Justice and Mercy

No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah. 6:8 NLT

He has told you, O man, 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? – Micah. 6:8 ESV

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? – Micah. 6:8 KJV

If you’ve been in one of my bible studies you’ve probably caught my not-quite-rant about translations. It is a not-quite-rant because all of our translations are fine. You will get the meaning. But they tend to do one thing. They sand down distinctions. If you are doing woodwork, sanding things smooth is good. If you are doing words, it’s the distinctions that matter. And sometimes I wonder if the translation committees have read the bible. The only one I never wonder that about is the old King James. Those divines knew their Bible. They may not have always known their Hebrew or Greek that well. They certainly didn’t have that great work of 19^th and 20^th century scholarship – the compilation of every known manuscript. And their language is certainly dated today, but they knew their language which is still ours at a distance.

I fall into this not-quite-rant because our Old Testament lesson this week ends with one of the most quoted lines of the entire Old Testament. But the people who usually quote it, and the circumstances in which it is quoted, are often at odds with its true meaning.

The minor prophets, the 12 works collected at the end of our Old Testament, are compressed jewels from the beginning of the prophetic time until its close. Micah as a prophet overlaps Isaiah. He starts with the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and by the end is looking at the fall of the Judah. And the charge in Micah 6 is Judah’s complaints against God. Judah is essentially saying to God, “What have you done for me lately?” And God has decided to respond. “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!” And the LORD recalls the highpoints of what he has done for them: redeemed you from the house of slavery, lead you to and gave you the promised land, brought blessings out of the mouths of those who wanted to curse you, gave you the sacrificial system yet not made that sacrificial system everything. “Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? (Micah 6:7).” And unlike the nations around them the LORD never requires your firstborn. The emphasis on all of this is the LORD has bestowed on his people his grace first. When they didn’t deserve anything, they were given it. And what does the LORD desire? The LORD insists that he has been clear.

Even if our translators have sanded things down they all get the question: What is good? “The LORD has told you what is good.” All the translations get that. What they mess up is the exquisite balance. The old King James gets it – “do justly, and love mercy.” There is always a tension between justice and mercy. Able’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies, but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries, as the hymn puts it. And neither side is wrong. The LORD requires doing Justice. Contrary to the rioters in MN, we as a nation have laws that should be enforced – do justice. The LORD requires that we love mercy. Contrary to the harshest voices who would freely say “deport abuela,” we should love to temper that justice with mercy. And nobody has ever said this tension is easy to live or resolve. When you do not do justice – like leaving the borders open and letting in 20M people who do not have a legal right – you create a mess that compounds. And without someone desiring to grant mercy, you end up in the lex talionis where everyone loses eyes, or lives. With competing claims of “say her/his name.”

I’m sorry ESV, kindness doesn’t cut it. We are not asked to love kindness, but mercy. I’m sorry NLT, but “what is right” doesn’t cut it. We are asked to do justice. We ourselves have been given grace. What the LORD requires is not like that ancient law that kills. We walk in grace. In that tension of justice and mercy is how we humbly walk with God.

Scandal, Mercy and Love

In the gospel lesson this week (Luke 17:1-10) there are three distinct groupings. And in a surface reading they might seem to have nothing to do with each other. Random sayings of Jesus collected and roughly situated in the narrative when he might have spoken them, but otherwise not connected. That type of arrangement isn’t unheard of, for that is roughly Proverbs or most wisdom literature. Random sayings collected around some age or event or theme. But I think they might have a better flow than that first glace.

And I think that in the first block, our translations gets us off on a bad foot. They record, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come (Luke 17:1).” And they continue with the condemnation of the millstone around one’s neck. It is not that temptation is a wrong translation, but that it doesn’t really capture the effect of what is being said. The word used is the Greek world that we directly take as our English word scandal. And the meaning is not our contemporary celebrity petty “scandals” which are more a humorous public failing. The better meaning is an action that causes someone to lose faith, or maybe an intentional disheartening of the faithful. Scandals are sure to happen. It is a sinful and fallen world. But woe to the one who scandalizes, who intentionally disheartens these “little ones.” Now any such scandal probably involves a temptation. One thinks immediately of the Roman Church’s priestly sexual abuse scandal. But honestly I think what the Pope said this week is also just such a scandal. To have the highest bishop of the largest tradition actively dishearten the faithful in the very area the church is most prophetic is a scandal. And Jesus is talking to his disciples. If you are a teacher or a leader in the church, it is a warning about “Paying attention (Luke 17:3).” Millstones attach to these things!

But that harsh but good reminder is quickly followed up by something unimaginable. Imagining a god of vengeance and wrath has never been hard. Believing in a god who forgives “seven times in a day (Luke 17:4)” is harder. Yet that is the command of Jesus, “if your brother says…’I repent’ you must forgive him.” God is a god of mercy, and he expects his people to have mercy also. Mercy to the extent of that number of completion – “seven.” Full forgiveness. Because in Christ we have been fully forgiven. The disciples’ response makes sense – “increase our faith (Luke 17:5)!” The request feels nonsensical. Scandalize me once, shame on me. Scandalize me twice, shame on you! It only makes sense in the world of faith. When one has faith that The Father is who Jesus says he is, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. When one has faith that Jesus came for sinners. Then anything can happen. Even a tree being planted on the sea (Luke 17:6). The strangeness of the Kingdom.

The last section might be more for those disciples that have been at this a long time. Maybe you are at the end of your forgiveness. Maybe you are just tired of being taken advantage of. Or maybe you labor under some idea that if I do this – live forgiveness in this world – this world will give some back to me. I don’t think that is an uncommon feeling. “No good deed goes unpunished” as the fractured fairy tale has it. Jesus’ gives the disciples a salutary reminder. The rewards of discipleship are not this worldly. In this world we are servants (those translators again, more pungent slaves.) Christ would have been perfectly fine issuing the commands and “we would have only done our duty (Luke 17:10).” But what Jesus precedes this with is telling. No earthly master would tell his slave to “come at once and recline at table (Luke 17:7).” The slave would do the preparation and might get something after. But Christ has prepared a table. And he has told his servants to come and eat.

The Kingdom of God operates differently. It intends to overcome scandals, not with duty, but with mercy and love. Mercy toward one another for the millstones we all might carry. Who among us has not been the cause of scandal? Love from the Father in the body and blood of His Son which covers us and make us whole.

Looking Up

092825 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Luke 16:19-31

People want to use this text to get glimpses or insights into the afterlife. But I honestly think that is rather boring. There is nothing in the Rich Man and Lazarus that gives any special insight. It is a heaven of sorts and it is a hell of torment. You can argue a bit and make a distinction between sheol, the Old Testament pit or abode of the dead, to which apparently all went, which upon Holy Saturday the victorious Christ lead the saints out in triumph and the post resurrection reality. But this sermon doesn’t want to get lost in those weeds, and for purposes of the story itself, it’s a distinction without a difference.

This text is not about glimpses of the afterlife, but it is looking up in this one precious life. It’s about how the Kingdom of God operates on different rules than this world. And it’s about how one finds true meaning. It’s a plea to look up and recognize everything that is going on around you. To see the Lazarus at your gate. To see that person or that work of God that we have become blind to. And know that today is the only day we are given to do that work of mercy. In regards to meaning it corrects our understanding. We tend to think that we need the sign and wonder and that would give us meaning. But the signs and wonders are given. A man has risen from the dead. We are given the promises of God in the sacraments. And there are others all around. But without the Word we don’t know what they mean. Like poor Lazarus, they become part of the scenery we step over. It is the Word – Moses and the Prophets in the story – that tells us what the signs and wonders mean. And how they are incorporated into our regular lives in days and months and seasons. How we can live in sacred time illuminated by the resurrection.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You Get What You Need

071325 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Luke 10:25-37

Note: The recording is a re-recording after the fact. We had a recording error real time.

Wants and needs are two different things. We want to justify ourselves, or maybe better put we want to be able to “do this and you will live.” There are lots of ways of being dishonest with ourselves to justify doing evil, but Paul’s “elementary spirits” (Galatians 4, call it the natural law) usually call us out. It is really hard to lie to yourself all the time. It is easier to justify leaving things left undone. That’s the lawyers tactic. “Who is my neighbor?” Who can I exclude from the circle of love and still satisfy the law. The sermon notes a recent cultural conversation stumbled into by the Vice President. And like all our cultural conversations these days, it was completely warped by our polarization. Because there is a way that the VP was correct in quoting the order of love. We are limited creatures. And call it the other ditch, we can often be sinful in helping out abstract far away neighbor while those in our direct care – on our daily roads – lie beaten and half dead. There is also a way that he could be wrong which is this lawyer’s question. Can I exclude people as too far away to care about? This is the very cutting edge of the law. It always convicts. All humanity is our neighbor.

But the biggest reason all humanity is our neighbor is because Christ has crossed the road and embraced all of humanity. Christ has bound our wounds, and placed us in care and promises to return and repay anything. We want to be able to talk our way in; we’ve been given mercy. You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. And then you go and show mercy to those in your walk.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Good Measure, Pressed Down…

022325 Sermon Download

Biblical Text: Luke 6:27-38

Luke’s sermon on the plain – this text is the 2nd part of that – is his version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. And I know that it is the favorite part of the Bible of lots of preachers, but I think they like it for the wrong reasons. It gets used for all the wrong reasons. People quote it either thinking they are being encouraging, or to use it as a heat shield to keep on doing what they shouldn’t be doing. The first is preaching the law to the drowned man. The second is simply bad faith, or lack of faith. Luke’s version to me is turning the volume up to 11. And it does this for two reasons. The first should be as law applied against ourselves. Luke’s Jesus spells out how even sinners act. And we do. We also if we are being honest act worse. Jesus makes clear the meets minimum requirements of sinners. And we fall short. The second is the gospel reason. It makes clear the God we have. And the God we have does not act like us. The God we have is merciful. He loves his enemies, us.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Zechariah’s Song

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Luke 1:57-79

It is a short Advent Midweek season. Made shorter by our choosing to go caroling on a hay ride for Advent 3. So just a two sermon series. Which makes it perfect to meditate on the songs in Luke 1: Zechariah’s Song and Mary’s Song. This evening was Zechariah’s which is a nice summary of the old testament promises and how they are fulfilled in our hearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Seventy times Seven

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 18:21-35

Most of the parables tell us more about God – Father, Son or Spirit – than they do about us. The stuff they tell us about ourselves we already know, like that we are prone to insane double standards. Like, I never have to pay my debts, but you, pay it right now. What the parable of the unmerciful servant tells us is that staggering amount we have been forgiven by God, and how God did that while we were still trying the play the con on him.

The difficult thing that this sermon attempts however briefly to think about is what is demanded of disciples in this world. The radical forgiveness of Jesus is required of us for those within the church. That is Jesus’ answer to Peter, “seventy times seven”. That is the moral lesson of the parable. “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had on you?” To fellow disciples we must practice forgiveness. The question then extends to the world? And this is where you cross into the imitation of Christ. We are not the messiah. On the one hand radical forgiveness of the world is not required and may not be wise. On the other this is the model of Christ and it is an open and costly road. Such forgiveness as Christ is an act of faith that the Father repays.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Grace and Expectations

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Genesis: 4:1-16

Cain and Abel is one of the “Ur-Stories” of the world. Of course the first sibling rivalry ended in murder. You know it’s true. The question for me always was why? And the best answer that I can understand from the text is family expectation. Mom had expectations of Cain, that were not on Abel. This sermon spells out that case. It cleans up what I think is a “preacher story” about the difference in the offerings. Some preacher stories are made up to help the cause, but this one I think hurts it. And then it looks at how families are things of grace, and how our brother – Jesus – is the best brother’s keeper we could hope for.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today is Different (Easter)

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Isaiah 65:17-25

The inspirations for this sermon were the Isaiah text, Chrysostom’s Easter sermon and a common conversation we have in confirmation class on the distinction between mercy and grace. Easter is grace.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Kingdom of Grace

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 18:21-35

The Christian in called to live in two kingdoms at the same time. There are the kingdoms of the law. What we call the state is the typical representative of the Kingdom of the law. And in the Kingdom of the law the primary responsibility is Justice. Because this Kingdom is ruled indirectly by sinful humans (and fallen powers) justice isn’t always perfect, but that its responsibility. Christians also life in the Kingdom of Grace. And how we are called to live is thinking of the Kingdom of Grace as a millennium’s worth of work compared to the law’s as three months. Three months is a lot. Most of us don’t have three months in the bank. Three months is real. And legally we can demand it. But the Christian who wishes to reside in the Kingdom recognizes that those three months are as nothing compared to the 10,000 talents.

This is the way of the cross. The way of grace. Trusting that God’s justice is better than the best we could ever provide.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download