May 30 Sermon: Peace with Justice Sunday
Peace with Justice Sunday Sermon
May 30, 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Micah 6:8
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I’ve been traveling a lot lately over the last few weeks and it’s really good to be back here in Chicago. To be grounded in this place I call home. Because lately I have been on the move, traveling from place to place. And I don’t know about you, but when I travel, especially to destinations that I love, I just want to get there. I started my journey by driving the 12 hours from Chicago to Atlanta, doing all I could to pass the time and reach my destination. I placed the entire catalogue of Indigo Girls songs on shuffle and drove, counting the hours, counting the hay stacks in Indiana and the bourbon distilleries in Kentucky….all the while focused on warm and hospitable Atlanta.
While there, I drove to the gulf coast of Florida, passing the peanut stands and cracker barrels of South Georgia, all the while mediating on the feel of the beach..sand in my toes and breeze in my hair.
I drove back to Chicago on Friday, all the way from Atlanta, again making the long journey through Kentucky and Indiana. The whole time watching the clock on my G.P.S. that estimated arrival time, trying not to add minutes and hours as we crept along in traffic. I just wanted to be home, not listening to country and contemporary Christian radio, the only two options for most of the drive. Each time, I made it to my destination, breathing a sigh of relief that I could stop and finally be present.
When you’re constantly on the move you just want to be in the place you’re going, reach your destination.
Today we’re talking about a journey, not one to the beach or through the heartland of America, but a journey of peace with justice. We gather with United Methodists all over the world to continue our journey of following Jesus’ call to create justice and care for the least of these. To feed and clothe and teach and love. And to change the systems that keep this kind of oppression and inequality in place. Most importantly, we’re not just reminding ourselves of God’s call for peace, but examining the ways we can be part of making it happen, of sharing the good news of Christ with the world. Andrew’s answer is one way to live out this call, and we’ll be hearing from Suzanne later in the service about a hands on way we in the congregation can be involved with the Lakeview Action Coalition.
We’re a congregation that knows and lives out our call to peace…we’re committed collectively and individually to eradicating injustice. We know it’s a long journey towards peace with justice, and it’s tempting to ask: Are we there yet, God? How many more miles? How many more hours?
I remember when I was on road trips as a kid, before I had a concept of time, my parents would measure increments according to my favorite tv shows. So if something was going to take 30 minutes, it would be about the time of Mr. Rogers…an hour, like an episode of Sesame Street. And this is what we want from God: to tell us peace with justice will happen after two more rallies at the capitol; when we’ve created 5 more food banks; when a fair minimum wage and don’t ask don’t tell are passed by Congress; we want God to tell us that peace with justice will happen in about the time it takes to watch an episode of Grey’s anatomy (maybe a special 2 hour finale event).
But as you well know, the parameters aren’t so clear when it comes to journeying with God. We want to reach the destination, but often we don’t even know where it is. How do we achieve justice? Where is our GPS to get us to our destination? What does God want us to do?
We have the prophet Micah, this morning, to give us a roadmap.
He is speaking to Israel, in the 8th century A.D., a people living under the rulership of another people—the Assyrians, a conquering people. The Israelites were threatened and oppressed. The Israelites who had acquiesced to the Assyrian powers of the day had power of their own—but used it to oppress their own people. So now the Israelites who were conquered, who didn’t give-in to the government, were hungry and isolated, suffered from hate speech and segregation, regulations about worship and food that made it nearly impossible to practice and live their faith. They were hungry and tired and scared that their people, their land, and even their God would disappear.
Micah is speaking both to those Israelites who are oppressed and those who are oppressing. And the people want to know—where is God? What does God want? What does God require of us?
They offer their own answer: more sacrifices? More goats to show the world that we really do love God? A bounty of oil poured out to demonstrate our devotion?
And Micah says those immortal words that continue to shape our faith: What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.
God doesn’t want you to show off with sacrifices that you love him. God doesn’t want you to parade your faith around like a show to make her happy.
God wants you to be grounded in love and act that love out, each and every day.
Micah wanted the people to stop focusing on some kind of destination with God, believing that they just needed to make God happy by showing empty devotion, and to begin to walk each and every day as followers of the God who calls for justice and kindness. If you want to really follow the requirements of God, put your walking shoes on and start forging that path of love. Work to set the oppressed people free; recognize privilege where you have it and start sacrificing to give others basic human rights; sacrifice some of your bounty of food and clothing and shelter and give it to those without. Through giving this way, you will be giving to God. Everyday walk with God through acts of mercy. This is what Micah calls his people to do, and it’s what God is calling us to do today, in 2010: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
We still want to know where to start and how to get there. Too often, we begin with doing justice and loving kindness, as if these means are ends in and of themselves. But what Micah calls us to do is to begin by walking humbly with God…when we do this, justice and kindness and peace will fall into place.
Because if we spend all our time doing justice and loving kindness without being grounded in God, we will burn out and grow weary. We’ll have flat tires and souls. Too often, we get up in the morning and hit the ground running doing justice by ourselves…or we exert all of our energy sharing loving kindness with strangers and friends until we are road weary and stalled out. When we find ourselves burned out by justice, we need to refuel with the God who never stalls. And what’s really dangerous, when we seek justice without God, is that we begin to fill God’s role—to substitute our own justice for God’s; to believe we are the ones who know how to define kindness, instead of letting the peace we spread be God’s peace, not our own.
For justice and kindness are journeys, day in and day out, grounded in the faith of God revealed through Jesus Christ….our faith is a pilgrimage of putting one foot in front of the other; not a sprint, but a marathon. And in order to do justice well, we MUST know why and how to do this work. And it’s all grounded in the God who calls us to love through Jesus Christ. What does it mean to walk humbly with God? When we approach this journey, one step at a time, we begin with prayer…joining ourselves with the God who gives us strength and inspiration; when we walk towards acts of mercy, we first read scripture to discern where God is calling us…to visit those in prison, clothe the naked, welcome the sinner.
We gather with our brothers and sisters in worship to gain inspiration for the journey, knowing that we don’t do any of this alone, but with one another through the God of justice.
When we ground ourselves in God, we’ll be better walkers, focused not on the destination, like I am on roadtrips, but on every single moment. We walk, day to day, with all kinds of (things); we walk with our cell phones, checking facebook and text messages and our bank balances; we walk with the pain of our hearts and the grief of our friends; we walk with distracted minds and selfish interests; we focus on what we want to buy next or what we wished we looked like. But when we ground ourselves in God, instead of anything that the world throws our way, we will be much better walkers. And we’ll start, in every moment, to ask important questions:
Do we only walk with people who look like we do? Do we listen to voices that have less privilege than our own? And when we do so, do we slow down and listen or are we secretly resentful that they can’t keep up our pace? Not a pace we’ve earned, but a pace that we were born with. Who isn’t able to walk, and what can we do to make their lives better? What needs to change so that the world is more accessible? When we walk with God, we’ll find all kinds of questions to guide our journey.
Life with God is a pilgrimage and our destination is not some physical place on earth that we reach and then can celebrate and be done. And our destination, in a life of faith, is not a place we will reach in the here and now, where we know all the answers, pray perfectly, and live out peace and justice in a satisfying way. With God, we are always on the move. But we have to remember that it’s not about some final destination that we can achieve here on earth…we walk present to every moment and every relationship so that one day we will reach that final destination, the place where pain will be no more, where justice will roll down like waters, and God will reign as we all, all feast together at the heavenly banquet. So let’s put on our walking shoes, Holy Covenant, and get moving. Amen.
Tags: Kate
