“Christmas Prophecy”
Micah 5:2-5a
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
12/20/15
The book of Micah is a short but illuminating read. The
prophet begins by decrying the injustices perpetrated by wealthy landowners
against poor laborers.
“Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their
beds,” says Micah. “When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in
their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.” (Micah 2:1-2)
It
is an old, old story: The powerful king, the wealthy corporation, the
“civilized” society, the institutional
church – all of these have benefitted from some version of a Jezebel murdering
some version of a Naboth in order to steal some version of a vineyard. The most
destructive evil, says Micah, occurs when a privileged few, acting out of selfish
and predatory entitlement, covet, seize,
and oppress simply “because it is in
their power” to do so.
Micah
knows that such imbalance cannot last. Even if left on its own, the creation
will, by whatever means necessary, seek a new equilibrium. But the biblical witness
does not imagine a lonely creation. When the rich and powerful run roughshod
over the poor and voiceless, God sends prophets to set things right. Micah
accepts his prophetic call, and he feels the backlash of truth-telling. Taking
in all stride, he even makes fun of the oppressors’ denials: “‘Do not preach’ –
thus they preach – ‘one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not
overtake us.’” (Micah 2:6)
“We’re
not doing anything illegal,” they say. “It’s just business. And God helps those
who help themselves. Right?”
Even
today there are some extraordinarily popular preachers who say so. But Micah does
not recognize them as prophets of Yahweh. “Thus says the Lord concerning the
prophets who lead my people astray,” says Micah. “[prophets] who cry ‘Peace’
when they have something to eat, but declare war on those who put nothing in
their mouths…[these] seers shall be disgraced…and put to shame.” (Micah 3:5, 7a)
While
Micah and other biblical prophets rail against those who have been pocketed by
muscle and money, their rebukes are punctuated with promises of renewal. And
here is where Yahweh’s prophets diverge from the prophets of privilege. Willfully
segregating the sufferings of the many from the injustices which benefit a few,
prophets of privilege tend to meet the evils of the world with calls to return
not so much to the Lord as to some romanticized past.
Follow us,
they say, and we’ll make things like they
used to be.
Prophets
of Yahweh seem to know that the “good ol’ days” of our memory never really
existed. The days of well-ordered tranquility for some were horrifying and humiliating
days of Jim Crow for others, weren’t they?
Yahweh’s
prophets declare something different: “Do
not remember the former things or consider the things of old,” says Isaiah. “I
am about to do a new thing…From this time forward I make you hear new things,
hidden things that you have not known.” (Isaiah 43:18-19a,
48:6b) Now, according to Micah, God’s
brand “new” thing has primordial roots. “But you, O Bethlehem…from you shall
come forth for me one…whose origin is from old, from ancient days.”
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1:1-3a)
This
Word, who is in the beginning with God, this creative Word through whom all
things are made is Micah’s “one of peace.” This Timeless One is re-creating and
reuniting all things. It seems to me that if we are to claim and proclaim God’s
Peace, which is both ancient and future, we will not succeed by trying to get back to it, or by trying to make it happen by our own efforts. Following
Jesus, on an entirely new path, we rediscover the hope of the primordial life of
Peace by living it – by living it here and now.
At
3:00pm today there will be a vigil at the courthouse. The organizers are
calling it “A Vigil for Muslims and Refugees.” I understand why they are
calling it that. Muslim hate crimes have spiked in our country because a small
but very loud and dangerous minority of Muslims have managed to detonate a
mushroom cloud of fear. And refugees of the violence are having to drag that
stigma around like millstones tied to their necks.
I
understand the fear, too. Due diligence
means something entirely different than it meant just a few years ago. To
ignore that reality is naïveté at best and foolishness at worst. I get all of that. But now is the time for
neither submission to fear nor exclusivity in prayer – particularity yes, but
not exclusivity. Particularity helps us to recognize the full humanity of the
other. It helps us to discover our own place in the world, and to enter it with
compassion and purpose. Exclusivity usually leads us down paths of entitlement
and paternalism.
As
we pray this afternoon, I hope we will pray for Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and atheists alike, for refugees, for wanderers
and homeowners, for presidents and prime ministers, soldiers and civilians,
friends and enemies, young and old.
Personally,
I will also give thanks to God for the prophetic witness of Jesus of Nazareth,
the “one of peace,” whose birth reminds us that God is with us, here and now,
materially present in the out-of-balance sufferings of all creation.
If
eternity has a touchstone in time-bound existence, it is the concrete moment in
which we live. Out of love for God and for God’s creation, faithful prophets
reveal God’s Love by refusing to allow us to get comfortable with sin, that is
to say with ignoring, imposing, or benefitting from prejudice, fear, violence, greed,
or any other idolatry that distances us from our neighbors or allows us to abuse
the one planet God gives us. Advent prepares us for God’s decisive prophecy,
the here-and-now embodiment of God’s ancient and future Word.
The
African-American educator and author Howard Thurman wrote a pithy poem entitled
“The Mood of Christmas.” Echoing Micah’s memorable call “to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” Thurman’s unadorned phrases call
us and carry us deep into the ancient, approaching, and present peace of God’s Kingdom.
“The Mood of Christmas”
by Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.1
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.1
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