Themecasting

What do you think are some of the greatest fears we have about God? [ASK]

I’m drawn to prophets in the bible, even though they lead me right in to some of my greatest fears about God.

About the worst thing I can imagine is a God who is angry with me and with humanity.

But in the books of the bible known as the prophets, God sometimes does come across as angry: he lists the sins of his people, speaks out judgment, stomps on mountains and raises up valleys. In the prophets, and in Micah in particular, I see some of my greatest fears about God right there in black and white.

The word “prophet” itself brings all kinds of things to mind.

What are some things we associate with the word “prophet”? [ASK]

Predicting the future is often the first thing to come to mind, yet it is not the first thing in the “job description” of the biblical prophets. Biblical prophets are ones who speak for God; they speak God’s truth about the world, often challenging the status quo, challenging us to see the world differently, to see it as God does.

Justice, right living...the fact that God’s concerns are different than the concerns of people…these are some of the major themes we read in the biblical prophets.

And here is where some of my greatest fears come to the surface.

Because God is concerned for justice and right living, because God will not stand off to one side as a dispassionate observer of the world, the words which prophets speak on God’s behalf sometimes are words of anger and judgment and condemnation.

Those in positions of authority and power in Israel and Judah–the kings, the wealthy, the priests–often lived in ways that kept them in power at the expense of the poor. In fact, the wonderfully intimate and close relationship God initiated with his people became something which many took for granted…especially those in positions of power.

A huge danger is to view God as distant and disconnected from the world. When God becomes familiar and predictable, life remains status quo. Those in positions of leadership and power are the ones who desire for the status quo to continue, who would prefer God keep things running as they are, quietly and predictably and out of sight.

But this is not the kind of God we serve!

God is intimately connected with his creation. God cares about what happens to ALL people, not just those in positions of leadership and power. The prophets spoke as outsiders, bringing the voice of a passionate and involved God to those “insiders” in the power circles. And the words they spoke were words of judgment, as well as words of hope in a righteous God.

I thought this week about what I give up, if I want to eliminate the possibility of a God who is angry. Of course I don’t want God to be angry with me; of course I would much prefer to live in a world in which God was never angry and always loving.

But what would I have to give up in order to believe in a non-angry God?

I would have to give up on God’s intimacy. To not be angry means to not care; an un-angry God would have to be apathetic.

I would have to give up on God’s goodness. To not be angry over the actions of people in this world means to give up any sense of right or wrong, justice or injustice.

I would have to give up on God’s power. To not have God be angry might imply God is powerless to do anything about the things in our world which deserve anger.

Perhaps there are things I should fear more than an angry God.

Perhaps I should fear a distant God, without the power to act in an evil world. Perhaps I should fear a controllable God, who stays calm in the face of injustice. Perhaps I should fear a silent God, who doesn’t care enough to speak to me or to us when we go down a wrong path.

In the prophets, it is impossible to find a distant, controllable, silent God.

With all of the struggles we have–and there really are struggles–with all the struggles we have in wrestling with and understanding the words of God through the prophets, one thing is absolutely clear.

God is alive, passionate, powerful, and involved in the world in which you and I live. We are not alone! Let’s continue listening for God’s voice in our worship.

Try and imagine what it was like for the people of Judah and Israel when Micah’s words were first received from God.

To do that, I’ve thought this week about how to translate the world situation of Micah’s time into our time and place. Imagine that we, in Newberg, are like Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah. Imagine we are the capital of the United States, and that we have an even closer tie with Canada than we currently do. Imagine that they are related to us by a common history and even strong family and ethnic connections.

In that world where Newberg is capital of the United States, we turn on the television, and we see bombs and armies and machine guns of some foreign land, attacking Canada, closing in and laying siege to the capital city. It’s a foreign army of huge strength, able to destroy our own army in the blink of an eye. Imagine the fear we would have, knowing that a simple line on a map is all that lies between us and Canada, a line that this foreign army has no fear of crossing.

Now imagine that the capital of Canada is not as far away as Ottawa. It’s not even as far away as Vancouver B.C. No, the armies we are watching around the capital city of our sister country to the north are encamped around Vancouver, Washington, 35 miles away.

35 miles as the bird flies.

That’s the distance between Vancouver, Washington and us here in Newberg. It happens to be the same distance between Jerusalem, the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah, and Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. This gives us a picture of what it would have felt like to live in Micah’s time.

My life and your life would be in total chaos and fear. How could be happening? How could our brothers and sisters to the north be on the edge of extinction? What will keep us from suffering the same fate?

For Judah and Israel, they had added confusion: for centuries, they had believed that the God of the universe had miraculously provided this land for them, that God was constantly their protector. How could this destruction and overthrow by a foreign power be possible? Where is God?

Times of crisis cause most of us to cry out in anger or desperation to God.

Where are you? Why is this happening? Help us, oh God! We want a word of hope from God, a sign that it will all work out, that God will heal and restore us. We want to know that we have not been forgotten, and that God is coming to our aid.

Picture this: out on a tractor on a small farm just outside of St. Paul is a man named Micah, bringing his questions and his fears to God.

Micah is a nobody. His family has been largely invisible to the world. But Micah hears from the God of the universe. Sitting under the open sky on his insignificant farm, unknown and unheeded, Micah begins to get visions of clarity from God.

They are not the visions Micah probably wished to have.

But God’s hand is on Micah, God’s hand pushes Micah to bring powerful words to the centers of power. Micah has scathing words to deliver to the people and the rulers of Newberg and Vancouver. It is time for Micah of St. Paul to speak truth to power in the capital cities.

I can’t quite imagine what that would feel like. I can’t quite wrap my mind around a huge national crisis, right here, and having the God of the universe ask me, a nobody from St. Paul, to speak strong words to kings and priests and people.

Why not use someone more in the inner circles, someone more in power? Whether Micah knew it or not, God was also speaking to an “insider”, to Isaiah who was a player in the courts of the southern kingdom.

But over a period of years, a period of great turmoil and crisis, this is what it would have been like for “nobody” Micah. God spoke clearly to him, and sent him to speak strong words of truth to those in power.

Open your bibles to Micah 1:1, page ­­­­_____ in the bibles in front of you.

[READ Micah 1:1-4 from NIV]

With crystal clear confidence and powerful poise, Micah reminds all in Judah and Israel, from the highest places on the social and political ladder to the lowest, that God most definitely has NOT forgotten Israel and Judah.

These armies that threaten are not there because God is weak or silent or has forgotten them. No!

These threatening armies are the sign of God’s case against you. He is opening a lawsuit against you, he is suing you over your breach of contract. All the earth is called to witness, to watch as God comes striding to earth in front of our eyes.

Nothing stands against the power of God. He is not blind, he is not silent, he is not far off and aloof. God comes, and the shaking of his footsteps causes all human power to quake before him.

Those high places of worship that are an open rejection of God, a sign of your trust in other gods?

His feet crush every one of those high places, they all melt like wax before him. God himself comes to show his power.

In fact, the very places that all of you think are so sacred, so holy, the very centers of what you think is God’s righteous chosen kingdom…those very centers of Samaria and Jerusalem are nothing more than evil high places that God himself will destroy and set aside.

To those in power, to those invested in the status quo, there could be no worse news imaginable than this. Micah is speaking words about the future that will come true, but he is doing something much more significant. The words of Micah the prophet are re-configuring the way that Israel and Judah think about themselves and their relationship with God.

Everything is being turned upon its head. Holy places become high places, the worst places of idolatry. God comes in power, not to save Israel and Judah, but to condemn and destroy them…because they are wicked beyond belief and have turned their backs on God. [READ 1:5]

Even though, as we’ve seen in our quick journey through the book of Kings, even though Israel and Judah long ago gave up doing the things God asked them to do, they still hold on to the good parts of their belief in Yahweh.

They still think they are the chosen people, unable to be destroyed.

The truth that Micah and the other prophets have to speak to them is the truth of how God really sees their relationship. It isn’t ok to worship like everyone around them does. It isn’t ok to wheel and deal and try to appease the other nations, to take things into their own hands.

It isn’t ok to ignore God’s clear guidance about justice and caring for the poor among you. It isn’t ok to presume upon God’s favor while you lie and cheat and steal and take advantage of your positions of power.

My promise to make you my people, says God, does not mean you have the right to ignore me and cheat the poor. Micah and the other prophets radically challenge and reshape what Israel and Judah come to expect from their relationship with God.

People in authority ought to fear prophets.

The world is in such a mess that anyone who has a voice, anyone with power in the status quo world, has every reason to expect that the prophetic voice of God will not be a good one to hear for those in power.

If we want to be God’s people, God’s church…then we would do well to listen for the outsider’s challenge. We would do well to listen for the voice of God speaking for justice and right living.

We would do well to refuse to let ourselves slip into thinking of God as confined, predictable, figured out, or domesticated. We who are in positions of leadership and power…me, as a pastor…ought to fear what God has to say through the prophets.

But the world of pain and suffering and oppression cries out for this mountain-melting God!

I think more than anything, this is what I am longing for in my life. I know some of you have prayed for eyes that see the world like Jesus does. I’ve learned from many of you to long for God to come in power in the world.

I want to listen to Micah.

I want to know this God who cares so much about creation and the people in it that he comes in power and wonder, smashing mountains and melting the earth.

I want to know and serve this God who can effortlessly break injustice, that is not powerless in the face of evil. I want to know and serve this God who is not silent, but who wants my view of the word to be radically reshaped according to the power of his majestic voice.

I want to make myself available to be a Micah.

I want to have my fears and questions draw me to look to God for the answers. I want to hear from God, and let him answer my questions in God’s way, not my way.

I want to let God re-shape the way I see the world, even if that means I don’t have things figured out the way I thought I did, even if it means scary things for the things I’ve invested my life in.

I want to make myself available to speak boldly and loudly, to be stretched out of my small farming comfort zone and speak truth to the power centers of our world and our day.

I want to know and serve and be loved by this powerful, scary, unpredictably loving God!

Because, as we will see on our journey through Micah, by no means is God only speaking wrath and judgment. Not at all!

When we allow GOD to remake our world and the way we view it, when we allow God’s strong words for justice challenge us and reshape us…then we are also in a place to hear unbelievable words of hope and transformation as well.

Our journey through Micah is going to border on the edge of scariness all the way through. And if we are brave enough to look for the embrace of God in the scariness, we will find the wild reality of an uncontrollable God.

Let God be God! Let God be who God is! May we be willing, in this time of open worship, be willing to listen to whatever the God of the universe speaks to us.

God is not silent. God is not powerless. Each Sunday in open worship, we celebrate that truth in open worship. Invite God to show himself to you.