity continues – no one could offer that – but that’s okay because that’s not what God is after. It’s a relief that God doesn’t expect perfection from us. Well, does God expect our most valuable possession – even the life of a firstborn child? There had been some corrupt kings of Israel that had done just that – offered their children as sacrifices, trying to curry divine favor. For one, God will not be bought off, but more importantly – God is a God of life, not death, and so these sacrifices were seen as abhorrent to God.
God says, “No, I don’t need or want any of those things. I’ve told you what is good, I’ve shown you how to go with the grain of the universe, I’ve made it clear what it means to live in alignment with my holiness – it is to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with me.” God tells us what true religion is all about. And I can’t help but notice that it fits well into the paradigm I shared a few weeks ago about having a three-dimensional faith, one with outward, inward, and upward dimensions. Outwardly, we do justice. The verb “do” is so important. We don’t ask other people be just, we do justice. We confront and work to dismantle systems that exploit and exclude.
Inwardly, we love kindness. The Hebrew word for “kindness” has aspects of mercy, loyalty, graciousness, gentleness, and compassion. It’s a word that pretty much includes all of the fruits of the Spirit that we read about in the New Testament. We might say it’s a deeply embedded orientation of love, a love implanted in us all by the Holy Spirit, which through practices and rituals we inwardly cultivate so that this Divine love might flow through us.
Walking humbly with God is the upward dimension – and the “with” is key. It’s not humility for the sake of being modest. But when we walk with God, we more easily recognize that our place is not at the center, rather it is to follow God and be assured that wherever we go, God is with us, beside us, behind us, and before us.
This is the holy dialogue God has initiated – it’s about doing justice, loving kindness, and walking with God. Matthew further describes what a life lived in conversation with God looks like. And it’s important to pay attention to these “blesseds” as they aren’t the sort of values that the world and society lift up. In fact, they stand in contrast with what we see all over the place. When we think about “the good life,” we often think it must include things like financial security, being respected by our peers, being in good health, and having everything go our way. But Jesus tells us that the good life, a life lived in dialogue with God, looks stunningly and startlingly different.
When you’re wondering what to do, you might try imagining what you might hear if you pulled up a seat and entered into the conversation. If Micah and Matthew were to sit down and have a conversation about these two touchstone texts, what follows is what I think some of that conversation might sound like.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit” might sound like: Blessed are you who have nothing to offer, for you will be offered everything. Blessed are you who are empty handed, for you have hands ready to receive what God will give you. Blessed are the overlooked, those pushed to the margins, those who have never been offered a seat at the table, for they are invited to God’s banquet.
“Blessed are those who mourn” could be: Blessed are you who are heartbroken and discouraged, for the cracks are how the light comes in. Blessed are you who have taken the risk of love, for love shall never be taken away. Blessed are those for whom death is not an abstraction or metaphor, for they live in reality, which is where God is found. Blessed are those who cast their cares on Jesus, for they shall know that all manner of things shall be well. Blessed are you, because wherever you happen to be, in whatever you are facing, and regardless of how many times you have failed, for Jesus says to each of us, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you relief.”
“Blessed are the meek” becomes: Blessed are you who do not seek to dominate, for love will dominate your life. Blessed are the humble and the humiliated, for they have been relieved of the awful burden of perfectionism and self-righteousness. Blessed are those who walk humbly with God, for they are walking the way of Jesus.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” might come out as: Blessed are you who yearn for deep truths, for your hunger is its discovery. Blessed are you who do justice, for that is what Jesus is up to. Blessed are you when you show up, serve, and act even when you are afraid, for our Good Shepherd is with us in the shadowy valleys of life and death. Blessed are you who care, for you are alive in the Body of Christ. Blessed are you who seek justice, for that is where all things are heading.
“Blessed are the merciful” sounds like: Blessed are you when you are gentle, for God’s gentleness enfolds you. Blessed are those who love kindness, for they live in God’s economy. Blessed are those who dare to forgive, for they are freed from carrying the debts of the past.
“Blessed are the pure in heart” is: Blessed are you who focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful things in life, for those are glimpses and fingerprints of God. Blessed are you who seek only after love, for God is love and you will be encountered by God everywhere.
“Blessed are the peacemakers” might be: Blessed are you who refuse to return evil for evil, who turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile, for people will see the light of Christ shining through you. Blessed are you when you do not pass on your hurt to others, for that is when you are like God.
“Blessed are the persecuted” could be: Blessed are those who do not fit in, for they belong to God. Blessed are you who trust that you are God’s beloved no matter what names other people give you, regardless of who wants to cancel you for doing justice and loving kindness, for living in such a way that makes no sense to others, for though the Cross may be seen as foolishness, it is the salvation of God.
And I might add one more – Blessed are you, yes, you, when you step into the holy dialogue that our loving and talkative God has been having with us throughout the generations. Blessed are you when you hear the loving words of God that point us towards what is good, what is worth spending our one precious life on: doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with Jesus. Blessed are you when you live in conversation with Love itself.
