2023.10.1
Sermon for Steve Watson Renewal of Ordination Vows
Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. 3“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 4For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
6“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 8He has told you, O mortal, 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?
Context matters. Context always matters. Micah 6:8, this verse so often gets pulled out, plucked out. Bumper stickered onto a car, tattooed onto skin, and modern calligraphied on drift wood. And that’s fine. But, it sits in the context back and forth of the prophet and the people, the word of God in community and time.
Here in Chapter 6, the prophet Micah is giving an Oracle of Judgement. Listen to what the Lord is saying to the people of Israel. God is coming with the receipts of their deep history. This is what our God has done. Don’t you remember? Don’t you know where we’ve been? “For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and I redeemed you from the house of slavery” the Lord says in Verses 6:4.
Don’t you remember our ancestors?
As we come for this service of renewal of ordination vows, the prophet Micah engages in this practice of renewal by remembrance. Hear that again, Church. Renewal happens by remembrance. God lists out the ancestors who were sent to save the people: Moses, Aaron and Miriam.
God reminds the people of when God saved them from King Balak of Moab. It’s a family holiday and we’re sitting around the table story telling. Don’t you remember? Don’t you know where we’ve been? We cannot remember what we cannot name. Testify to what God has done, Micah begs. Remember who you are. Remember where you come from.
It’s a fascinating text. Creation itself is brought in to testify to God’s work. Verse 2 “2Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth;” But the people? Nah. They are so used to this exchange relationship, this commercial economy that all they can imagine is that God must want stuff to be appeased. They can only imagine that God wants burnt offerings and calves a year old. Or with thousands of rams, and with ten thousands of rivers of oil. The people are imagining bartering with God, offering up their “firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
It’s an escalation of goods. What about a burnt offering? How about a calf? Or a thousand rams? Or ten thousand rivers of oil?
And into that twisted economic logic of an angry God with offerings of sacrifice, the prophet Micah drops verse 8: I’ve told you what is good: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly.
That’s it.
Stop. Trying. To. Buy. My. Love.
It’s the parent on their birthday who says “I just want my children to get along.”
It’s the asylum seeker who just wants peace in their homeland.
It’s the child who just wants their family back together.
It’s God who just wants the people to do what is good.
But it’s so much easier to buy a scented candle than it is to walk humbly.
It’s so much easier to buy a quarter length zipper sweater than it is to love kindness.
It’s so much easier to last minute buy an Amazon gift card than it is to do justice.
But you know, and I know, that this Christian life isn’t about what is easier. It’s about what doing what is faithful- and trying to do it together.
And all this year, Church, all this year your church is asking you to remember what God has done for you at Reservoir. Who you are and where you have come from over these past 25 years. What God has done and is doing still.
We are here to bear witness to renew Pastor Steve’s ordination vows. And we made a choice to do it together. Not to do it in private because these ordination vows are not just about him. They are held in community. He is accountable to the community. In the best of the post-vangelical congregational, global anabapticostalgelical tradition or whatever you are, these vows don’t have meaning without the community.
I have the great privilege of serving as executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, which is a network of eighteen denominations. And we are trying to figure out next how you are a part of this, because you are very much a part. But the last denomination to join was the Coptic Orthodox Church. This Church traces their roots to Egypt, a North African community evangelized by St. Mark and in diaspora here. And their clergy are identified in a very particular way. The community and the bishop call forth their clergy from their faithful men. People don’t self-identify, but the community and the bishop do. A sort of spiritual tap on the shoulder as the community has need. So my friend who was a dentist was asked, and gently told “we have need of you.” He’s still my dentist, but he’s also Father Mina. And the priest out in St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church who went to UConn to train to be a pharmacist? Well Father Samuel is now priest of that parish and he’s also really good at math and science. This beautiful and ancient tradition of being called up and out of community, as the community has need, reminds me of you, Reservoir. Because these Ordination vows? They’re Pastor Steve’s primarily, but they’re not just his. They are held and they exist within this community. Called up, called out, held forth and held within.
Which is also the remarkable thing about Micah 6:8, You know what is good. What does the Lord require of you, O Mortal? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Put that verse back in the context, not of some individualistic piety, but in community. Put it back in the congregation. Take it off the hand painted sign and put it back with the people of Israel. Put it back in You plural, con Ustedes, in with “all ‘y’all.” Hear it in community. This is not some sort of individual treatment plan but the call of a worshipping community, to live justice in our interpersonal relationships, to love one another and to walk reverently in our worship.
It is so much harder and so much better, but it is what the Lord requires.
And maybe that’s why the Lord requires.
Amen.
RevEverett 