“Walking Humbly With God” 
Micah 6: 1-8 and Romans 12: 9-21 

There is a genre of movie -- the jungle adventure. We all have seen them.  They have names like Cobra Women, Elephant Boy, and Jungle Drums of Africa.  One might even include in this category Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom. These films are fun but most haven’t got much of a plot and are eminently forgettable.  They all tend  to have that one scene were a God like figure appears in a large open area and the natives  instantly fall to the ground face down -- hardly daring to look. The figure before them is fearsome -- often wearing little besides a loincloth and a headdress. Usually he holds a spear or other weapon. In the background there is drumming and a fire ready for some sort of sacrifice.  

The depiction of the god figure in these movies is clichéd and almost always over the top. But in these caricatures there is a serious observation. The great sociologists of religion -- those folks who try and explain religion as a social phenomenon -- talk about religion as an experience of fear and awe. The Latin term for this coined by Rudolf Otto is Mysterium tremendum et fascinans. And isn’t that what these movies portray -- a god who causes those present to fall to the ground in fear and then to look up to the god in awe. And this description fits most of the gods of the ancient world. Whether it is the Babylonian storm god Marduk, the Greek gods Zeus and Aries or the Roman ones Mars and Vulcan, they were treated by their followers with fear and awe.

Some of you will recognize that the scripture from Micah today is the same one we read two weeks ago. Now my short term memory is not perhaps what it was but this is not the reason Micah reappears this morning. Nor am I emulating the old Congregational minister who preached the same sermon   “God is Love” three Sundays in a row and when asked “why”, said he was going to preach it until the congregation got it. No, I chose this passage again today so that we could focus on that last phrase of what the Lord requires of us, namely that we “walk humbly with [our] God.”

Micah does not suggest that we fall down and prostrate ourselves before God. Instead we are to “walk with [our] God”. Think of walks you’ve taken. With whom do you normally walk? Most often we walk with friends and family. Each walker choices to walk with the other for companionship, certainly not out of fear. Imbedded in Micah’s imagery is a very different picture of God. This God is not like the capricious gods of the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, or the Romans who were worshiped in fear and who demanded constant sacrifices from his or her subservient followers. No, this is a God who chooses to walk with us – who wants to be connected to us in companionship and love, who cares about us.

Fast forward to the New Testament -- what did Jesus ask his disciples to do? And remember he asked them, he did not compel them. He asked them to follow him – to walk with him. Why because he wanted not subservience but he wanted them to join him as he lived out a life of faith, knowing that by so doing they would be transformed and fulfilled.  It is sometimes said that the God of the Old Testament is a wrathful and judgmental God -- a God to be afraid of. To be sure there are stories and episodes in the Old Testament in which God is depicted as judgmental.  The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah along with their inhabitance were destroyed for their sins – though perhaps it is more accurate to understand that the actions of their citizens – their sins -- lead to their destruction in much the same way as consequences -- good and bad --flow from the decisions we make as societies. I submit that the God of the Old Testament is no different than that of the New Testament– a God who connects with creation out of love and companionship, weeping with us when the exercise of human freedom leads to destructive consequences. And of course Jesus is the ultimate manifestation of that connection -- Son of Man and Son of God who wants nothing more than to walk with us and for us to walk with him.

That passage from Micah also says something about how we are to walk that journey. The scripture says walk “humbly”. Whenever I hear that word humbly I pause. Am I really comfortable being humble?  I asked several people earlier this week what they thought being humble meant. Their observations were perceptive. One person noted it doesn’t mean being a whuz -- by which I think he meant a doormat. Rightly he understood that to be humble does not mean that we discard our identity or ignore our own needs. To be humble is not to forsake self or care of self. To be humble   is not the same as being a martyr. Frederick Buechner put it this way

True humility [acting humbly] doesn’t consist
            of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking
            of yourself much differently from the way you’d
            be apt to think of anybody else.[1]  

To be humble is about looking beyond one’s own needs and including the needs of others equally -- when deciding on a course of action. It is this sense of the equal importance of others that is at the heart of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or as Immanuel Kant wrote in the categorical imperative: do in any given situation that which could be made universal. Others should be treated by us as we would like to be treated. If we seek a benefit not offered to another, we can’t say to ourselves—too bad – but they didn’t ask for it? Instead, we are to ask for them too.

In the debate on health care reform, how often do you think the advocates for various positions are taking the broad look – looking beyond their own interest to what might be best for the wider group? No one need discard their own interests but ought to add into the mix in equal measure the legitimate interests of others. To   look beyond self-interest is hard – very, very hard on an issue as complicated and as personally important as health care. But if we did -- the outcome might just be better—fairer and more broadly just.

            What makes walking humbly with God so difficult? The barriers to humility come from at least two different directions. First, when we are hurting or wanting, it is difficult not to think of ourselves. We all have natural and important instincts for survival.  To be humble doesn’t mean giving up our self. But what it means is we must guard against using our own difficulties as an excuse to ignore those of others.  The truth of it is that self protective isolation is a short sighted route to survival. In a true disaster – it is the folks who join together to overcome obstacles who survive not the ones who try to go it alone -- placing their own interests above all others.

            At the other end success too can make walking humbly with God difficult. When -- to use Tom Wolfe’s wonderful phrase from Bonfire of the Vanities -- we believe we are masters of the universe we no longer think the interests of others are worthy of equivalent consideration. We are special; we deserve special, preferred treatment. People in public office often say the greatest risk is that they begin to believe their press clippings. All those articles and words that say how wonderful they are must be right. It is not far from that to a sense of entitlement at the expense of others. This is a temptation for us all. Of course the truth is God thinks we are all special. The challenge for us when we walk humbly with God is simply to accept that too – to love our neighbor as ourselves, just as God loves each of us. Amen