The Journey Continues…
with Rev. Laura Sherwood
September 3, 2023
Pastor Laura introduces the theme of Journey for the new Interim time with help from the Prophet Micah who says we are to walk humbly with our God. Walking with God is living with God, knowing that God is always with us in relationship.
The Scripture
Matthew 16:21-28
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Micah 6:1-8
Listen to what the Lord says:
“Stand up, plead my case before the mountains;
let the hills hear what you have to say.
2 “Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation;
listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel.
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I burdened you? Answer me.
4 I brought you up out of Egypt
and redeemed you from the land of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you,
also Aaron and Miriam.
5 My people, remember
what Balak king of Moab plotted
and what Balaam son of Beor answered.
Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”
6 With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Read the Full Text
The Micah passage for today happens to be one of my all-time favorite passages in the Bible – especially the most known line in verse 8: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
In fact, I was given a beautiful piece of art when I graduated from seminary depicting these words and I have had it with me in every Church I’ve served – they are the first words I see when I walk into my office, wherever that may be, and whenever I’m in doubt or in need of inspiration, these words are an unending source of hope and direction.
Hope and Direction are what Micah was trying to give to the people of his faith community in their small town near Jerusalem about 6-700 years before Christ was born. They were seeing a lot of economic and social upheaval; the government officials were acting more and more in their own self-interest and the people were suffering. The faithful were finding it hard to stay faithful, to keep hope in the future – when they looked ahead all they could see was doom and gloom.
Finish reading
God’s prophet Micah brought them a message with two distinctly different but also inseparable sides to it. The first part of the message was about God – God was with them – God loved them – God would never leave their side – they still had every reason to have hope.
The second part of the message was about them. They had a responsibility to God to keep going and to look for how God was leading them. They would never find their direction in this difficult time if they did not keep walking and moving forward – this is how they would hold on to their hope.
In most of the reading, Micah is acknowledging the hardships they are suffering – he knows what they’re going through, he’s going through it, too. He understands that they are frustrated and in despair and that they want to just cry out.
He tells them to go ahead, to cry out to God about what they’re feeling. Then he goes on to remind them that God is not only there to hear their cry, God has always been there with them. Micah starts listing specific ways God has walked with them, specific things God has done for them, not only in their own lives as a congregation but in the entire history of the broader faith community. Micah wants them to look at their present difficulties in the greater perspective of their whole journey with God.
He is confident that when they look at things this way, they will be able to see more than just what is in front of them now, and will be able to start looking ahead because of how God has been with them in the past all the way to the present moment. Micah anticipates that as they remember all that God has done with them and through them they will want to know how best to respond to God.
Shall we amp up our worship? Shall we make our praises louder? Shall we sacrifice more at the altar? What can we do to show our thanks to God? And the underlying question – what can we do so that we can see what’s ahead and what direction to take? What does the Lord require of us to make this happen?
Micah’s answer has nothing to do with the style of their worship, the volume of their praise, or the quantity of their sacrifices – instead he tells them about how God wants them to live: in kindness, in pursuit of justice especially for those who are suffering much more than they are. He tells them to walk humbly with their God.
What does the Lord require of you? Micah asks and answers. Keep walking in faith, keep walking in kindness to others, keep walking with eyes open to those who are hurting, keep walking and living the way God has walked and lived with you.
Our overarching theme for this new Interim time is: Journey. Micah’s choice of the word “walk” brings to mind a path or a journey. When we talk about walking with God, we mean on the greater path of our lives – walking with God is living with God, knowing that God is always with us in relationship.
Micah adds a clarifying descriptor – we are to walk humbly with God. One commentator suggests that humbly, in this case, really means attentively. We are to pay attention as we walk and live with God. Pay attention to what God has done – in our lives and in the full spectrum of time, attention to the fact that God is walking with us right now. Attention to others who are also walking with us, those along the path as we go, attention to their needs and how we might be called to respond.
Micah speaks words to inspire hope and give direction to every faith community. Hope because of what God has done and because God is with us still. Direction that is revealed when we respond to hope.
Micah could have been an Interim Pastor. He knew that when we as a people are faced with unwanted change, with difficulties, when we are faced with the unknown, as we are right now – he knew that one of our first instincts is to stop, to look for the clear way out or forward before we risk moving again.
It is hardest to walk forward when you can’t see what’s ahead. Micah tells us that is precisely when we need to keep walking because no matter what, God is in what’s ahead, God has more in store for us. How do we know this? Because of what God has already done and always done – not just in our own lives, not just in the life of the First Presbyterian congregation in Arlington Heights, but in the life of all the faithful in every time.
Our direction comes when we keep walking with hope in the God who is bigger than the present and the past, when we pay attention to the gifts God has given us to share and where they are needed. Direction comes when we keep walking as people of faith, living in response to God’s Call – just as we have always done.
There’s a wonderful practice I have experienced with different churches over the years, that we might try here at the beginning of next year. The practice coincides with Epiphany – when wise people from the East were guided by the light of a star, which revealed Jesus to them. Reveal is the literal meaning of epiphany.
This event is one day on the Church calendar, but those wise people from the East traveled a very long time over much terrain before they found where the star was leading them. They trusted that God was showing them the way when they didn’t know where they were going or even what exactly they would find when they got there. I’m sure they had many moments of doubt on their journey, times when they wanted to just stop or even turn back. I wonder if they read the scripture from Micah for inspiration to keep going?
The church practice that coincides with Epiphany involves giving out cards with different words on them – called Star Gifts or Star Words. The idea is that whatever word you get is a gift from God – a word about which to learn the meaning and history, a word that might reveal helpful insights as you ponder it and seek God’s direction in the new year.
I brought with me today the first Star Gift I ever received, at one of the many churches I served in Indiana, with the word “Faithfulness.” Like my picture with Micah’s words from today’s scripture, I keep this Star Word in sight of where I work – not so much as encouragement for me to be faithful, but mostly as a reminder about how God is faithful.
It is God’s faithfulness that gives me the strength to move forward every day, it is God’s faithfulness that will give all of us the strength we need to keep moving forward together on this part of our lifetime journey of faith.
How can we know this when there is also so much unknown ahead?
Micah has given us that answer – because of who God is and always has been, because of what God has done and what God promises – because that is the God who is going forward with us and gives us the ability to keep walking.
To that I say, let the journey continue!
In the name of the One who is our Hope, our Comfort and our Direction, now and always. Amen.