Do we really care about what God wants?
September 13, 2015 | Anita Retzlaff & Trish St. Onge

The Old Testament prophets usually leave me feeling deflated and judged.  The prophets expound on long lists of ways in which Israel has done wrong and so the people whom God has nurtured are going to meet a horrible end. In 586 B.C. the Babylonians overrun the small nation of Israel and shlep them off into exile. Why? Because they haven't been faithful to God. The prophets from Isaiah to Malachi insist that Israel has forgotten God's goodness and mercy.  Even though God saves them from Egypt's oppressive Pharaoh and rescues them time and again from multiple disasters, after no time at all the people forget God.

So, how is this a message to me? to us?  It seems a foregone conclusion that since I am human and confess to be a child of God, I too have done all kinds of bad stuff and forgotten the ways of God. Why else would we be hearing this same theme over and over again?  The book of Micah starts out in the standard prophetic fashion, as do the 8 verses from chapter 6 that I chose to consider together this morning. "Hear Israel!  Are you listening?  God has a controversy with you.  God is not pleased." Well that is familiar enough.  However, Micah's version of God's displeasure carries us along a more positive and helpful path that helps me to see what God might be after. 

One lone voice dares to pose the question and maybe it is not unlike my own or yours, "So then, how shall I come before you, God? with sacrifices? offerings? What will it take, my firstborn child? If I have sinned and forget your ways God, how can I ever measure up, make things right?"  An answer comes: "He has told you O mortal what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

Here I find a vision for how I might live my life well - among friends and in the presence of God.  I have asked Trish St. Onge to share something about this text and the person for whom it was very important.  Trish's mother Martha Nickel was a part of our congregation for many years.  It is 25 years ago since she died.  This passage of scripture from Micah was her signature inspiration - at least that is how I remember her.  I have asked Trish to share a little about Martha and the passion with which she lived.

Trish
The title of the eulogy prepared by Stella Dyck for my Mom’s funeral read:   A Woman of Character and Conviction.  It really was a good description of her.  It is amazing to me how much time can go by and yet I still experience her influence every day. 

I asked some of my family to offer a word or phrase that in their experience described my Mom – here they are:  warm hearted, kind and supportive, radiant smile, spend time with family and less time wiping counters, make some memories, non-judgemental, unconditional love, wise, generous, a loving counsellor, thoughtful, hospitable and a good fudge maker. 

My Mom loved learning which presented through her love of reading, news watching, attending conferences and most importantly diving into lively discussions – anything a bit controversial or political was best.  There were countless evenings where she and her friends would gather at our kitchen table and find themselves discussing issues of the world, the church and her beloved MCC.  These were heavy topics and I loved to eavesdrop.  This is where I learned about the woman who was my Mom – well respected, thoughtful and wise.  Here is where I learned about social justice and that it was everyone’s responsibility to care for others.  I also learned that she was one of the first lay people asked to serve communion at a conference one of many actions that influenced changes throughout the church.  She was aware of the meaningfulness of this opportunity, as well as its responsibility – yet she also felt strongly that everyone, including women should be able to contribute to the activities of the church.  She went on to serve on many local, provincial, national and international committees to work towards improving life and meaning for people within the church and the community.  She was a person with vision, always planning and imagining new ways of being.  She would approve of the recent welcoming statement that our church has embraced.

Not only did my Mom’s kitchen table cater to her friends, but also mine – my cousins too.  There were many occasions where I would arrive home and find one or sometimes two of them sitting at the table deep in discussion.  My Mom created safety and security – there was room to ask questions and wonder about life’s mysteries.  She made everyone feel like a priority – like you were smart and worthy.  This was exemplified in her thoughtful gifts – like how she gave each of her nieces and nephews a nativity set at their weddings – each piece meticulously chosen from the collection at MCC, or how when they had children of their own she returned the hand me downs that my brother and I got from them, all washed and ready for their own children.  They were often surprised and touched that she had kept them for so many ears.  She had a wonderful way of building tradition and making occasions special. 

My Mom had a strong, pure, but not simplistic faith.  She believed in a true Evangelical Faith that feeds the hungry and clothes the naked.  For my Mom faith was action – love was a verb.  She had a poster in our family room that read:  The smallest good deed is greater than the grandest good intention.  She also had a poster of Micah 6:8 as well as Menno Simons True Evangelical Faith.  These were strategically placed so that we inevitably read them every day.   It was hard to live my life without embracing these thoughts and humbly integrating them into my own life and way of being.  When I shared this talk with my son Anthony he said:
 “Oh, that’s the one downstairs”.  I guess the tradition continues.  She knew if we read these regularly they would become important to us as well – indeed they have.

She touched many lives through her family, her friends and neighbours, her church and her work.  August 26th marked the 25th anniversary of her death – her example of justice, love and humility live on.

Anita
"Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with our God."  We have been given a vision for how to live the way God wants.  What does the LORD require of us? Relationship NOT religion! Gratitude not grovelling! God wants our response. God wants lives of service not burnt offerings or carefully crafted confessions of faith or denominations looking down their noses at their sisters and brothers.  Our rules of religious order and control are of little account to God in a world where people starve or are exiled because of war; where little children have no safety and where the elderly have no place to call home.  That is God's complaint against Israel all along!

Micah helps me see that through the mouths of the prophets there is a call for caring for the world; its people, its places.  Israel has been thoughtless, forgetful, greedy, stingy and oppressive among its own people.  That is God's complaint and that is the prophets' warning to Israel and to us.  With that in mind we must ask ourselves, “Do we remember God’s mercy in our lives and do we really care about what God wants?”

With one voice all those of the Abrahamic faith traditions who believe in the one God whether they be Christian, Jew or Muslim will likely say, "Of course we care about what God wants."  But look at our world and think again.  The prophets have a point.  The civil war in Syria and the resulting exodus of its people is a modern day story of exile.  Just as Israel was warned that they would one day mourn the loss of their children taken into slavery and into a strange land so too today we have whole nations on the move in search of a home.  And what are we doing about it?

We say to each other, “How can this happen?”   It comes down to choices that human beings make.  It is about fundamentalism of all stripes: Christian, Muslim and Jewish.  Greed and extremism and the struggle for power over others take the place of gratitude and healthy memory.  These are the ingredients of the mess that people make of their lives and have done so throughout all time.  So the prophets are on track to call for justice. However, that leaves us in a real struggle of opposites because at one and the same time we face two starkly different truths. There is doom and there is hope. We have heard enough about the doom part.  What about doom’s opposite: hope?

“Love kindness,” says God.  Herein lies hope. We can choose to be kind.  If we all did, the world would be a different place.  It sounds so simple but in the end, I think it is that simple.  We have a choice; to be selfish or to be kind.  You can’t be both at the same time. Selfishness leads down one path; kindness down another. How does Ellen Degeneris close every show?  She says, “Be kind to one another.” Of course this is idealistic because we know that too often we are not kind, we do not put the other person first and we are not responding speedily to the crises that beset our world.   Canada is making an election issue out of the resettlement of Syrian refugees.  We have to wait and vote and then see if anything happens all the while news reports show hundreds of thousands of displaced people desperate to stay alive.  All because of…?  The prophets have a point!

Do we really care about what God wants?  Yes we do, but it is hard to be kind, to be grateful, to be generous when we are anxious about our own lives. It feels safer to take care of ourselves first.  God is aware of our struggles and wants us to be safe and secure too.  But how about when things are going fairly well for us?  Isn’t that the time we must pay attention to others and to the needs around us? That was God’s complaint against Israel.  Those who were doing very well not only ignored the poor and the desperate but they added to the misery of those who struggled. And a whole nation lost its soul, it homeland and its memory. They forgot God.  Let that not be us.  Love kindness. Live lives of service. That is what the LORD requires.

Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly.  That is what God wants from us and for us. Humility is another attribute that is present only when we aren’t thinking merely of ourselves. Humility is knowing from where grace comes and it quietly displays the love that God spreads around in good measure.  God’s love is for everybody. Everybody!  Not just those who meet our requirements of worthiness.  Walking with God is an invitation into the holiness and the shalom of God’s presence.  We are free to open our arms and our hearts to receive and to welcome at the same time. That is a great place to be! Walking with God allows for us to approach God with all of our vulnerabilities, troubles, hurts and joy.  God’s holiness is not about distance, about sacrificing joy; it’s about relationship. God’s grace is about knowing that “all is well” in a world where there is much trouble.

Kay Epp left us all with a blessing.  In her last days she remained positive and accepting of her imminent death: humble actually.  As I shared at her memorial service she was unequivocal that “all is well.”  So, this is a gift to us from Kay.  We can know that though we face hard things, even death, within God’s embrace all is well. This gives us courage to care, to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. AMEN