Sermon for Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026
Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12
(Readings for Epiphany 4 switched with Epiphany 3)
Eight days ago, dozens of us joined dozens
of folks from St. James Methodist to offer the Free Store, now a twice-a-year
event where anyone can come for a hot meal and the chance to shop for things we
all need. At this time of year, that
means warm coats, boots, gloves, hats, socks – the basics I take for
granted. It’s a tremendous thing to
provide that hot meal and some essentials of life for 325 people on a cold
morning. But it’s a good thing for me,
too – a chance for God to form my mind a little more fully into the mind of
Christ. Just recently, I realized my
winter coat was ripping out after a decade’s use, so I pulled out my phone,
ordered one online, and had it delivered to my door. That’s my life. And it’s good for me to remember it’s not
the life of thousands of neighbors of mine.
In fact, I had a brief conversation with a
young woman at the Free Store waiting for breakfast. She asked about what was in the next room,
where the clothes were – most important, did they have boots? Now, this young woman had a disability in at
least one of her legs, which made walking hard in any case. And she stuck out her twisted ankle to show
me what she was wearing that frigid morning – very old bedroom slippers. She said, with masterful understatement, “I
kinda need some new shoes.” I told her we
did have boots, and I silently prayed there were still some left at that point
in the morning.
It’s good to remember that my life is not
the life of thousands of neighbors of mine.
In fact, it’s not just good. It’s
holy. To practice God’s justice, we have
to see the other not as the other but as a child of God.
God’s justice … now there’s a rich
concept. We heard it in the first
reading this morning, those famous words of the prophet Micah. Let me set the stage a bit for this verse we
see on T-shirts and yard signs so we can know what was on the prophet’s mind.
Micah looks around at the Kingdom of Judah
about 700 BC, after the northern Kingdom of Israel had already fallen to the
Assyrians, and Micah sees a clear throughline.
Both these Jewish kingdoms have failed to keep the covenant they’d made
with Yahweh. God freed them from the
Egyptians, gave them this land, and asked the people for their exclusive
loyalty. Although the answer at first
was a hearty “yes,” the people eventually said, “No, thanks. We’ll worship you when it’s convenient, but
there are lots of other cool gods out there, too.”
So, speaking for God, Micah plays the role
of prosecutor and judge, making the case against the remaining Kingdom of Judah
and basically saying, Justify yourself!
Through the prophet, God says, “What have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!” (6:3) Micah then imagines how the people would
respond. What is it God wants,
anyway? Burnt offerings of calves and
rams? Maybe child sacrifice, like some
other cultures? No, Micah exclaims. God “has told you … what is good” – your
allegiance, expressed in action. “[W]hat
does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to
walk humbly with your God?” (6:8)
There’s that word … justice. What is it to “do justice”? In our culture, we think of it as following
and enforcing the law, and there’s truth in that. Our “justice system,” on its best days,
strives to accomplish that goal. But
God’s justice is broader than that.
God’s justice is what it looks like when we live out the social order
God desires. And what is that? Well, it does include punishment for
wrongdoing, but it doesn’t stop there.
God’s justice applies to all of human interaction. It includes intentionally caring for the
vulnerable rather than assuming it’s someone else’s responsibility. It includes ensuring that resources are
accessible to all – not necessarily that everyone has the same but that everyone
has access to what they need. It
presumes that these conditions are the responsibility of the community, not
compartmentalized as a function of religion or a government department – but that
the community is responsible for the community’s wholeness and right
relationship with God. And why would God
expect all this? Because a right
relationship with God would reflect God’s own nature, which is Love.1
So, if justice is how we express divine
Love, then maybe, at the end of the day, justice depends on how you regard the
other. And to regard the other
righteously, in a way that reflects the Love that God is, then you actually
have to see the other.
From Micah’s call to do justice, our
readings take us to Jesus’ vision of justice lived out in a broken world. The Beatitudes sketch the life of the disciple
community, an alternative community – what “God’s empire” would look like in
contrast to the Roman Empire.2 This series of nine blessings comes in two
parts. The first four raise up those who
are disheartened – the folks who probably just want to give up because the
Romans and the complicit religious authorities deplete their spirits, cause
them grief, make them doubt their capacity, and make them yearn for a society
that is in right relationship with God. But in a culture that values wealth and power,
God blesses those who are out of resources and out of options, a process that
Jesus has begun.3 Then Jesus
goes on to describe the way of life for his followers, in contrast to the
Romans and the religious leaders. It’s a
life of practicing mercy, practicing right relationship, and making peace,
despite the harsh consequences. As one
scholar says, “Persecution is inevitable when the powerful elite are
challenged,” but “God rewards faithfulness.”4
So, how do we learn to live this
way? How do we learn to do justice – to
practice mercy, right relationship, and peace? I think it starts by seeing the other not as
“them” but as “us.” And, it turns out,
we have a place to practice doing that six days a week.
Last Sunday, parishioner Craig Lundgren
shared that our Brew Crew, the baristas who serve at HJ’s Café, have logged
10,000 hours welcoming all sorts and conditions of people for coffee. Now, for the church as an organization, and
for the baristas, and for Sarah Tepikian, our staff member at HJ’s, this is not
easy. We’ve had to put up signs at HJ’s
saying you can’t lie down here or get into fights. We’ve had to employ security, just as we do on
this side of the street on Sunday mornings. But a beautiful “both/and” happens there. On any given day at HJ’s, you’ll find Trolley
Trail bikers and hikers, members of community groups, and folks looking for a
place to stay warm. And on Fridays, we
see maybe the best expression of the community that HJ’s invites when neighbors
of all kinds gather to play music and drink coffee and sing together. The tremendously cool thing is that no one at
the church organized this. It’s not a
ministry. It’s the Spirit’s work, an
inbreaking of the reign and rule of God. And when it happens, you see the other as
being just a little bit more like you.
Practicing God’s contrast kingdom of
mercy, right relationship, and peace – it’s the hardest work there is. It isn’t sweetness and light; it’s messy,
inconvenient, and disruptive. Sometimes,
it even spills out into the streets, as we saw on Friday. In Minneapolis, thousands of Minnesotans
turned out that day, in weather colder than ours, to express their outrage
about the government’s tactics in apprehending people who may have broken
immigration laws. Now, some will argue
that those people in the streets were just agitators looking to discredit the
government and disrupt authority. I’m
sure you could find some people in Minneapolis who would fit that description. But I know that thousands of others are like
my friend Kathy, a priest who lives there. She’s a few years older than I am – a mom and
grandma who makes the best bars you’ll ever eat. And she braved those frigid temperatures to
stand for God’s justice. Mtr. Kathy, and
thousands more people with otherwise boring, normal lives, looked at the way
their government is treating the other, and they saw a disconnect between God’s
justice and the application of law.
And then, yesterday, as the protests in
Minneapolis continued, a confrontation turned deadly, with ICE agents using
lethal force. This second killing of a
Minneapolis protester will continue to be analyzed deeply and, God willing, an
investigation will reveal truth. But, at
the end of the day, people will believe what they see more than what they’re
told. In any event, I think it’s safe to
say that othering can have even fatal consequences.
Interestingly, on the same Friday as the
Minneapolis protest but half a country away, the 53rd annual March
for Life took place in Washington, where a very different crowd of protesters
also saw a disconnect between God’s justice and the government’s policies. Now, I don’t know anyone personally who went
to the March for Life, but I imagine they’d consider abortion to be something
that fails to care for the vulnerable and therefore denies the justice of God. They look at a fetus, or even an embryo, and
see a person. Now, half of you hearing
this will say they’re right, and half of you hearing this will say they’re
wrong. But, once again, justice comes
down to personhood – on the topic of abortion, the question of
personhood. And if it’s a person there
in front of you, the requirement for God’s justice pertains.
I certainly can’t solve the personhood
question related to abortion, and I won’t try. But I think it’s surprising that a core
Christian principle may have been motivating protesters at both rallies on
Friday: the call to stand in contrast to a culture that dehumanizes people made
in the divine image and likeness.
What do we do with that? My point isn’t whether the two rallies were morally equivalent. My point is that we each have to ask ourselves, “Who’s the other to me? Is that other as fully human as I am?” If the answer is “yes,” then we have work to do to see that other the way God sees them: fully human, broken and beloved, and worthy of being taken just as seriously as we’d take any other child of God.
1.
Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, 1127.
2.
New International Study Bible, 1754 (note).
3.
Ibid.
4.
Ibid.
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