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A Recipe for the Church
Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12
Introduction - the importance of
recipes
Some of you know I am an avid watcher of the ABC
Wednesday night cooking show. I watch them all, whoever is on. I have
found it interesting to see how the new generation of cooks differ from
what has gone before. A year or so ago we watched a series by Delia
Smith - she's been a celebrity cook in England for decades. Her
recipes were very precise: all weighed out ahead of time, perfect
amounts in little pots ready to add in at the appropriate moment. All
explained in nice slow speech so there was time to write down the
recipe. But Jamie Oliver - he's a different story altogether: for him
it's slosh a bit in here, dash a bit in there, scatter a few of those
over the top, easy peasy mate. And it still comes out looking wonderful.
Nigella Lawson was in between -while she seemed to be pretty slap dash
with most things, she insisted that you have to measure properly for
baking. Now I have a son who likes to make "cooking
experiments" and as long as I subtly suggest what he might like to
put in, and in what quantities, his baking "experiments" are
reasonably edible. So I'd argue the point with Nigella. But I have to
admit I've had a few spectacular failures when I've tried to do what the
TV cooks do in my own kitchen. They obviously have a better recipe in
their head than what they are letting out on the screen - all the more
reason to go and buy their fifty dollar book I suppose.
I'd still argue, though, that you can been a pretty
good cook if you have a basic knowledge of recipes in your head. Good
cooking needs some flexibility, it needs to adjust to the occasion. A
good cook needs to rely on intuition at times. What about when a recipe
says "season to taste"? You need to use your judgement.
Following the recipe too literally can be a problem. I have a friend who
was making some biscuits and when the recipe said "leave room to
spread" she took herself outside and lay down for a read, popping
back into the kitchen every now and again to check if they were
spreading yet. So we need to know the recipe, but we need to know what
was meant when it was written down too.
Today we've heard two passages from the Scriptures
that could be described as recipes for the church. Let's look at Micah
first.
God's legal complaint as recorded by
Micah
One of the best known passages of Scripture is the one
we heard from Micah. As in a number of the prophetic books the setting
for this message of God is the law court, where God brings a complaint
against the people of Israel and Judah. But that is to be expected when
the foundation of the Old Testament, the covenant between God and the
Israelites, is understood as a legal contract. It mirrored the political
climate of the world around them, where small kingdoms and states were
able to preserve a relative independence by maintaining a treaty with
larger ones. In such treaties both sides had responsibilities. Both knew
that there were penalties if the contract was broken.
So here in chapter 6 of Micah God is contending with
the people of the covenant. God sets out the evidence that God's side of
the contract has been kept. In their answer the people ask for a recipe.
With what shall I come before the Lord? How can we show we are living up
to our side of the contract? They experiment with a few options:
What would God require?
Would God require Burnt Offerings?
Or the sacrifice of young calves, showing that they
were prepared to give up something that later would be of great
commercial value.
Perhaps thousands of rams would be enough. After
all, the book of Chronicles tells us that the Great King David had
sacrificed a thousand rams, a thousand bulls and a thousand lambs to
celebrate the building of the temple (I Chron 29:21)
Or would the pouring out of oil, another precious
commodity, be sufficient?
Or was the recipe even more difficult?
Would it be necessary to offer up the first born as
an atoning sacrifice? It wasn't a practice encouraged by the prophets
and yet it was an echo of significant moments in their history with
this God: remember the last of the plagues in Egypt that led to their
freedom? Remember Abraham in the desert, offering up his only true son
in order to show his obedience? And was there even an echo of the
future, where the life of the son of God would be poured out as a
horrible climax to humankind's rebellion?
What was the recipe?
God's answer according to Micah
And then comes the answer: God has shown you what is
good. You know what is required of you. Not a thing but a way
of living - Doing justice, Loving kindness, Walking humbly with
your God. It may sound a simple recipe, but it was because the people
had not been living in this way that God brought the complaint. Maybe
sacrifices would have been easier. Get them out of the way first thing
in the morning and then spend the rest of the day as you like. But that
was missing the point entirely. Living in covenant with God was actually
much more than a contract. It meant living in the very way God would
live here on earth.
Do Justice
"Doing Justice" means not just speaking
about it or praying for it, not just holding it up as a principle to be
admired, but actually letting it be something one does.
Throughout the book of Micah there are examples of the people's failure
to do justice: especially those who had the opportunity and the power to
affect other people's lives: the judges, the priests, the prophets, the
rich, the business people. For the most part they were doing their
religious duty. They were following one recipe. But it wasn't what God
wanted.
What about us? What is doing justice in our place?
Most of you know I was away last weekend. But I listened to a tape of
last Sunday morning's service during the week and I was really
challenged by some phrases that came in a responsive prayer:
"the aliens we ignore,
the deprived we pretend do not exist,
the prisoners we avoid."
Sometimes I think we decide the problems of injustice
around the world and in our own country are just too big, so we ignore
them and live our lives as if they don't exist.
But even if we can't solve the injustices of the
globe, we can be people who practice justice in our own lives, in our
own spheres. And I dare say most of us could make even a bit more
effort, write a letter about the dreadful detention centres or write to
someone in a detention centre (I can give you information on how
to do that), or sponsor another child, or use some of our leisure time
to help someone in need.
Love Kindness
It's difficult to capture the meaning of the word Hesed
that is behind the phrase "to love kindness." Hesed is the
love God shows to us, the covenant love that never lets down its side of
the bargain. Loyal, true, steadfast love. But there is also the meaning
of mercy in the word - when Jesus uses the word it is on occasions
where he is accused by Pharisees of not upholding the laws of the
Sabbath. Jesus understands the term hesed to mean mercy - the
needs of humans to be healed or to be fed are more important to God than
cultic or legal requirements. And for us, too, loving kindness cannot
mean choosing the easy recipe which once was sacrifice but now might
take the shape of attending church once in a while, or contributing to
charity when we have something to spare, or even being so zealous about
doing things the right way that we let it get in the way of
people's needs and feelings. Once again the way of loving kindness
impacts on every part of our lives. It insists that our priority in life
must be the needs of our fellow human beings.
Walk humbly with your God
The third part of God's answer in Micah is to
"Walk humbly with your God". Let's focus not so much on
"humbly" which I think probably means "carefully" or
"wisely" rather than with humility. Instead let us notice that
God's requirement is that we walk with God. Again it is about a
way of life, not about fulfilling requirements that can be ticked off at
the end of the day. In Judaism the word for ethics is Halacha
which means walking, in other words ethics describes how one should walk
one's day-by-day life.
We said earlier that keeping the covenant meant living
in the very way God would live here on earth. And so for us who are New
Testament people it means living in the way that Jesus lived. Have you
ever noticed that Jesus more often said "follow me" than
"believe in me" when he was inviting disciples? He knew that a
life of faith meant to keep travelling, moving, changing and growing.
The last hymn we will sing today reminds us that we are a travelling
wandering race - it was when the people were on the move following
God's lead out of Egypt and on the way to a promised land that they
formed a covenant with God. And it was when they got comfortable and
settled that they forgot what it meant to be God's people. So God wants
us to keep walking, but reminds us all the way that we are not walking
alone, but with our God. Through whatever circumstances we
travel, as Psalm 23 reminds us, God will walk beside us.
So Micah's recipe for the church is to walk "step
by step living with God and living for others, acting as advocate for
the powerless and showing care for those who are hurting and who need
help" (Interpretation commentary), in other words: do justice, love
kindness, walk humbly with your God.
Matthew's recipe for happiness
In the Beatitudes pronounced by Jesus there is another
recipe for us to consider. When Jesus says "Blessed are those"
he means "Happy" or "Fortunate" or, as a friend
attempting to translate the gospels into Australian idiom says,
"They've got it made!" And who wouldn't want a recipe for
happiness? But if we really listen to the words, we realise that the way
the Beatitudes defines happiness is the opposite to what we would
expect.
The world around us teaches us to define happiness
in terms of wealth, but Jesus says "Those who depend entirely on
God for their welfare have got it made".
We think that happiness means never experiencing
anything that causes us grief. But Jesus says "Those who are
stricken with grief have got it made".
In a world dominated by the markets we encourage an
aggressive competitive spirit in all aspects of life - where Jesus
says "Those who allow others first claim on everything have got
it made".
We are taught to be careful and prudent and conform
to the society we are part of, but Jesus said "Those who hunger
and thirst to see the world put right have got it made".
Jesus said "Those who are merciful have got it
made" but isn't our government and the opinion polls shouting out
to us that mercy is a sign of weakness and a threat to our way of
life?
We are encouraged to believe that we will only be
safe and secure if we are prepared for war, but Jesus said "Those
who forge peace and reconciliation in places of hostility have got it
made".
We are confronted with compromised morals every day
as we are entertained, or informed, or enticed by advertising. But
Jesus said "Those whose hearts are unpolluted have got it
made", in a time when the heart was considered the region of
thought and intention.
We teach ourselves to deal with conflict, at the
best end of the scale by creative conflict resolution and at the worst
end by preaching the line "don't get mad, get even" - but
Jesus said "Those who are attacked and abused for sticking to
what is right have got it made"
We need to learn a new way of living if we are going
to follow Jesus. To be have it made according to Jesus means to live
with the values of the Kingdom of God as our priority. It means to seek
first God's kingdom and not to seek first "all the things
that may be added to us". It means to be involved in the lives of
other people, the suffering, those who mourn, those who struggle in
life, rather than putting our own needs and interests first.
Jesus showed us what a life looked like that "had
it made" - he was joyful, caring, full of integrity, and prepared
to stand and act for peace in a violent world. And his life continues to
inspire us, more than 2000 years later.
So the recipe in Matthew is very similar to that of
Micah: Jesus is encouraging his followers to seek God, to be involved in
the lives of others and concerned for the suffering of the world, and to
live with integrity.
If we were to read on in Micah beyond verse 8 of
chapter six we would see that it is followed immediately by God's
accusation that those who were hearing the words of the prophet had not
been living in the way that was expected. May it not be that such an
accusation could be made against us. We know what the Lord requires,
don't we?
Resources:
Translation of Matthew 5:1-12 by Nathan Nettleton
Sermon by Robert Seesengood "On Cookbook
religion: no formulas" in Pulpit Digest JA 1998:66
Sermon by Rick Marrs "The Pursuit of
Happiness" in Pulpit Digest MJ 1998:49
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