Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Richard Davenport January 29, 2023 - Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Micah 6:1-8 We all have those areas in our lives that we take a little more seriously, where we're a little more attentive to details. For some it might be their house, a place for everything and everything in its place. Everything is neat and tidy. For others it might be their work, making sure the work is all done to a high standard, going the extra step with clients to ensure their needs are met. Maybe its your hobby. I have some friends who paint miniatures for war games. Little metal figures maybe an 1.5" to 2" tall are painted with tiny brushes. They'll paint set of soldiers in a platoon, for instance, and each one will have every conceivable detail painstakingly rendered, down to the camouflage of the uniforms, the patches on the sleeves, the shadows cast by their hats or equipment and so forth, and each made unique, different hair color or other features. Whatever your particular areas are, I know I have mine. I'd like to think that if someone came to me with something I considered maybe not quite what I considered good, I'd like to think I'd be at least a little understanding. I know not everyone has the talents I do, just as I don't have the same talents everyone else does. I also know that I'm not always as understanding as I'd like to think. I suppose that's why it all gets frustrating when you deal with others who have nearly impossible standards. I had a professor at seminary who taught Hebrew and the Old Testament. The man eats, sleeps, and breathes Hebrew. He's made it his mission to memorize as much of the Old Testament as he can in Hebrew. I'm very glad we have people like that in the Lutheran church. The depth and clarity people like that can give us in what the original language contains helps to reveal the richness of the text and explain it in ways we can't always get when all we have is the English. It was a joy to take his class and I learned a lot from it. I'm glad I had to learn to read Hebrew and Greek. It's not something I use all the time, but I'm glad I have the ability when I need to dig a little deeper to understand the nuances of a Bible passage that may not be as clear in the English. That said, while his classes were a delight, his exams were somewhat less enjoyable. He expected your mastery of Hebrew to be at least in the neighborhood of his. He wanted you to be able to just open the book and start reading. The translation part of his exams were a bit of a nightmare and, from what I knew, few people did well on them. It's frustrating knowing that even when you're trying you aren't measuring up to expectations. Sometimes you can decide it isn't worth it and leave it behind. I've dabbled in a lot of hobbies that I've come to realize might be fun, but I'm never going to very good at them. But that's ok. They're just hobbies and they won't make a major difference in my life one way or the other. Not everything is like that. Throwing up my hands and walking away from Hebrew means never being a pastor. That wasn't really an option. I was going to have to deal with it. I was going to have to fight through it. I didn't really have another choice unless I was going to give up what I was there to do and, given what I'd seen in my life recently, this was where I was supposed to be. Trying to please someone whose expectations are out of reach is always pretty demoralizing. You wonder, "Why even bother when I know I can't do what he's asking?" Maybe you can get some amount of recognition for your efforts, but you know you'll always be considered substandard. You'll always be dealing with a certain amount of scorn and treated as inept or as a slacker just didn't care to work hard enough to do the job to the proper way. That was definitely the experience I had with that professor throughout my time at seminary. How do you please someone that is determined to not be pleased? That seems to be the question faced by the Israelites of Micah's day. "What's going to make you happy, God?" is the question of the day. "How about burnt offerings? Is that what you're after?" Burnt offerings were one type of sacrifice that could be offered to God. Burnt offerings could be made of smaller animals, depending on how poor you were. The representative of Israel jumps right to one of the bigger animals and suggests more than one of them could be given as an offering. Burnt offerings were also a little different from other offerings in that no piece of it was reserved for the one who offered it. The whole offering was placed on the altar and burned, given to God. "Would it please you, God, if I gave several calves as burnt offerings?" If that's not enough, what more can I offer? Perhaps countless rams and even more countless quantities of oil could be given? Sounds like a bit of hyperbole. It doesn't really sound like a serious question, but we have seen this sort of thing at least once before. Back when King Solomon finished dedicating the temple, the sacrifices he offered were beyond counting. Perhaps it's only that kind of extravagance that God will approve of. It's almost the uttermost of what a person can possible give. A lifetime of hard work just might be able to achieve the kind of wealth necessary to make this offering. "Is this the level you demand, Lord? Is this the only kind of effort that's acceptable to you?" The representative figures even that probably won't be enough. There's one last option. Calves, rams, oil, these are all things out there. Giving them away might hurt me financially, but I don't have any personal attachment to them. "Will child sacrifice be acceptable to you, God? There's nothing I can give that's dearer to me than that. If that kind of sacrifice isn't enough, then I truly am out of luck." The one speaking on behalf of Israel seems to be at a loss. Child sacrifice was expressly forbidden by God and carried a death sentence. But, perhaps that's how out of reach God's requirements are. God has made it flatly impossible to please him. Backing up to the beginning, it sounds like this issue has been there for a while. People have been grumbling and complaining. God wants to know what he has done that has frustrated them so completely. I can relate to the people of Israel questioning how much they have to do. What will it take to make someone happy? It's bad enough when you're talking about some random person, but God is a whole other matter. "I keep my nose clean, God. I don't get involved with that bad crowd. There was that lady that was flirting with me that other day but I told her firmly, 'No.' I pay my taxes without too much complaining. I put in my hours at work. I do the housework that needs doing. I donate to charities. I check in on my parents periodically. I've been helping my brother manage the rough patch he's going through. For all of that, it still seems like I can't catch a break. I keep getting beat down. Nothing seems to go right. Everything is a struggle. My family and I are under a lot of stress and it never seems to let up. Clearly I'm not measuring up to what God wants. He's mad at me for something or he's looking down his nose at me because I just can't get it right. If I can't ever make him happy, then what's the point? Why bother talking to him? Why bother asking him for help? Why bother doing anything for him at all when it will never be enough?" God asking the Israelites why they're so frazzled comes off almost comical. I can picture myself back in my class. I can almost hear my professor's bemused voice saying, "Just learn to read Hebrew fluently and you'll be fine!" Thankfully, he never quite said that, but it certainly felt like the expectation. Hearing God talk like that would be equally infuriating. It's no wonder the Israelites have no idea what to do here. In this case, God is completely correct. The Israelites may be wondering what they have to offer. They may try ever more exorbitant offerings in an attempt to please God and they will find God isn't pleased with any of them. As those of us who consider ourselves God's people will so often do, we come up with our own ideas of what God wants. "God likes it when people are good. So I'm going to be good." Except that we end up determining what counts as good, instead of God. Then we have the nerve to blame him for not accepting what we've done. Does God care that you put in hours at work? Does God care whether you check in on our parents or all of the other things you do in a day? Yes, most certainly. God is concerned with what you do, but he is also concerned with how you do it. God, through the prophet Micah, points out that, while the Israelites may have been giving offerings, what was in their heart wasn't up to God's standards. By doing what they thought was acceptable, they also thought to avoid having to do what God actually expected. God is not pleased when you make up your own rules. God reminds them what he has asked for. Doing your chores, offering things to God, spending time with other people, the actions, along with the justice, kindness, and humility and all of the rest all find their source in God and trusting in him above all things. Listening to his Word, trusting his guidance, his rules, his plans for you and for creation. We love holding on to our pride, standing tall on all we've done, or at least tried to do, we love playing the victims, thinking that will somehow get us the right to expect good treatment from God. But God is vindicated by his actions. His constant care for complainers, grumblers, and whiners, whose pride demands they stand before God and claim some kind of restitution is more than any of us have a right to expect. Yet, God lists just a few of the ways he has shown his love to an undeserving people. He could throw up his hands at our disregard for his gifts, for his love, but he doesn't. His love for us is such that he continues to try to reach out to us, to show us what is good and right and what is something we've just made up in our own heads. Walking humbly before him and acknowledging our wrong, our refusal to listen, our refusal to accept, our desire to dictate the terms of our own righteousness is where we find forgiveness. The irony is that the speaker asks about progressively bigger and bigger offerings, culminating with the ultimate offering, his own child, as if to say there is nothing bigger to offer. Yet, this is exactly what the Father offered to redeem you from slavery. He gives his own Son as payment, the biggest payment he could make. Looking back over the list of what God has done throughout history and in our own lives, a list that's longer than we can comprehend, instead of criticizing God, we should be humbly asking his forgiveness and giving thanks for all that he has done for us, even to the point of offering his own Son that we may be saved from eternal death. We look at how God has treated us with undeserved kindness, how he has been more than fair with us and we look to what he would have us do in response. Continue in that humility throughout your life. Share that same kindness with others. Bring justice to the world by curbing those who do evil, no matter who they are. Any actions that are driven by a trust in God and a desire to live these out will be seen and favored by God. Not because the actions themselves are good, but because they are carried with the knowledge that God is in control and knows what's best. Because of sin, each day is a day we have a remember and re-learn what our lives should look like. Thankfully, because God has given his Son for us, we have the chance to start each day with a clean slate, forgiven and renewed. So go, knowing you are forgiven and knowing what God says is good. Know that God is working with you and through you to bring kindness, justice, and humility into the world that the world may see what God has given to redeem it.