Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

I have a confession to make. I’ve been married three times. But it’s been to the same woman. Just call me the Richard Burton of Lutheran clergy.

As some of you know, in Germany only the state can marry you. So, we had a civil ceremony first. Then we had a church wedding, which is what we count as our anniversary. And then one more church wedding in Pennsylvania.

Our third wedding was in mid-August. It was hot and it was humid. It was so hot that the flowers pressed into the sides of the cake, wouldn’t stay. The buttercream was simply too soft. We had extra hymns and the full wedding service. We had communion. As weddings go, it was on the long side. And that on a very hot, very humid day in a 19th century building with no a/c. It’s no wonder my nephew, who was about 3 at the time, turned to his mother at one point and said, “Mommy, this is just prayer after prayer”.

Of course, it was more than just prayer after prayer. There was a lot going on there. We were getting married, after all! Anke and I declared our intentions to marry one another, to stick by one another, through thick and thin. And nearly 35 years later, we’re still at it.

I’ve celebrated a lot of weddings over my career. As far as I know most of them are still intact, but certainly not all of them. Sometimes a wedding service really is nothing more than prayer after prayer. It’s a bunch of empty words and superficial ritual that’s being carried out just because that’s what you do when you have a wedding. And sometimes, there’s something more going on. Something deeper.

Micah’s basic contention is that God demands social justice, ethical behavior, and true righteousness over empty religious ritual. Israel's elite are warned that they will face severe judgment for oppressing the poor and vulnerable. Do the government and the powerful elite reflect the values of God and God’s kingdom, or is it all just prayer after prayer? A showy ritual? That is the question Micah presented to the leaders of Israel. It’s a question with which Martin Luther was forced to wrestle. It’s the question with which both Micah and Luther force us to wrestle.

God calls the land itself to witness the controversy that God has with the people of Israel. God makes clear that God has been steadfast in faithfulness. The people, on the other hand… Let’s just say that their performance has been somewhat lacking. The leadership of the country has exploited the people.

Micah 3:1-3 states: “And I said: Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Should you not know justice? – you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones; who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a caldron.” (Micah doesn’t mince words, so to speak.) “Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong!”

But it’s not just the political leadership of Israel that Micah condemns: Micah 6:12 “Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in their mouths.” Micah 7:2-4 “The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice.  The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge.”

And how do the people respond? Prayer after prayer. They seek refuge in ritual that has become meaningless to them. 6“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? 7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Rather than allowing themselves to be challenged and changed; rather than seeking to understand their own behavior and to do something about it; they see the problem as being simply one of appeasing God. “OK.  OK, we get it.  We’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.” But God doesn’t want to be made happy. God wants a changed people. “8He 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?” Not empty ritual, not prayer after prayer, not ostentatious sacrifice. But justice, kindness, and humility before God.

Just so that we’re perfectly clear here: Micah is no way condemning worship or prayer. Micah does not criticize the ritual religious life of the people. What Micah is saying is that it’s meaningless if a spirit of true servanthood does not accompany that worship. In other words, they’re simply talking the talk, and not walking the walk. Micah reminds them in no uncertain terms that talk is not enough. Thoughts and prayers are all well and good but divorced from any action, they are meaningless. A faith that is truly rooted in authentic relationship with God will express itself in the way we live our lives. We will seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

To enact justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God, are not individual items that can be checked off the list and left behind. What Micah is talking about is a way of life. The problem is not religion in itself. The problem is using ritual practice to excuse ourselves from the divine demands of justice and mercy.

Enter Rev. Dr. Martin Luther and the teaching on the Two Kingdoms. To grossly oversimplify: Martin Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms teaches that God rules the world in two distinct ways: First there is the spiritual kingdom, which he referred to as “the right hand”, which governs souls through grace as expressed in the Word, the Gospel, and sacraments. It’s for believers and deals with the conscience and inner life.

Second, there is the temporal kingdom, “the left hand”, which governs the world through secular authorities to restrain evil, maintains law and order, and protects life using law and “the sword”. These realms are not be confused or blended, ensuring that earthly authorities maintain peace while the church focuses on spiritual salvation. Luther separated the two in order to prevent the church from wielding political power and to prevent the state from interfering in matters of faith.

As Christians, we live in both realms simultaneously: We are citizens of the world, subject to temporal laws. And we are spiritual children of God, living by grace. But Luther also taught that there were limits to this obedience. While secular authority is a divine gift for order, obedience is not absolute. If earthly rulers overstep into the spiritual realm and violate the conscience, they violate their divine mandate. Citing Psalm 82, Luther urged citizens and political authorities to promote social justice with special attention to the most vulnerable among us: “Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.” 

When we look at the Beatitudes, it’s easy to be dismissive of them, because we’ve heard them so many times. These 10 verses that basically tell us what Jesus and his ministry mean; what it means to hear the words “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near”.

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4“Blessed are those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

What follows this introduction then, in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, is three chapters of explanation.

We can’t allow our familiarity with this passage to cause us to lose sight of the radical nature of the proclamation that Jesus is making here. When Jesus uses the word “blessed” it’s a word that refers neither to holiness nor to happiness. Quite literally, it’s a word that means “fortunate”.

Furthermore, it’s all in the present tense. Jesus is not advocating waiting for some future promise of a heaven where all earthly suffering is removed from us. Jesus declares that these people are blessed, not that they will be blessed after they die. Of the poor in Spirit, Jesus says, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” not for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.

After this, and after the explanation that follows, the rest of Matthew’s Gospel is taken up with showing us what the kingdom of heaven looks like. And it happens at a breakneck pace. There’s no time given to interludes, there’s even little time given to reflection in Matthew. Rather than being prayer after prayer, it’s healing after healing, liberation after liberation, restoration after restoration. The words of Jesus are compelling and powerful because we can see how they are followed by real and concrete action.

Unlike the empty worship of Micah’s Israel, the words of Jesus are not empty. And all of this culminates in the great commission: “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.”

Half of discipleship is being a servant; doing something for someone else. The other half of discipleship is having our eyes opened to the humanity of those who suffer around the world, and recognizing that their suffering is our suffering and, more importantly, the same suffering that Christ undergoes as the one who identifies with them in their suffering.

And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ When we see the human dignity of any person being violated, Luther’s teaching on the two kingdoms makes it clear that it is our Christian responsibility to not just notice it and tsk tsk about it, but to do something as well. It’s what our Lutheran heritage expects of us. It is what our Lord and Savior expects of us.

And it doesn’t matter who is doing the violating. If it’s a school bully, we defend the bullied. If it’s a hate group, we stand up to the hate. If it’s the government, we avail ourselves of the means of free speech and the ballot box. We protest, if that’s our thing. We contact our senators, our representatives, and the seat of government. And we vote as our conscience demands.

This is hard work. It requires courage. It will cost us something—maybe comfort, maybe popularity, maybe more. But here's what we need to remember: we don't do this to earn God's favor. We're not trying to appease an angry deity with our sacrifices. We do this because we've already been claimed by grace. We do this because Christ has already identified himself with the suffering, the marginalized, the vulnerable—and in baptism, he's identified himself with us.

"Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." That's not just a nice sentiment. That's a promise. Christ goes with us into every school hallway, every voting booth, every uncomfortable conversation, every act of resistance and mercy. We don't go alone.

So, go. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. The kingdom of heaven has come near. AMEN