Fourth Sunday after Epiphany: January 30, 2005.

Micah 6:1-8

Psalm 15

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Matthew 5:1-12

First Reading

There is a crisis in the house of the LORD! If indeed Micah speaks in Jerusalem as a contemporary of Isaiah, he lives in violent and uncertain times. Israel and Judah, divided and often in armed conflict with each other for nearly two centuries, have weakened themselves to the point that Assyria is able to lay siege to the northern capital of Samaria and in three years crush it. Only God's intervention to incapacitate Sennacherib's armies temporarily saves Jerusalem from the same fate. The prophet from Moresheth understands how to interpret these events and, in a mix of threat and promise, lays before Judah the word of the LORD.

This most memorable passage (Micah 6:1-8) constitutes the first of four final pronouncements with which the prophet's work is closed. Here, in dramatic dialogical fashion, Micah describes what amounts to a cosmic courtroom drama in which Yahweh's people are summoned to give account of themselves. The "covenant lawsuit" setting is similar in format to Micah's opening pronouncement (1:2-7) except that here the trial takes a different turn. Yahweh pleads his case before a jury that consists of the cosmos itself, recalling for Israel in the presence of these witnesses the saving nature of the relationship to which God alone remains faithful, and in an impassioned speech (vv. 3-5) rehearses the history of God's stubborn grace.

The fact that the LORD would intervene to bring the people out of Egypt and deliver them from their bondage speaks implicitly of a commitment already made to these people as God's own. In reminding Judah of the prophets Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, Yahweh also brings to mind the nature of their calling as those who are sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, the memory of what God has done is still so fresh in the minds of the people that God need do no more than merely mention King Balak and Balaam without explanation. Likewise, "what happened from Shittim to Gilgal," likely an allusion to the crossing of the Jordan, is offered in the briefest of terms. In other words, what the people of God know is not at issue. Their willingness to render themselves obedient to this God is precisely the issue.

The peoples' response to Yahweh's pleading (vv. 6-7) is purely cultic and stated in extravagant terms: massive burnt offerings, huge quantities of sacred oils, even the offering of firstborn children (perhaps a slap at those who participated in such grisly practices). But the prophet, speaking on God's behalf, offers an ethical determination of true righteousness. In words that echo Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, the people are adjured to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly" with their God.

What characterizes those who live with God? Psalm 15 continues Micah's theme by further expanding on the ethical and relational nature of righteousness. There is a clear sense of right and wrong in these verses and a promise of God's steadfastness for those who follow this way of the LORD.

In 1 Corinthians Paul proclaims the message of the cross as the basis for unity in this divided congregation. But it is a message that will confuse those who seek to understand God's activity on the basis of the usual human standards. Paul, quoting Isaiah 29:14b, throws down the gauntlet against a reliance on rhetoric or stubborn rationality. While Paul does not undermine the gift of authentic wisdom that comes from God, Paul challenges the arrogant and willful misuse of that wisdom, which would separate humankind from the God who gives it. So it is that the Good News may be comprehended not by religious signs or rational argument but only in the foolishness, the scandal, of the cross of Christ. It is here, separated from our own ability to do anything but gape in awe, that we meet the power of God to save the world in weakness.

And this, Paul argues, is obvious from the divine point of view as witnessed by the congregation itself, a ragtag collection that consists mostly of the poor and the overlooked of his age. What God began in the work of Jesus Christ God continues in the calling and gathering of a community of foolishness and weakness. These people, who don't even really exist under the world's demanding gaze, are made to count by this same foolishness of God. The playing field of human experience is leveled by the cross so that none may stand by, let alone boast in, their own power. The only source of life for this common humanity is in Jesus Christ. The unfolding of God's wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption are concepts that Paul will explicate further in the letter to the Romans (yet to be written). For now, Paul cites Jeremiah (9:23-24) that the locus of all our boasting be in the LORD.

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) stand at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, often cited as the first of five major teaching sections in Matthew's Gospel. This fact has led some commentators to suggest that Jesus, here teaching from the mountainside, is to be understood as a new Moses. As part of a successful preaching, teaching, and healing tour throughout Galilee, the writer notes that great crowds were following Jesus (4:25). Also note that the crowd was not specifically Jewish, consisting of followers from Galilee, the Decapolis, and across the Jordan as well as from Judea and Jerusalem. Indeed, Jesus' fame is widespread.

Seeing the crowds, Jesus "went up the mountain." This wording parallels Moses' ascent of Sinai in Exodus 19:3 (LXX). Jesus assumes the customary sitting position of the teacher, and his disciples come to him. Thus, although the human context for these pronouncements is the crowd, it appears that Jesus' teaching is addressed specifically to his disciples.

The notion of "blessed ones" is broader than human contentment or happiness but indicates the recipient of divine favor. Those so favored are seemingly divided into two groups: the unfortunate and the virtuous. Briefly on each:

* "the poor in spirit" (Matthew alone adds this distinction) might be interpreted as the humble and unpretentious as opposed to those whose charisms have led them to arrogance;

* "those who mourn" may well not be limited to the suffering of death, illness, and the humiliation of Jesus' contemporaries by the Romans but also those who grieve the sinfulness of a fallen humanity;

* "the meek" may also be translated as "the gentle"--an aspect of Jesus' self-identification as evidenced by his invitation (11:29) and his entry into Jerusalem (21:1-10).

* "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness" speaks to more than the justice of a level playing field for humankind, to the final indwelling of God when the creation is made whole;

* "the merciful" is a reminder that the fullness of God's intent is found wherein those who have the means for human livelihood and encouragement are engaged in compassionate relationship with those who need them;

* "the pure in heart" bespeaks a single-minded devotion and subjugation of the human will to the divine;

* "the peacemakers" work beyond the mere cessation of human conflict, striving for the greater reconciliation that transcends old boundaries and arguments so that both parties may be laid open before God (6:23-24);

* "the persecuted for righteousness' sake" stand in a long line of the prophets and the pious who have borne the consequence of co-identity with the will of God.

So in all of these we see not only what the disciples will suffer for their following but also what Christ himself will undergo. In the more direct language of the ninth beatitude ("blessed are you ..."), those gathered close to Jesus are given (already in the fifth chapter) the interpretive tools necessary to understand the context and the ultimate meaning of Jesus' suffering as well as their own.

Pastoral Reflection

Rejoice and be glad? Jesus has got to be kidding. Where is there room here for the religiously successful, for those of us who know the appropriate protocols for pouring out rivers of oil (I'm sure there must be one!)? We work at dazzling the crowds with our magic and our metaphor, filling our buildings (if not our people) with laughter and wonder. Oh, if we only had a bigger marketing budget for the church and a brighter digital projector and cup holders on all of the seats and a 64-foot rohrflote on the organ that would really rattle the rafters.

But no. Jesus reminds us that our visions of what it means to be successfully faithful pale beside the divine favor poured out on those who have no place to turn except to God, which, of course, is all of us. We just don't have the courage to admit it, and so we find ourselves enslaved to the proposition of manufacturing an alternative universe in which Jesus commands our attention from a T8 rather than from a cross and calls us to the spectacular and the extravagant rather than the mundane business of justice, kindness, and humility before God.

Much as we would like it to be the case, our pretense cannot disguise our situation. It is only when we are able to admit who we are--a motley crew not unlike Paul's collection in Corinth--that we are at last enabled to understand how deeply we need a God who blesses the poor, the mournful, the meek, and the hungry. It is there, in our need, that true discipleship becomes possible quite apart from the arrogance of our striving. And it is there that we meet Christ himself, realizing with a gasp and an instinctive hesitation that he speaks to us and speaks of himself when he says "Blessed are you."

Rejoice and be glad ... in the face of persecution and evil? Absolutely! For it is Christ himself who will bear first all that evil can weigh against righteousness. And nothing worse will happen to us than happens to him. Thanks be to God. DLN