Tongues of Fire (Acts 2:1-21)

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed these are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above, and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sum shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Today is Pentecost. Today is the third-greatest festival in the church’s calendar. Today is a day to celebrate, because on this day, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the followers of Jesus. All over the world today, Christians are celebrating in various ways – some are having grand processions with trumpets and drums that mimic the sound of a mighty wind, others are serving cake and ice cream to commemorate the birthday of the Church, and I know of one crazy church that is having a chili cookoff following worship so that everyone will leave church today with “tongues of fire.” I encourage everyone to stay after worship today – we’ve got lots of chili, cornbread, and mac-n-cheese for everyone. I don’t even care if you made anything, just stay and have a good time!

Today, we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the first followers of Jesus and the variety of gifts the Holy Spirit bestows upon us. But, I don’t want any of us to think that today we are simply commemorating a historical event that occurred once upon a time. Today, we are praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out not only on St. Paul United Methodist Church, but upon every church, of every denomination, around the world. May we pray.

Just before this passage, Jesus has commissioned his disciples to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The disciples return to Jerusalem, and they wait for the Holy Spirit Jesus has promised them. While they are waiting, they select Matthias to replace Judas as one the apostles. In Jewish tradition, the number “12” represented an authentic gathering of God’s people. According to Luke’s Gospel, the 12 would judge over the tribes of Israel (Luke 22:29-30). When they were selecting this “new” apostle, there were very special and explicit criteria for which they were looking. This new apostle, this new leader, would have to have been a witness to the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and this new leader would need to embrace Jesus’ commission to be his witnesses in the world. Likewise, when the church is selecting leadership today, we need to be just as choosy. We don’t choose people for leadership because they work hard, because they give a lot of money, or they think they’re important. The most defining criterion for leadership in this church is embracing Jesus’ commission to be his witnesses in the world.

Pentecost – sort of a funny name isn’t it? Let’s break the word down. Pente – does that sound familiar? Like Pentagon? So, the number 5 has something to do with the name. Multiply 5 times 10 to get 50, and you’re at your answer. The Greek word Πεντηκοστή (pentecoste) literally means “50 Days.” It was sometimes referred to as the Festival of Weeks, starting after seven weeks of Passover and was the Jewish celebration to mark the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai. It was a festival for which pilgrims from all over the known world would have travelled to Jerusalem – the city would have been packed with people from different cultures and speaking different languages, which helps us understand the scene in which this story takes place.

In an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem, Jesus’ followers – probably about 120 of them – gathered. The room was decorated with flowers, because according to tradition, the desert burst into bloom when the Law was given. As good Jews,they began to proceed through the familiar prayers. Candles were lit, and someone began to pray: Barukh Ata Adonai: Blessed Are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us in life, and enabled us to reach this season. Though the liturgy was predictable, it was also familiar and comfortable.

But suddenly, into a routine that was comfortable, predictable, safe, tied-down, neat and under control, God showed up in a surprising way. A mighty rushing wind, heads anointed with fire, the good news proclaimed in new and unfamiliar languages. God was doing a new thing, and it made people more than a little bit uncomfortable.

A friend of mine was talking about the church in which she grew up – a large, downtown, First Church in a midsize Southern city. It was a fashionable place, a stately colonial brick building on the town square – a place to see and be seen. It was a proper place, where everyone followed the rules, where decent, polite order was the name of the game. One day, the Spirit moved on a woman in the congregation, and she raised her hand quietly in her seat. My friend, around 8 at the time, asked her mother if that lady had a question for the preacher.

In seminary, I took a class on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, taught by Dr. William Turner, an ordained pastor in the United Pentecostal Holiness denomination. One day, he was talking about the ways that various denominations respond to the work of the Holy Spirit, and being at a Methodist seminary, of course he started to give us a hard time, wondering aloud the last time the Holy Spirit had even shown up at a Methodist church. My friend, Oliver Box, a high-church Methodist from Aberdeen, Mississippi, said, “Excuse me, Dr. Turner – The Holy Spirit does, indeed, show up at the Methodist church. He just knows to mind his manners when he’s there.”

Take a look at our denominational logo, our trademark “cross and flame.” That red thing beside the cross is supposed to represent the fire of the Holy Spirit. Even on our logo, it looks like a pretty controlled burn, doesn’t it? Not getting out of control, burning quietly, never really flaring up to much – always there, steady, controlled – sort of like the pilot light on your water heater. But friends, that is only partially accurate. Yes, sometimes the Holy Spirit shows up as a controlled burn – decent, orderly, respectable. But more often than not, the Holy Spirit shows up as wildfire. I wonder if we’re willing to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit sweeping through this church not as a controlled, respectable burn, but as wildfire?

In our polite, respectable, controlled society, it makes people uncomfortable when the Holy Spirit shows up like wildfire. The religious establishment, in particular, has a way of being uncomfortable when the Spirit shows up like that. On that Pentecost so long ago, some of the onlookers heard the disciples speaking in strange languages, and they made fun. During his earthly life, Jesus had been accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, and critics made the same accusation against his disciples: “They’ve been drinking – they’re filled with new wine,” they said.

It’s a common attack we make when God shows up off script, or when we realize that God is doing something we are not in control of. “Well, those people are drunk. Well, those people are crazy. Well, that church must be a cult. When God starts to do something and God has the audacity to do it God’s way and not our way, we can offer all sorts of excuses, explanations, and attacks as to why it’s not right because it’s not the way we would have done it. The only problem with that is that God doesn’t care about what we think is proper – the Spirit shows up as the Spirit wants to, the wind blows where it wants, fire burns where and what it will, and we can sit around and mope that God didn’t seek our permission to do things God’s way, or we can join the celebration, get caught up in the windstorm, and let the fire burn within us, even when we don’t understand where God is going to take us.

When Peter preaches about the miracle that people have observed (trying to defend his friends against the accusation that they have been drinking too much) what he talks about is not the splendor of the congregation but the majesty of God. It is God’s Spirit that makes this day possible. The day is not the church’s day; it is, as Peter quotes from the prophet Joel, “the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.” The purpose of the day is not to congratulate each other, not to pat ourselves on the back for a job well-done, not to brag about how our work made this all possible, it’s a day to repent and believe, because this is God’s great and glorious day.

Fire, wind, and humble uneducated Galileans speaking persuasively in many tongues were dramatic signs that God was doing a new thing that would transform the lives of all those present, and far beyond, in time and place. These humble Galileans, now speaking with power and authority in different languages, let us not forget that these are the same people who back on Good Friday, when Jesus was just hanging around, scattered in fear. It’s such a dramatic reversal that can only be explained by the movement of God’s Holy Spirit as wildfire, but even so, the critics wanted to explain it away by complaining, making fun, and blaming the whole thing on too much wine. A controlled burn we can understand. But the Holy Spirit sweeping through a community like wildfire? That’s a little much for too many of us. But if we are praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on us just as it was on the first disciples, that’s exactly what we’re praying for.

Many of you have asked why my haircut suddenly became much shorter a week and a half ago. I was preparing to cook steaks on the grill, and in my condo community, we can’t have individuals grills on our balconies, so we have several community grills at the pool area. These are big, grand-daddy industrial grills. I turned on the gas to the burners and hit the electric starter, and the gas didn’t light. A second push, and nothing, a third push, and still nothing. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the matches. The first one didn’t light. The second one didn’t light. The third one didn’t light. The gas is still running from when I first turned it on. I lit the fourth match, held it upside down for a few seconds so it could really catch, and threw it into the grill, and who knows how many cubic feet of propane lying in the bottom of the grill lit a fireball that burned off my eyelashes, the hair on the back of my knuckles, and half the hair on top of my head.

Yes, I realize I’m fortunate that I wasn’t burned any more severely, but that’s really not the point of the story. When we think about Pentecost, I’ve seen images that have a little, controlled, candle-flame dancing on top of the heads of the believers. But I have to think it was more severe than that. No little candle flame would have pushed them out into the world to proclaim God’s goods with boldness and power. It had to be a full-blown, out-of-control, scary, frightening, fireball of the Holy Spirit – the sort of burn that we don’t control, but that controls us.

There have been manifestations, remarkable displays of God’s Spirit in the Bible before, of course, with sound and light and fire and amazing special effects. But those events were reserved for only a few witnesses, the most inside of insiders. Not so on Pentecost. Here, at the dawn of a new era, on the birthday of a church called to spread like wildfire to the ends of the earth, the display is for all. Not just the disciples, gathered in the upper room, getting themselves organized again. Not just the holiest, or the most faithful of the most learned, not just the believers, not just those who were with Jesus on the road of witnesses to his resurrection. No, in this case, at this moment, all flesh, male and female, old and young, slave and free, insider and outsider, are invited and included.

And just to drive that point home, the formidable obstacle of a multitude of languages is overcome by a sweeping wind and an uplifting Spirit that drives those disciples out, out into the world beyond their walls, beyond the theoretical but fragile safety those walls provide.

Pentecost signals a breakdown in the divides we humans like to construct between ourselves. The miracle of Pentecost is that even though there are still many languages and diverse words people are able to understand each other. The apostles speak a variety of languages so a variety of people can hear. It is a mistake to read this text as God binding us together in unity despite our diversity. God’s promise for the church is that in our diversity, through our diversity, celebrating our diversity, the Holy Spirit still leads us forward in understanding.

Pentecost is not about what we can do by our cleverness and ingenuity. The Holy Spirit is not a strategy, The Holy Spirit isn’t something we discuss and vote on and enter into the minutes of the meeting. Pentecost reminds us that it’s about what God can do in and through us. It’s about what happens when God pours the Holy Spirit into our lives - God working a complete reversal of the pain & suffering we humans are so quick to inflict upon each other.

Though humans crucify, God resurrects. Though humans divide and dominate, God unites. God has the last word, and the word is wild. It changes everything. It rebuilds broken community. It breaks boundaries and enlarges the house. It makes possible understanding where before there was not understanding.

The fire of the Holy Spirit comes and burns all that pain and suffering away so that the process of transformation can begin within each of us. Those things have to be burned away for the new things of God to be born.

Perhaps that’s why Pentecost is often referred to as the birthday of the church. The wildfire of the Holy Spirit burning away negative attitudes and too much self-reliance on our own human abilities in order that something that is truly of God can be born. But remember, births are rarely neat, tidy, or quiet, even when something beautiful and of God is struggling to be born. In this case, fire and wind do not bring destruction, but new life. As with birth, it may not be quiet or peaceful, but it is exhilarating and good.

With rushing wind and tongues of fire, the apostles experienced the presence of God. In power and in intimacy, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and sent forth to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, to heal aching souls, to bear witness to divine, incomparable love. People responded – thousands of people responded. In one day, the church grew from a group of about 120 believers to a mega-church of over 3000.

As the prophet Joel foretold, old men began to dream dreams, and young men begin to see visions. Justice prevails, the mountains drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk. It is the “glorious day of the Lord” and it fills the disciples with euphoric hope. They go on to live out what the Spirit has revealed within them – they break bread from house to house, they share their goods and possessions, they hold all things in common, the display signs and wonders, and new members were added to their number daily.

The Holy Spirit had come in power. The fearful had found power. A new community was born. It was a good beginning. It was a realization of the prayer we continue to pray: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is heaven.”

But you know what? Pentecost didn’t happen just once. It wasn’t just a day on the church’s calendar. We don’t remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with nostalgic hearts and say, “Wasn’t that nice.” The good news of Pentecost is that it still happens – it still can, and it still does – among us today.

Like those early disciples of Jesus, we can come together in one place – surrendering our individual wills, our egos, our pride, our need for control, our self-importance, our agendas – laying all these things aside, coming together in one place called the will of God and praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on us for the sole purpose of being the witnesses of Jesus in the world. And that’s what happens – catch on fire with the Holy Spirit, and people will come from miles around to watch you burn.

My hope is that we will each experience Pentecost fresh and new today – that something of the Holy Spirit will be born within each of us – perhaps not neat and tidy, but exhilarating and good, all the same. May fresh wind and fresh fire fall in this place, and may we be utterly consumed by the glory of it all.

How to Become Great - Step 3 (Matthew 28:16-20)

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

God is on a mission – and you’re invited to be part of it.

Today we are concluding a three-part series of messages on how to be great in the kingdom of God. We have wrestled with the idea of striving to be great in the kingdom of God in the first place. Jesus got after his disciples when they argued about who would be great in his kingdom, about who would sit at his right hand and at his left. We have learned that the true path to greatness in the kingdom of God is the path of service. Being truly great is not about being exalted, it’s not about receiving the places of honor, it’s not about having people bow in deference to you when you walk in the room. The greatest in the kingdom of God will be the biggest servant. Those who exalt themselves will be brought low, and those who humble themselves will be elevated in God’s kingdom. The way to true greatness in the kingdom of God is the way of service, and so as we spend these weeks talking about being great in the kingdom of God, my hope is that you will want to cultivate the heart of a servant, and brothers and sisters, that is the true mark of greatness in the kingdom of God.

We looked at three steps to being great – to being a servant, in other words – in the kingdom of God. The first step was the teaching known as the Great Requirement found in the prophet Micah. We asked, “What does the Lord require of us?” and Micah articulated the answer: “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.” The second step was the teaching known as the Great Commandment, to love God, and to love neighbor. Today, we look at the Third Step: The Great Commission.

God is on a mission – and you’re invited to be part of it.

Today, we’re kicking off missions awareness month, but friends, I don’t want any of us to think that missions is something the church has to worry about only one month out of the year. The very existence of the church is missional. This church exists as a mission outpost of the kingdom of God. Missions is not something the church does – missions is who the church is. Mission is to church as combustion is to fire or wet is to water – take away mission, and we can no longer call ourselves church. It all comes back to what we are called to do in this teaching from St. Matthew’s Gospel – we are called to live out the Great Commission.

Everything we do comes down to this. Everything we do as a church is about being participants in the mission of God in the world. Our task is to be the presence of God in the world, to share the love of God in the world, to be the ongoing humanity of Jesus in the world, to be the very hands of feet of Jesus in the world. Our call is to continue to message and ministry of Jesus – to tell the world about the God who created us, the God who created us in God’s image, the God who is love, the God who loves the world so much that he gave – freely, abundantly, selflessly, sacrificially – his only Son for the salvation of the world, the God who invites all nations to enter into relationship with God that we may fulfill the chief end of humankind – to glorify God and enjoy God forever.

God is on a mission – and you’re invited to be part of it.

It’s not because any of us is perfect, that’s for sure. The disciples in this passage are evidence enough of that – “the eleven disciples went to Galilee.” Why eleven? Because Judas is no longer among the followers. The number eleven is a constant reminder of the betrayal that has taken place, the number eleven is a constant reminder that this small community of followers is far from perfect, the number eleven is a reminder that those first disciples of Jesus didn’t have all their stuff together, and friends, neither do we. But here’s the kicker – God knows we’re not perfect. God knows we have our failings and shortcomings and flaws, and God still invites us to be part of God’s mission. This is proof to me that God loves imperfect people, and not only does God love imperfect people, God is even willing to give imperfect people like us God’s perfect work to do in the world. The third step in being great in the kingdom of God is following the Great Commission – serving the world by recognizing that God has asked imperfect people like you and me, imperfect communities of faith like St. Paul United Methodist Church, to be part of God’s mission in the world.

God is on a mission – and you’re part of it.

There are a couple of things that stand out in this Great Commission. First, Jesus tells the disciples to “Go.”

Learning to drive in New York, as I did, involves the proper use of one’s horn as a service to other motorists and pedestrians with whom one shares the road. For instance, if you’re second in line at a traffic light, the light turns green and the car in front of you fails to claim the intersection, a long sustained blast of the horn can be a friendly gesture of encouragement to proceed into the intersection. This can even be done with words of encouragement: “For the love of God, GO!”

But think about that. For the love of God, with the love of God, sustained by the love of God, sharing the love of God, “Go.” There is a world out there desperately waiting for someone to share the love of God with them, and that is what Jesus has commissioned us to do. If Jesus told us to do it, I think it’s important enough that we should. And here’s the thing – not every person is equipped by the Holy Spirit with the gifts required for that “going” – to be an evangelist, to be involved hands-on in mission, to be the pioneer. In the body of Christ, we all have a role to play – perhaps you’ll support the church’s mission through prayer, or financial support, or encouragement, or hospitality or teaching or any other things. Our task is to be the presence of God in the world – for some of us, that will involve going places. For others of us, that will mean blooming where we are planted, and living as Christlike people in the world. Not everyone has to “go.” But, we all support those who do, and especially, we make sure that we are not the blocks that keep others from being able to go. If there is a line of traffic behind us chomping at the bit to go, I’d hate for any of us to be driving the car that refuses to move and allow others to go.

Jesus commissioned us to baptize. Baptism is the beginning of a spiritual journey with God. It is a channel through which we open ourselves up to the working of God’s grace in our lives. We baptize infants and children and adults, we baptize people of all levels of education and understanding, because all people are the worthy recipients of God’s grace. We place primary emphasis on the grace of God at work in our lives, even when we may not fully understand God’s grace and love for us, and honestly, who among us can fathom the great depth and complexity of God’s grace and love? Baptism is not a summation of the entire journey, but an important first step in which the grace of God is poured into our lives.

And if baptism is the first step, a life as a disciple of Jesus is the journey itself. Jesus commissioned us to make disciples. Now, a disciple is simply one who follows. And before we can make disciples, we have to be disciples. Discipleship is a radical lifestyle commitment to living as Jesus would have us live and being the presence of God in the world. Being a disciple is about being sold-out and dedicating our lives as students of the life of Jesus. It is a major turning point in our lives if we ask ourselves, seriously, if we really intend to follow Jesus that closely. We are not Christians because of what we believe, because of our political party, because of our national citizenship, or because of how we behave. We are Christians because Jesus has commissioned us to be his disciples. Being a disciple of Jesus is something we have to commit to over a lifetime.

We are not commissioned just to baptize, just to make church-goers, just to add new members, just to make polite people who will add church to a resume of socially-respectable activities. We are called to be and to make disciples – people who will wholeheartedly and completely follow Jesus as Lord.

Jesus is Lord. It’s a wonderful little word, Lord, that is a term of respect and submission. Jesus is Lord – Jesus is the boss, Jesus is in charge of things. If we follow Jesus as Lord and really believe he’s the boss, our lives will be shaped and formed by the things that matter to Jesus.

Since we are disciples of Jesus, we will want to obey everything Jesus has commanded us to do, and that’s what this series of messages has been aimed to do. Being great in the kingdom of God is really about being a servant. It’s really about submitting our wills to the things God desires for us to do, and we have found those things summed up in three simple steps. Brothers and sisters, we are called and commissioned to follow these things in order that our lives may be the very presence of God in the world. Step One is the Great Requirement – to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Step Two is the Great Commandment – to love God, and to love neighbor. Step Three is the Great Commission – to make disciples of Jesus of all nations. Doing these very things shapes our hearts to care about the things God cares about and we will be led to serve the world in God’s name, to share God’s love, and to be the presence of God at work in the world. Brothers and sisters, that is our task, and that is the mark of true greatness in the kingdom of God.

God is on a mission – and you’re part of it. God invites you to be God’s presence in the world.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will make you part of God’s plan to change the world. God invites you to care about the things God cares about, and to be God’s presence in the world. Your mission is to allow the Holy Spirit to shape your heart and mold your actions so that you will never turn down an opportunity to do justice, so that you will never turn down an opportunity to love kindness, so that you will always walk humbly with God. Your mission is to always be filled with love of God and neighbor. Your mission is to be the kind of disciple who follows Jesus so closely that your life really is a reflection of the kingdom of God.

The path to greatness in the kingdom of God is the path of service. May it be so for each of us.

How to Become Great - Step 2 (Mark 12:28-34)

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’: and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one dared to ask him any question.

Today’s message is the second in a three-part series about how to become great in the kingdom of God. Last week, we looked at Step One, which came to us from the prophet Micah in the teaching that is known as the Great Requirement. We asked the question, “What does the Lord require of us?” and Micah helped us articulate the answer: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” Next week, we’ll be in the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew to take a look at the Great Commission, but before we get there, today it’s the Gospel according to St. Mark as we examine the Great Commandment. Step one in being great in the kingdom of God was following the Great Requirement. Step two is following the Great Commandment. May we pray.

After seminary, my roommate, Logan, went to work as the Associate Pastor of the American Church in London. In several instances he ended up in gatherings where the Queen was present. She was speaking on one occasion, and someone’s cell phone went off. She folded her hands on the podium, looked at the offender, and said, “You’d better take that – it could be someone important!”

If you believe that doing what Jesus wants you to do is important, please put away your to-do list, your shopping list, your crossword puzzle, your Sudoku puzzle, or whatever else you’re working on that’s not related to worship. Stop the chit-chat with the people behind you, beside you, or in front of you. If someone near you is doing something distracting that is keeping you from participating in worship, you have my permission to ask them kindly, lovingly, in all the Christian charity you can muster, to stop. If you have come to worship God but are planning to work on something else, please feel free to leave now because, to paraphrase the queen, “It must be something important.”

Jesus is about to speak, and he’s going to say something important.

By the 12^th Chapter of Mark, Jesus finds himself in the middle of a theological cross-examination free-for-all. Priests, scribes, elders and other defenders of the letter of the law are swarming over him in a frenzy of entrapment.

They have all sorts of questions for Jesus. “By what authority are you doing these things?” In other words – when did the church council approve THIS particular project? Then there’s a question about paying taxes to test his loyalties. And finally, a brainteaser from some out-of-print religious textbooks about seven brothers who each do their brotherly duty by marrying each other’s childless widow, only to find themselves in heaven without a clue as to who gets to claim her as the piece of property known as “wife.” Jesus just rubs his head and says, “Dude, you just don’t get it.”

That’s when this nameless scribe, who has been hanging out on the fringe of crowd, asks the question. He asks the down-to-business, cut-through-the-crap, brass-tacks question. The crowd falls silent as he asks, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

This is a great question. I have a friend who is a college professor, and she talks about the kinds of questions that students ask. There are the questions they ask in class which are utilitarian in nature: “How many absences are we allowed in here?” or “What percentage of our grade is this paper worth?” But then, there are the questions they ask after class, which are invariably philosophical in nature: “So what is your position on the death penalty, anyway?” or “So come on, like, were you a hippie when you were in college?”

On the first day of Early and Medieval Church History at Duke Divinity School – a class every incoming student takes their first semester and is regarded as the unofficial “weed-out” course of the seminary catalogue, Dr. Warren Smith said, “I know you are all intelligent people. I know this because you have all been accepted to a graduate program at Duke University. Early in your education, you were all told something like, ‘There’s no such thing as a stupid question.’ But, you all know that there are stupid questions, and you can probably recognize one when you see it. Questions are always welcome in this class. Stupid questions, however, will be responded to appropriately.”

We all know a stupid question when we hear one. But we can also recognize that the question asked of Jesus by the scribe is, by no means, a stupid question. It’s a genuine, heartfelt question. The scribe is genuinely seeking. Seekers of Jesus come from all walks of life, and sometimes, even religious people seek after Jesus!

The scribe asks Jesus a question that was commonly debated among the rabbis. Which commandment is first? Which commandment is the most important? Which commandment is the greatest? In the tradition, the Law of God had been interpreted into 613 individual laws – commands and regulations that governed every aspect of a Jewish person’s life. There was a law for everything! Obviously, some of those laws were elevated and lowered, and a sort of ranking developed in the interpretation of those laws – certainly some laws were more or less important than others! So, the question on everyone’s mind was this: “Which commandment is the greatest?”

Jesus quotes the scripture in his response. He quotes a verse from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 that would have been well-known to the people of his day. He quotes a prayer that those in his audience would have said three times a day. The prayer was known as the Sh’ma, the Hebrew word for “Hear” because the prayer begins, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.”

Jesus says the first command is to love God with everything we’ve got. All of ourselves, everything we are, completely, wholeheartedly, recklessly. It’s not “Love God a little bit.” It’s not “Love God if you have the time.” It’s not “Love God every now and then.” Jesus is asked about the greatest command, and he commands us to love God with all. Love God with all your heart – with the center of your desires, with your emotions, with your values. Love God with all your soul – with every bit of your spirit and personality. Love God with all your mind – with all the intellectual capacities God has given you, not afraid of new learning and questioning and curiosities, but with their awesome inquisitive fullness, for a shallow mind is a sin against God. Love God with all your strength – with your entire physical being, with your very best. Love God with everything.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He links it with the command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, a quotation of Leviticus 18:19 in which God commands the people not to hold a grudge against another or take out vengeance on them. Jesus links these two together in a powerful summary statement of the entirety of God’s law and gives us the teaching we know today as the Great Commandment – to love God and to love neighbor. If you want to be great in the kingdom of God, you will follow this Great Commandment. You will love God, and you will love your neighbor. My friend Betty Jo Hardy summed it up this way: “love of God and neighbor is being able to look in the face of your enemy and see God.”

Let me insert the disclaimer here. Several of you have phoned, emailed, and visited with me this week to ask about the premise of being great. You have rightly wondered, “Is being great something to which we should aspire?” “Didn’t Jesus say that the greatest among us would be servant of all? Didn’t Jesus get after his disciples when they were arguing about who would be greatest in his kingdom and sit at his right hand and at his left? OK, so you caught me. Over and over again, Jesus teaches us that the path to greatness in his kingdom is the path of servanthood. Being truly great is not about being exalted, it’s not about receiving the places of honor, it’s not about having people bow in deference to you when you walk in the room. The greatest in the kingdom of God will be the biggest servant. Those who exalt themselves will be brought low, and those who humble themselves will be elevated in God’s kingdom. The way to true greatness is the kingdom of God is the way of service, and so as we spend these weeks talking about being great in the kingdom of God, I am trying to help you all cultivate the heart of a servant. I am hoping you will all want to live selflessly and sacrificially, and brothers and sisters, that is the true mark of greatness in the kingdom of God.

You already know this truth – that we are created to love God and love our neighbor, because God first loved us. The scriptures tell us and we will hear again in our celebration of Communion that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and that proves God’s love toward us. What then, is love? Love is being focused outward instead of inward. Love is about bowing our own wills and desires, it is about lowering and humbling ourselves. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Jesus commands a total commitment in our lives to God, which means that we have no choice but to love those who are created in God’s image. And brothers and sisters, who among the entire precious human family is NOT created in the image of God? The truth is this: all people are created by God, in the image of God, for relationship with God. It is not our job to determine who does and does not get a seat at the banquet, we are called to spread the call far and wide, to love all people unconditionally just as Jesus would love and, indeed, does love them. That is our task. We are commanded to love all people. Before you start rolling your eyes and thinking, “Here he goes again,” I’m just telling you what Jesus said. I’m just the messenger here! If you don’t like it, take it up with Jesus!

In the Gospel of Mark, scribes typically opposed Jesus. In the stories that Mark has placed immediately after this particular text, Jesus is harsh on the scribes, even calling into question the validity of their learning and scholarship. Then, he goes further and warns the people to beware of the scribes, because they do all these outward things so that people will honor them and respect them and defer to them and think they are important, and religious, and holy. But Jesus warns that their hearts are far from what God desires, yet because they have put on such airs of religious self-importance, they will be greatly condemned for putting up a false front when they do not love.

The scribes were sort of like the fig tree Jesus cursed only a few chapters back. The fig tree was leafy but had no fruit. Religious people can sometimes talk a good religious talk, but fail to put their words into action in their daily lives. The tree symbolized people who appeared to be deeply-religious, who appeared to be healthy and leafy, but whose lives did not produce the fruit of love.

Today, the apparently healthy fig tree without fruit symbolizes an apparently healthy Christian life that does not produce the love God wants from us. The tree looks healthy but it is not. A religious life looks healthy but it is not.

So it was with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. We remember that they loved their religious traditions more than they loved God and neighbor. They loved their interpretations of Scripture more than they loved God and neighbor. They loved their money more than they loved God and neighbor. They loved their power more than they loved God and neighbor. They talked a good line, but didn’t live it. They were blind to God, God’s love, God’s Word, God’s truth, and God’s son. Let us not forget that Jesus’ conflict was with the religious people. They were experts in the Scriptures, but they had missed the central truth of the Word of God. And friends, the same can happen to us.

Simply put, empty religion can cause us to miss the very purpose of the Word and our purpose as the people of God.

We can go to church, memorize Scripture, study the Bible, quote Scripture, know a lot about theology, use the right buzzwords, serve on committees, know all about church etiquette and church manners and church programs, and yet we can hold our hearts far away from any real relationship or commitment to God. Our ears may burn when someone utters profanity around us, yet we readily marginalize and degrade other people who are created in the image of God and whom we are commanded to love. It can happen that we are so caught up in doing all the right church things that the real themes of the Gospel completely pass us by. We can love the church more than we love God, and our religion can be nothing more than a lie if the love we claim to have for God is not matched by hearts turned outward.

Now, I want you to love the church. I want you to serve here, I want you to grow here, I want you to belong here. But if any of us here starts to love the church more than we love God, then we’re in major trouble. If we love the church more than we love God, that’s called idolatry! The church is not the same thing as God! Please, I’m begging you – don’t serve the church; serve God! I never want to hear that someone serves the church. Serve through the church, yes, but serve God, not the church! Serving the church is one of the deadliest things any of us can do, for we will serve and worship and love the church itself instead of serving and worshiping and loving God. May it never be said of any of us that we serve the church, for if it is, we are like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who loved their institutions more than they loved God, and like them, we will have missed the point completely.

Have you ever thought about why so many churches call our worship gatherings a “service?” The etymology of this usage fascinates me. In too many places, I think that the word “service” is interpreted as some sort of benefit of membership – as if the church is some sort of religious Costco or Sam’s Club. In this light, the “service” becomes something primarily to keep the existing members comfortable.

But that’s not how the word “service” is intended. The worship service is for people who are already part of the church, but it is not exclusively for us! First, it is for God. We serve God through worship – we adore God because God is worthy of our praise, we confess our failures to be the people God desires for us to be, we give God thanks simply because of who God is, and we ask God to continue to mold us more and more into God’s image. So yes, to the extent that worship makes us more Christlike people, worship is for us. But then, the worship service becomes about loving our neighbor – we are equipped to live as disciples as we offer our praises to God, and then we take our commitments out to love and serve our neighbor. What we do in worship equips us and empowers us for service in the world outside these walls in the name of Jesus. And so we call it a worship service – not because it is some privilege we earned when we joined, but because our worship of God in this place enables our service in the world. Think of it – worship service. Worship – love God. Service – love neighbor.

Love God, love neighbor. These are not two distinct commandments, but two sides of the same coin. Your personal relationship with Jesus Christ doesn’t mean jack if you are not loving toward every other human being with whom you share this planet. Your relationship with Jesus may be personal, but it is not private. If we love God, we are commanded to love all those who are created in the image of God. Lip service and all the churchy things are only hollow worship if they have no bearing on our relationships with others.

The Scripture is clear. If you want to be great in the kingdom of God, you will love God, and you will love your neighbor. It’s a command, it’s the Great Commandment. Step One is following the Great Requirement we studied last week, to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Step Two is the Great Commandment – to love God, and to love our neighbor. In this we see that the path to true greatness in God’s kingdom is the path of service.

I was a junior in high school and we ended up with Mrs. Belkota as our social studies teacher. We were the smart class, we were bored, and we didn’t like her, and by October we were very successful in making her life a living hell. We even caused her to have a nervous breakdown, complete with tears and everything, in the classroom.

In the teacher’s lounge, one of the other teachers noticed she was down, and asked her what was wrong. She started to cry all over again, told her which class was the problem, and even named myself and a few others in that class. That was bad enough, but the teacher who asked her what was wrong just happened to be the faculty adviser to a weekly afterschool Bible study that I was part of. She came to get me out of class the next day to ask if what she had heard was true, and of course, it was. It was about the smallest I’ve ever felt.

Jesus gives us the Great Commandment: to love God and our neighbor, and the depth to which we love God will be demonstrated in our relationships with all other people. The world is watching; what do they see?

How to Become Great - Step 1 (Micah 6:6-8)

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with then thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

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?

Today, we are beginning a 3-part series of messages on how to become great. Today, we’re looking at step one. Next week, we’ll look at step two, and can you guess what we’ll look at the week following?

This series has one question at its core: How can we be great in the kingdom of God? Now, I am making some assumptions about us today. I assume that everyone here wants to be great in the kingdom of God. I assume that because I sent out my e-pistle earlier in the week, and here’s what I said: “Please don’t come to worship for the next three weeks if you’d rather be great in your own eyes or in the eyes of the world than be great according to God’s design. You’re only going to end up getting angry, because you’ll be told to re-orient your life’s priorities around God’s desires and not your own. I’d rather avoid a mob of angry people outside my office who are comfortable with the status quo and don’t want to change in the ways God wants them to, so only come if you want to hear what God says about how you can become truly great.”

So, I assume that everyone here today is here because you truly want to be great in the kingdom of God. But, perhaps you got confused about what we’re going to do today, and you really don’t want to be transformed into a great person in the eyes of God and would rather continue to live your life your way and not God’s way. If so, feel free to leave now. I want to be clear about what today is about. It’s about being truly great in the kingdom of God. And here’s a hint: it’s not about becoming great in business. It’s not becoming great in power. It’s not about becoming great in wealth. It’s not about becoming great in bed. It’s not about becoming great in parenting. It’s not about becoming great in the church – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. So I’m giving you one last chance – feel free to get up and leave through those doors and not come back for the next two Sundays, because you won’t be interested in what we’re doing.

Today, we’re looking at the first step of becoming great in the kingdom of God, and we find that the first step is the Great Requirement, found back in the Old Testament prophet of Micah. Written 800 years before the birth of Jesus, Micah calls the people back to their roots and recovering the very identity they seem to have so readily lost and ignored. Micah, whose name literally means, “Who is like the Lord,” calls the community to remember the things that are truly important in the eyes of God, and that’s what we’re going to do for a little bit this morning. May we pray.

OK, so everyone here wants to be a great person in the kingdom of God. Are we in agreement? Is that what we’re all here for this morning? Do you think what God has to say about being great in the kingdom of God is important? Do you think it’s something worth paying attention to? Then let me invite you to do a few things. If your cell phone is currently on, turn it off – not to vibrate – completely off. The exception to this is if you take notes on your phone as I sometimes do or are planning to send text messages to other people in the congregation about things in the sermon. If you have photos you wish to share with the people around you, let me ask you to put those away until after worship. Please put away your to-do list, your shopping list, your crossword puzzles, or whatever else it is you’re working on that’s not related to what we’re doing now. Please stop talking to the people beside you or in front of you or behind you, and if the person near you is doing something that is distracting you from participating in worship, you have my permission to ask them, kindly and politely and in all the Christian love you can muster, to stop.

Now, if the phone call you are expecting is so important that you must leave your phone on, if whatever list you’re working on is so important, if that conversation is so important you feel compelled to have it now, please leave now so we won’t be a distraction to what you feel is so important. Take a look around – none of us is the only person here today! Maybe, just maybe, the person sitting next to you would like to pay attention. Maybe they have something they want to know today. We are here as part of a community, which means that our actions necessary affect those around us. And this, of course, brings us back to our text.

The people of Israel often exploited the vulnerable rather than care for them; they embraced violence and war, instead of loving their enemies; and they worshiped idols and not God alone. In short, the people have broken their covenant relationship with God, and such a fracture has devastating effects on the lives of those around them.

The people have been living lives that are far from what God wants, but what is most distressing is that they think their conduct has been exactly what God wanted. Weren’t sacrifices the way to keep a god in the ancient world happy – what more could God possibly want?

But for the people of Israel, sacrifice was not a way to magically appease God. By themselves, sacrifice did not achieve reconciliation with God; Psalm 51:15-17 makes that abundantly clear: O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Sacrifice was not the way to earn God’s favor. Rather, it was the celebration of God’s grace – a recognition of what God had already done in the heart and disposition of a person – a sacramental act of response in which the worshiper acknowledged her relationship with God and made a recommitment to live in covenant with God – and necessarily, in covenant with everyone else.

We see that the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Think of the process of breaking a wild horse. What is being broken? The horse’s wild, rebellious nature, of course. The process of breaking a horse is about training it and bringing its will under submission – about breaking its will, so to speak. Or, think of breaking in a new pair of shoes. Why do we break them in? What are we breaking in? We are trying to break the shape of the shoe that resists against the shape of our foot, and give it the opportunity to conform to our foot.

The same is true of a broken spirit before God. Our wild, rebellious wills need to be broken and brought under submission to God. The shape of our will that resists against the shape of God needs to be broken and conformed ever more into the image and likeness of God.

And here’s the crux of the issue: the people thought they were worshiping God the way God desired. They thought their praises and sacrifices were pleasing and acceptable to God, because they thought that’s all God wanted. Sacrifices and outward expressions of worship were only a small part of what God wanted, but they had so elevated their role that they forgot God truly wanted their hearts. God wanted the center of their affection and disposition to be turned toward God, and God wanted them to live that out in their relationships with those around them.

They thought that if they just showed up to church on time, put in their hour sitting in worship, dressed nicely and looking like a respectable member of the community, that was enough. But God is clear – worship is not only about sitting in church and participating in the community’s celebration, even as important as it is to do so. Worship is something God desires for us to do 24/7. It’s not just singing songs, praying prayers, hearing the Word of God, and giving an offering; every aspect of our lives should be an expression of worship. What we do on Sundays here in this place is great, but Micah reminds us that how we live our lives when we walk out of this place is even more important.

The real issue here is idolatrous worship in which the people have replaced the worship of God in living their daily lives with only lip service on Sunday. By reducing worship to a single act or a single hour, we, like the people of Micah’s day, can slip away from worshiping God while we are supposedly worshiping. If we think showing up for an hour a few times a month is all God desires, we will have substituted the process for God or the means or the institution or the church itself for God, and we will have begun worshiping something other than God.

Friends, our worship on Sunday means nothing if it has no effect on how we live on Monday. If we come and sit in these pews week after week and are not transformed through the grace of God to live lives that are pleasing to God, our worship means nothing. We of all people are most to be pitied if we sit in these pews week after week and are still the same people we were when we came in.

The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken heart – when’s the last time you let down your guard and truly allowed God to break your heart? There are things we need to let go of – our pride, our anger, our resentments, our arrogance, our mean spirits – in order that God can break our hearts and mold them. If these are things that persist in your life, as your pastor, I’m begging you to let them go. If you insist on hanging onto them, I can’t even begin to describe the damage you’ll do to others, this church, and yourself. Please, let them go. In fact, right now, close your eyes and take a deep breath. What is that thing that keeps God from being able to break your heart? In your mind, name it. Imagine that thing wrapped like a hard shell around your heart. Now, imagine God taking a big hammer and breaking that hard shell into tiny, unrecognizable bits and sweeping away the broken pieces. Now, picture God gently, lovingly, patiently, carefully molding your heart – your attitudes, your disposition, the center of your being, your values, the things that you feel define you – imagine God molding them upward toward God, and outward toward everyone else around you.

In our text, the people ask, “What does God want?” The response comes back, “He has shown 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?”

God, who is immortal, who is wise, who is loving, who is kind, whose ways are higher and greater and nobler than our ways, who formed paths that are yet unknown to us, has shown us what is good. What does God require? Repeat after me: Do justice (reply). Love kindness (reply). Walk humbly with God (reply).

My sisters and brothers, if you want to be great in the kingdom of God, the first step is following this Great Requirement – to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. There’s no way around it. It’s a requirement. Life is full of requirements. Get used to it. No arguments. No fuss. Quit making a stink about it. If you want to be great in the kingdom of God, the Great Requirement is step one.

The requirements of God are not some sort of strict legal list we can check off and tally the points to see if we have earned enough to please God. The requirements are placed in the framework of a relationship with God and with others. Micah defines God’s requirements in terms of general principles rather than specific actions. While some might argue that this interpretation lessens the requirements, in actuality, for those who truly follow, in only increases the responsibility. The Great Requirement outlines for us the way of extreme commitment and discipleship – this is only for people who are serious about following God. But how do we follow it?

The first part is to do justice. No doubt you’ve heard the story of a woman who went to a photographer to have her portraits done. When she received the proofs, she complained, “These pictures don’t do me justice.” The photographer replied, “Lady, you don’t need justice; you need mercy.”

The call to do justice rings throughout the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” Amos thunders as he compares it to a raging river flowing over a parched desert of injustice (Amos 5:24).

Justice is not a legal term here. It is a relational term. It comes out of an understanding that we are all bound together in community. Part of our mission statement is that we are a Christian community, and one of the cornerstones of community is justice. It means the full inclusion of everyone in the community, it’s about restoring the marginalized to their rightful place as full participants in the community. It involves the basic needs, requirements, or even rights of people living together in community. It is, therefore, decidedly social in nature. In short, doing justice is about looking out for the others in our world.

Those who are following God wholeheartedly will do justice. We have an obligation to rectify the inequities of a society that allows some to be oppressed to the point where they are deprived of the basic needs and requirements that would allow them to function as part of the community.

Let me be very clear about the cost of doing justice. Sometimes because of our commitment to God’s truth and justice, we must stand against the tide. We may find ourselves at odds with our respectable social circles. Because of our commitment to God’s truth and justice, sometimes we are called to stand against the tide. Doing that always has consequences, but if that happens, and if we are faithful – God can speak words through us that will never be silenced.

Can you forget the powerful photograph that must have appeared in every newspaper in the world in 1989? A street in Beijing, empty except for a menacing column of tanks, and a young student unarmed and alone, blocking their way with outstretched arms. We don’t know his fate, but knowing regime, we can be sure that he suffered. We don’t even know his name, but nothing the government does can silence the ringing witness for freedom spoken by God through him on that day.

And justice is not the same thing as fairness. Perhaps you remember Jesus’ story about laborers in the vineyard. The landowner went to the marketplace early in the morning, and hired laborers to come work in his vineyard and agreed to pay them the standard daily wage. He went back several times later in the day, and kept hiring laborers to work in his vineyard. At the end of the day, he paid the workers who had come latest and done the least work first, and he paid them for an entire day’s work. Finally, at the end of the line came the workers who were hired first, and the landowner paid them exactly the same thing, and they were furious, because those who had done far less work than they had received the same reward.

Justice is not about what’s fair. The kingdom of God is not a business deal. It’s not a contract. It’s a covenant. As soon as we start looking at bottom-line and asking “What’s in it for me?” we have stepped away from doing justice and expect the kingdom of God to have the same rules of hard work and reward as the world.

How quickly we begrudge God for giving the same reward to those we perceive have done less than ourselves. Of course, I compare myself with those who have done less than I have. I never compare myself with those who have done more. How quickly I forget that I have also received more than I deserve, how quickly we forget that we have all received more than we deserve. If we’re always focused on our bottom line, we will never be able to do justice.

However, when we realize how greatly we have been rewarded in spite of the ways we have failed God, it is easier to do justice. If we are truly following God, if our hearts have been broken and we have allowed God to shape our hearts, we will do justice. The witness of the prophets is clear: a follower of the Lord does justice. Period. End of story. It’s a requirement.

The second part of this Great Requirement is to love kindness. The word translated “kindness” could also mean mercy or faithfulness. It is a word used to describe God’s love for us, even when we waver in our love and devotion to God. God calls us to love kindness in all our relationships, with strangers, with friends, with our families, and with God.

What does it mean to love kindness? God is not saying, “Have warm fuzzy feelings for everyone.” For one, that’s just impossible because so many people are just downright irritating, and they’re not going to have warm fuzzy feelings for you because you’re downright irritating, too! Being loving is about being focused on the other person instead of on myself. It’s about being externally-focused rather than internal. It’s about making a choice, a conscious effort, to place the needs of others above my own. It’s about being committed to a quality of life that is governed by principles of mutual respect, helpfulness, and loving concern, especially toward people who are different from us, with whom we may disagree, and especially those we just don’t like very much.

Do you have people you just don’t get along with? You wanna really screw with their heads? Try being nice to them all the time. Go out of your way to be kind. They’ll be so confused they won’t know whether to scratch their watch or wind their butt! But moreso, we do it because God requires us to love kindness. The witness of the prophets is clear: a follower of the Lord loves kindness. Period. End of story. It’s a requirement. Quit whining about it.

Finally, if we want to be great in the kingdom of God, we are required to walk humbly with God. Walk – don’t run, don’t rush ahead, don’t get ahead of God. At the same time, don’t drag or lollygag or throw yourself into dead weight. Have you ever tried to pick up or carry a child who has decided to resist going along and has become dead weight? Don’t be dead weight when God has invited you to walk alongside!

Walk humbly with God – not with your nose lifted high above others, but neither staring at your bellybutton in defeat.

Walking is a place where relationship happens. Think about your relationships – don’t you love to take a walk with the people who are important and matter to you? When you walk, you talk, you spend time together, you learn about each other, you learn to care about the things the other person cares about.

Walking humbly with God is a call to come and spend time living life with God in ways that leave their mark on every aspect of our lives. It is an invitation for our hearts to be broken by the things that break the heart of God, a deep desire to see the world through the eyes of God, to act in the world as God would act.

A very wise person (Ashley Pickerel) put it this way: “I think of it kind of like when we realized earth wasn't the center of the solar system; the sun was. Walking humbly means we can finally see that we are not the center and life/existence/reality is far bigger than we first imagined. Then the movement happening all around us begins to make a lot more sense! It's all about God, not just us and with that realization we can become better participants in the whole of God's story!” Or Kathy Sherrill: “It is allowing God to be the center of all one does, every decision, every word, every action. Seeking to be the vessel through which God's love is poured out into the world. Never needing others to know why you are being who you are – simply being in God's love. Living & loving like Jesus.”

There is one important word in this last sentence. Walk humbly with YOUR God. Now, God is not your possession and does not belong exclusively to you. There are a whole of people who are also in relationship with God, it turns out God is walking along with a whole lot of other people, too, but while God is not your possession, God is personal with you. God knows your name. Walk humbly with your God – your God who made you, your God who walks every step with you, your God who walks to the top of the tallest mountain with you and in the valleys of life, even the valley of the shadow of death. Your God, my God, our God, and even the God of people we don’t like very much – walking with each of us, knowing our name, inviting us into relationship. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty special.

The witness of the prophets is clear: a follower of the Lord walks humbly with God. Period. End of story. It’s a requirement.

If you want to be great in the kingdom of God, the first step is to live out the Great Requirement. What does the Lord require of you? Repeat after me: Do justice (repeat). Love kindness (repeat). Walk humbly with your God (repeat).

“If you look at the lives of the prophets, the strength of their witness lies not only in the weight of their words. It was their willingness to suffer for what they proclaimed that allowed God to speak so powerfully through them.” (Peter Storey)

On the wall of the grubby Memphis motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was cut down by an assassin’s bullet, there is a small memorial plaque, inscribed with the words from the old story of Joseph the dreamer in Genesis: “Here comes that dreamer. Now is our chance; let us kill him . . . Then we shall see what will come of his dreams.” (Genesis 37:20)

The fullness of King’s dream may not yet be realized, but his dying for that dream has guaranteed that it will continue to haunt the people of this country year after year.

Never underestimate the words that God can speak through your life when you walk humbly with God, when you love kindness, and when you do justice. Through such lives, the word of God speaks.