The Church of the Redeemer

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 3, 2002

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. 

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen 

Like many of us, I am totally dependant on my contact lenses and eyeglasses in order to see.  In fact, my vision is so limited without corrective lenses; I literally cannot see my glasses unless I have my contacts in.  Of course this means I am compulsive about knowing exactly where my glasses are at all times.  Each morning before I leave the pool or gym, I deliberately make a mental note as to exactly where I put glasses in my gym bag so I can find them easily at night my I take my contacts out.  Each night before retiring, I put my glasses on the table next to my side of the bed, and in the morning I grope around until I find them.  Now a week ago Saturday, I was in almost a full-blown panic when I discovered my glasses were not where I thought I had left them.  That morning like all others, when I awoke, I immediately reached over to my bed table and searched for my glasses, not there.  No need to panic I thought, they probably just fell on the floor.  So I groped around on the floor near my bed.   No eyeglasses.  Maybe they are on my dresser, so I went over to the dresser, felt along the top of it, still no glasses; maybe the bathroom, nothing.  Now I was in a panic because the thought of having to put my contacts in on a Saturday morning was not something I wanted to do.  It’s not like I can’t see anything without my glasses or contacts.  I can see many things clearly, that is as long as they are within five inches of my face.  Beyond that distance, my life is a blur.  So, as my panic began to grow, I sat back and tried to recall all my steps from the night before when finally, a vague recollection came to me of having gotten up to let the dog out around one in the morning and then resting on the family room couch waiting for him to come back in.  Sure enough, after stumbling through the house, tripping over the toys and shoes I would have been able to see if I had had my glasses on, I finally managed to find them on the coffee table next to the couch.  It appears that I had taken them off while I merely rested my eyes while waiting for the dog to come in.

When it comes to understanding the teachings of Christianity, we all need the corrective lenses of our faith and the cross in order to for it to make sense.  This is what Paul tries to explain to the Corinthian when he states that “we look through a mirror dimly lit” and in today’s reading from this same letter he states, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)  This statement of Paul’s is nothing new to the Corinthians. It is a mere reflection of Isaiah’s words to the early Israelites, “For my way are not your ways, or my thoughts your thoughts, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)  All of this is a reminder that Christ’s call to us contradicts our basic human nature, that it asks us to accept concepts that are counter- cultural.  How else, accept through the lenses of the cross and faith can we accept that victory can be found through death on a cross, that we can only find life by giving up our own, that simple bread and wine can mysteriously become the body and blood of Christ, or that the meek can inherit the earth.

During his Sermon on the Mount, Christ further emphasized the dichotomy between culture and leading a Godly life.  In today’s Gospel reading, we heard but a snippet of this marvelous sermon.  The portion we actually heard read is the beloved portion of this sermon commonly referred to as the Beatitudes.  They are those familiar platitudes that are commonly applied to a multitude of situations when words fail us and clichés are needed to fill the void.  However, when studied in the context of the whole of the Gospel, these beloved statements of Christ are anything but clichés or platitudes.  In fact what they are, are Christ’s instruction to his followers on how to lead a Godly life.  .  It is no wonder then, that I found the Beatitudes printed next to the Ten Commandments in my first Children’s Bible for that is what they are, the commandments of Christ.  As we look closely at these statements, we also find that they each follow a pattern, “Blessed are the _____, for they shall.  When brought to the root source of these statements, the term blessed can be interpreted to mean God’s provision for the fullness of life will be provided to those who _____.    For example, God’s provision for the fullness of life is given to those who realize they are poor in spirit because in their search they will find the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus we are each called to acknowledge our spiritual impoverishment and to seek spiritual growth. 

In essence, the Beatitudes are the basic virtues of Christian life.  Thus we are each called to acknowledge our spiritual impoverishment, to mourn, not just for each other at times of loss, but also the brokenness of the human community and its relationship with God.  We are to hunger and thirst for righteousness sake, to be merciful as God has been merciful to us. We are to seek peace and to be steadfast in living out our faith even when reviled or persecuted. 

These beautiful words of Christ are a reminder to each and every one of us that when we choose to accept the cross of Christ in our lives, we leave behind the values of our culture and accept the challenge of leading a Christian life based on the higher virtues of God, or as Isaiah wrote, the higher ways and thoughts of God.  But Jesus was not the first to provide humanity with an outline of Godly living.  The prophet Micah also provided a summation of this same imperative when he wrote, “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”    Personally, I find the shorter imperative of Micah a bit clearer and easier to understand in today’s world.  The concept of doing justice is easily definable, for every action there is an equal reaction.  Thus based on the seriousness of the offense, there is a fair and reasonable that price which can be exacted. However, neither Micah nor Jesus leave the Godly life simply with justice, instead we are called to be merciful or to love mercy.  Justice when combined with mercy looses its exactness; no longer is our ability to sentence clearly defined because if we are to administer justice with mercy we must be willing to seek justice with love, compassion, and most of all forgiveness.

Over the past few weeks, we here in greater Boston have been faced what constitutes justice when no price seems adequate in the face of the crimes that have been committed.  What is the just price to ask of a Roman Catholic Priest who has misused his position of power and trust to molest young children?  What is the just price to ask of a father who lost his temper at a hockey rink and beat another man to death?  In reality, there is no price that will repay for the childhoods that were stolen, or the life that was ended. As a country, we continue to seek justice in the wake of the events of September 11^th.  What is the just price that we can exact to repay the loss of over 3000 lives, and the destruction of the businesses that were housed in and around the World Trade Center?  As Americans we are still angry and we want Justice.  But as Christians we are challenged to be compassionate, loving, forgiving and merciful in the justice we seek.  When mercy and justice are applied against such a vast backdrop of evil destruction, the possibility of applying these concepts seems nonsensical.  In our continuing anger we say that the members of the Taliban and the others mentioned deserve none, for they showed no mercy or compassion towards their victims. 

But we are Christians, and despite our anger, and no matter contrary it may appear, God calls us to dispense mercy with justice. Andre Resner  when commenting on this morning’s reading from Micah with the following words.

 “Micah has answered not only our immediate and burning question of how we are to be reconciled with God, but how God’s merciful way of reconciling with us gives us a way of “doing justice in mercy” in the world.  The apprehension of our mercifully given walk with God gives us a perspective out of which to be those who do justice.  Our experience of receiving mercy from God becomes the frame of reference within which our acts of justice flourish.  As Wendell Berry points our, justice that is not framed by love creates a downwardly spiraling society of anger, hate, and brutality.  Relationships- family, neighborhood, and community – simply will not work without a framework of justice that is massaged and conditioned by mercy.  Micah (and Jesus) reminds us that, for the people of God, this springs from the memory of and participation in God’s covenant love and forgiveness.  This is the power that can free “the practice of mercy” from mere feeling or concept to a power and praxis.”  (Van Harn, p. 496)

What is it that God requires of us, to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk with God.  May we each put on the corrective lenses of faith and the cross so that we can see clearly that this is the truth, the way and the life.  Amen

The Rev. Craig R. Swan

Van Harn, Roger E. editor; The Lectionary Commentary: The Old Testament and Acts,

William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI; 2001.

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