Hugh Hamilton Trinity Presbyterian Church Pensacola, FL January 29, "WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE? " Micah 6:1-8 Matthew 5:13-15

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1 Hugh Hamilton Trinity Presbyterian Church Pensacola, FL January 29, 2017 "WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE? " Micah 6:1-8 Matthew 5:13-15 Do you remember telephone booths? Do we still have and use telephone booths? Seems to me that cell phones have replaced telephone booths. Back in the 1990 s, when we still used telephone booths, Mason Zelazny invented and installed in West Texas nightclubs sound-proof "What's Your Excuse?" phone booths. The booths allowed you to choose one of 15 recorded sound effects to accompany your phone call. You inserted your money, pushed a button, and got two minutes of realistic background sound to accompany your alibi. "Honey, I'll be a little late, I'm at the auto shop"-- or the police station, or the truck stop, or the airport. Zelazny said the idea came to him when he and a buddy were discussing the hassle it is to explain to someone why you're going to be late for an appointment. He invented and got rich off this sound effects phone booth to help you substantiate your excuse! In Micah, chapter 6, God brings charges against his disobedient people that they have broken their covenant with him and he demands an answer. God wants answers, not excuses. God reminds them how good and faithful He had been to them, how He had kept his covenant with them (v.3), and asks how they could so ignore him and disobey Him. God hates their unkindness, idolatry, injustice, and empty ritual. The people, feeling guilty and having no excuses, and hoping to avoid punishment, ask how they can please God and get back in his good graces. Sheepishly they ask will burnt offerings do the trick? (v.6-7) That's our nature isn't it? We try to get back in someone's good graces with some promised favor or service or some material offering. But that s not what God wants, is it? What does God want in return for his mercies? Verse 8 - "He has shown you what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8). But this isn t a checklist: Justice? - Got it. Kindness? - Working on it. Walk humbly? -Sometimes. We can t check off the items and earn brownie points, nor can we excuse ourselves by singing the lyric from Meat Loaf s pop song Two out of three ain t bad. We need all three. God expects all three. God wants us to live out our relationship with Him in our conduct with others at home, at school, at work. Can we meet the requirements? Let s start with the call to love kindness. Kindness is a basic requirement of all religions. It's the Golden Rule: treat other people as you would like to be treated. All good religion begins here. Though we can't agree on everything or get along with everybody, we can at least treat each other respectfully, with simple human kindness. But Jesus puts no limits on our kindness. He told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. We are to show love and mercy even toward folks that we don't think deserve it. Remember, God poured out his love and forgiveness on us when we were undeserving!

2 What Does The Lord Require of You? p2 Sometimes our kindness is returned and we are rewarded. Other times it is not; folks remain cold and harsh against us; they reject us or rebuke us. Still we must extend kindness lest we become like them. Part of kindness is willing to forgive others their offenses against us, their slights of us, their criticisms of us, in order to move on to better things. If you were given a dollar for every kind word or deed you said or did, and then had to give back fifty cents for your every unkind word or deed, would you be rich or poor? God requires us to love kindness and to do justice. Justice is a much larger and more complicated concept than kindness. Justice is rendering unto others what is due them; and what is due them according to God s will, not according to our wishes. Justice is doing what is right, even if we don t like it, even if it is hard. No concept is more Christian or more American than justice! But no concept is harder on us, more demanding of us. A dear minister friend of mine observed that I tended help others out of compassion, not out of justice. What's the difference? Compassion moves me to help people, but it doesn t compel me to change the system that keeps them poor or disadvantaged. My kindness keeps them obliged to me. JUSTICE, on the other hand, demands that that I do what is right simply because it is right, and they deserve what I gave them, and more. Justice might well mean that I give up some of my power so that these people don't remain obliged to me. Compassion compels me, Justice challenges me. Do you ever wrestle that tension? Society shows a disturbing trend --to concern ourselves only with our own needs and our own desires and to shut out the rest of the world to fend for themselves. Forty years ago the big selling magazine was LIFE, and it chronicled everything and everyone. Then came PEOPLE magazine. Then came US magazine. No longer are we dealing with all life, or all people, we are only dealing with us. What will come next ME magazine? Knowing that our lives have been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, how can we consciously remain inward-focused? God so loved the world that he gave his only son to die for all of us. Jesus cared more about us than he did about himself. If our response is to disengage ourselves from the world, enclose ourselves in our private little cocoon, fat and sassy while others are skinny and scared and have no home, if we're content to let the rest of the world go by, we are in trouble. I don't have answers to the world's problems, and sometimes I don't want to wrestle with them. Do you ever feel that way? But we can t isolate ourselves or insulate ourselves from the world. Why not? Because, what good is salt that has lost its flavor and is never used? What good is a lamp hidden under a basket when around us are people desperately hoping that we will find them and help them? But put a lamp on the lamp post and purify the world with salt -- now we're getting somewhere. Now we're fulfilling our nature and our purpose; being and doing what we were created to be and to do!

3 What Does The Lord Require of You? p3 We are salt, put here to purify the world, to add vitality to the world, to bring joy and hope and healing to the world. We are here to make a difference in our world, to improve our world, to bring our world to Christ! Where you live and work and play, lying and cheating and harassment and bullying others should be harder because YOU are there! Honesty and fair dealing should be the norm because YOU are there! Gross thoughts and filthy speech ought not be tolerated, because YOU are there! Higher standards and fairness ought to be the norm because YOU are there! Selfishness and egotism should not be tolerated, because You are there as a child of God to set the example, to raise the standards! When I served a church in Tennessee years ago I was at a civic luncheon when one of our church Elders told racist jokes. I was offended enough that I interrupted him and said, Please don t tell jokes like that. He shot me a look across the table and we had a few awkward moments. Later, he called me at the church and apologized, admitted that he shouldn t tell jokes like that. As we were leaving the luncheon two others at the table thanked me for speaking up, saying that they wanted to say something but were afraid to challenge the man in front of the group. One day, in some form or another, it can be you who speaks up at the table and takes a stand for goodness. We are salt of the earth, called to do justice. Doing justice is more complicated than loving kindness and it is harder -- but it is equally a part of Christian witness. God requires one more thing we are to walk humbly with our God. Comedian Bob Hope was accepting a plaque at an honorary dinner. He listened as his many contributions to humanity were lauded. When it was his turn to speak, he said that he had stopped letting such honors go to his head. "I just got a call from a fellow who said I'd been named Man of the Year by his organization," Hope said, "because I was America's outstanding citizen, greatest humanitarian, and so forth. It was going to be the biggest dinner, biggest civil reception ever. I told him I was sorry, but I was going to be tied up that night. There was a short pause. Then the caller said, By any chance would you have Red Skelton's phone number?'" An Episcopal priest was asked by a high school class in Cambridge, Maryland, to deliver the graduation sermon. Afterwards he spoke of the invitation as one of the truly significant moments of his ministry. Little did he know that students made the selection by picking a Sunday to attend a number of churches and to time the sermons. The minister who gave the shortest sermon was chosen to deliver the graduation sermon! Some honor! We like people with genuine humility. We dislike people with an inflated ego. "EGO" has been defined as E-G-O; "Edging God Out." Humility brings God back in to our lives. Humility is swallowing your pride and surrendering your life to God because you realize how sinful you are and that there is no way you can earn and demand God s forgiveness and reconciliation. NO burnt offering can satisfy God s holiness and make things right between us and God -- only God can reconcile us to him --and he has done that in Jesus Christ. Only by God s kindness can we be in relationship with him only by God satisfying his own justice are we now free to be in good graces with him, hence our need to walk humbly with God. The Apostle Paul declares in

4 What Does The Lord Require of You? p4 Ephesians 2:8, "by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" So let no one boast. I Peter 5:5 says God resists the proud but give grace to the humble. Humility makes you more powerful and effective. You become more concerned with helping others and getting the job done that with gaining credit and recognition. You take pride in your abilities and service while crediting God as the source of your power and inspiration. You don t think less of yourself; you think of yourself less often. If you have been to Birmingham, AL, you ve seen the giant iron statue of Vulcan on top of Red Mountain overlooking Birmingham. Vulcan, the god of fire, is symbolic of the great iron mills there. In a small park in downtown Birmingham at Five Points South is another statue - a white marble statue of the figure of a little man on his knees in prayer, his face turned up to heaven. Brother Bryan was the pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in the early 1900s and he was often seen kneeling on a street corner praying hand in hand with someone in need. He struggled for civil rights and racial reconciliation in Birmingham, but he is best remembered for his tireless efforts to help the poor and homeless. He would often arrive home at night without his overcoat because he had given it away to a stranger during the day. A bronze plaque below the statue reads: "Fervent in prayer, consecrated in life, sympathetic in counsel, friend of the friendless, the sorrowing, the poor and the rich: He went about doing good." When he died in 1941, businesses closed, flags were hung at half-mast, and the city wept in sorrow. Some friends thought to honor Brother Bryan with the statue, but because of his humility feared that he might object to being honored with a statue. When he was shown the sculpture, he reassured them, saying "It will be out there fighting the devil when I'm gone." It has been said, "When the statue of Vulcan is tumbled to dust, and Red Mountain is worn flat, the witness and work of Brother Bryan will remain." That is the kind of salty characters our world needs. That's the kind of light that reveals God's goodness to others in need and gives them hope. How may you be salt? How may you let your light shine? Love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with your God. You will be amazed at the good work God will help you to do! Amen!

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