“A Hands on Faith”
Micah 6: 6-8, 1 Corinthians 1: 18-31 and Matthew 22: 34-40 

            Let us pray.

                         I had Miss Grant for 9^th grade English. Now that was supposed to be a good year. It was -- in my school -- the last year of Junior High School and I was one of the top dogs. But then there was that English class. I don’t remember much of that class as mercifully my memory of it has almost completely faded away. What little I do remember, however, were the long boring sentences Grant wrote on the board expecting us to diagram them into dependent clauses, gerunds, predicate nominatives and the like. I was horrible at this and learned virtually nothing of these grammar basics as my English SAT exam later revealed. One lesson from that time with Miss Grant came back to me as I read again today’s famous passage from Micah,

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice,
            to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.  

All the verbs in this passage are active. Micah could have said “the Lord requires us to value justice, to admire kindness and to respect God” but he doesn’t. He urges us in furtherance of our faith to get up and move to do to love and to walk.

            Some faiths find religious fulfillment in withdrawal from the world while others find fulfillment in a shedding of identity, leaving simply oneness with the divine.   Christians find fulfillment when we are in true relationship – indeed, communion with God and with all of creation. Such a relationship is dynamic and active. It involves reaching out to the other who in return is reaching out to us. In the best of relationships those actions are never completed but are ongoing. Certainly, our faith includes necessary moments of meditation, silence and prayer. Knowing self and being comfortable with who we are -- are essential. Not as ends in themselves – nor as an escape into inactivity or passivity but as necessary ways of recharging our batteries for a life of active faith.

The Reverend Vashti McKenzie, the first woman bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest African American Church in this country, said recently that our faith was not so much about knowing the destination but about having the directions. If you think about the Exodus story – from the Jews’ escape from slavery in Egypt to their arrival in Canaan – the destination was known – the land God had promised. This was clearly where they were going -- but the getting there -- that was the rub. The Jews had difficulty getting the directions and even more in following them. Exodus chronicles all those moments when they rebuked Moses and wanted to turn around and go back to slavery in Egypt.

            When I thought of Bishop McKenzie’s comment about directions, my mind went to the last time I used MapQuest and Google map to get directions earlier this week for one of the speakers at this afternoon’s presentation on religion and politics. I needed two pieces of information, the destination and the starting point to begin the process. And if you think about it -- faith is like that. Now we know the destination of faith – being in right relationship with God. That’s the destination and what a destination. But we also have to have a starting address. And like looking for travel directions – knowing the starting point is critical in matters of faith. For you see each of us is unique. We each have a different address. Who we are – what our strengths and talents are and where we are in life whether in life’s early years, in mid life or in life’s later years -- all affect that starting point and the precise directions that will take us to our destination.

And then there are the specific directions themselves.  McKenzie was right -- they are critical. We will spend most of our life following those directions.

            In a sense the passage from Micah is our biblical MapQuest. It gives us direction.  In matters of faith there is an overarching set of purposes for our journey. We are to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. One of my favorite books is On Becoming the Best We Can Be. It lists and discusses great purposes to live for that I think flesh out the words of Micah. Here is that list

n      To Show Compassion

n      To Serve Others

n      To Encourage Others

n      To Do Justice

n      To Care for the Earth[1]

Now I am sure we could add others – to bring about peace is the first that comes to my mind. 

  Each of these great purposes is also active. Each requires that we do something. One cannot be compassionate – truly feel the pain of another (stand in their shoes) while sitting in one’s armchair. No, it requires that we stand next to the hospital bed or that we be there on the phone listening about the most recent biopsy report. You can read with sadness an article in the Times or the Journal about the cloud of discouragement that hangs over so many of our youth in the inner city. But that does not offer any encouragement to those young people. That requires getting up and confronting the issue face to face and doing something with our own hands. To encourage others is an active task. To do justice is also an active pursuit. It is furthered every time we remind another that there are no innocent jokes made at the expensive of someone’s religion, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. And care for the earth is quite assuredly a hands-on enterprise. It is not enough -- as I find myself doing -- simply to shake my head at our obscene dependence on foreign oil and profligate use of energy. No, it involves changing those light bulbs at home and making the effort to carpool to meetings even though I like spending time alone while on the road.

It is no accident that Micah’s final direction is to walk humbly with God. Micah does not say commune with God – no, we are to be on the move. But why are we to go humbly? I think that is reminder that we need to put God first – rather than ourselves. And that is a really hard thing to do. I really do want that new car – that special car – I am sorry that it gets atrocious mileage. Or, I have my own problems – I simply can’t worry about others just now. Of course, one must take care of one's self. But there is never a time when loving kindness and doing justice are on hold. During my Clinical Pastoral training at a hospital outside Boston, I had occasion to visit Pat. Pat’s condition was not only life threatening but pain medication wasn’t much help. On one visit I paused at the door calling on divine help -- not knowing what to say. As I waited I heard Pat talking with one of her nurses – she was asking the nurse if the nurse’s son was recovering from a recent motorcycle accident. On my way out I ran into the nurse and asked her how Pat was doing. She said, "doing better than could be expected." She then went on to tell me how Pat was every one’s favorite patient on the floor. She seemed to know how to pick up the spirit of the nurses when they most needed it. Pat’s love of kindness obviously was never on sabbatical

            Perhaps you think that these directions from Micah are all about helping others. But I submit they also are about transforming ourselves -- about opening us to the love of God. In writing about compassion as one of life’s great purposes, Bob Luccock tells this story of Christopher de Vinck and his brother Oliver, recorded in de Vinck’s book, The Power of the Powerless.

                        ‘Oliver was born blind and mute, with twisted legs.
                        He didn’t have the strength to lift his head
                        or the intelligence to learn anything… . He was spoon-fed
                        every morsel he ever ate.’ Someone like this is commonly called a vegetable.
                        Once when a schoolboy in one of Christopher’s classes referred to Oliver as a
                        vegetable Chris replied,’ I guess you could call him a vegetable. I called him my
                        brother. You would have loved.’[2] 

Luccock continued,

Oliver lived to be thirty-two… The family loved him,
            cared for him, and treated him with tender compassion every day of those years.
            After his death Christopher told the story of their love in The Wall Street Journal.
            From there it went to [other periodicals] …. Beginning with the White House and
            stretching from Maine to California ... mail began to come to Chris, telling how the story
            of the powerless little boy, Oliver, had had a powerful impact on strangers
            thousands of miles away, touching their own springs of compassion.  …
            Christopher learned that compassion had a strange power of protection. It was
            Oliver, who, without visible power, reached inside those who knew him or
            heard his story to open their spirits …[3] 

The directions that Micah gives are not simply about outreach but about in reach and in all cases they represent a “hands on” faith.  

One final addendum. The journey that we are on is a long one. It is as if at the bottom of the MapQuest page it said “distance: one million miles and time: many years.” One of the things that we do when the miles and hours to go are long is we plan for a rest stop -- to get more fuel for the journey and to re-check the directions. At its best that is what church, especially worship, can be for us.  We all need a time to recharge our spiritual batteries. We all need to take a second look at the directions – are we really going in the right direction or did we take a left turn in life when we should have taken a right one. We all need at times to re-center our compasses and ourselves. How can we -- by talking with others who are making the journey too and by talking with God.  It is those who think they can make the journey alone that I worry most about. No one wants to get lost or to run out of gas alone in the wilderness or dark places of life. So stop by now and again for pancakes, spaghetti, and prayer -- we are a full service rest area. Amen