– We hear today a passage from the book of Micah, another one of the “twelve minor prophets” of the Old Testament. If you don’t know anything about Micah, you still might know something, this very famous quotation: “What Does the Lord Require of You? to Act Justly and to Love Mercy and to Walk Humbly With Your God.” (Micah 6:8). It reminds us of something we have already insisted on, that the prophets are mostly preoccupied with what we call today “social justice” but which is basically care for the poor – and beyond this care for the poor, choosing for oneself to become “poor” that is, humble. This way of living, according to Micah, is worth all sacrifices and offerings, of much more value than what was considered at the times the highest sacrifice one could do in the pagan world: the sacrifice of your own child – a sacrifice that the God of Israel supremely despises, but – so does the prophet remind us – it may happen with any kind of offering: Our gifts are of no value to God if not offered with a pure heart and living according to the rules God has given to the people.
It might not be useless to be reminded of that during Christmas time when we try to show affection or to “make up” relationships by the offering of the gifts. The gift may be of value if there is work being done on the relationships in the meantime, the gift being a symbol for the mending or the reinforcing of the relationship but it certainly cannot be a substitute for it. What matters is the intention of the heart and the conversion of the heart, this is how it should work with one another, and this is certainly how it works with God. In the Old Testament, all sacrifice / gift that is offered with no pure intention is considered as manipulative (=trying to obtain something from God without being willing to change). What might not be readily understandable for us is that, as they make this claim, the prophets inscribe themselves in a countertradition: they go against the tradition of the Temple and the tradition of the priests, whose job was just that: to offer the sacrifice. With the prophets’ counter tradition, we are, if you will, at a higher degree of spirituality than just mere religion: The true religion of the heart. And we have talked already about that last week, how the God of the prophets is a God who expects repentance from the people. Repentance not by offering wonderful gifts or by beating ourselves up about our sins, but by concretely changing our way of living, becoming humble, and by changing our way of relating to others, especially to the poorest among us and the most powerless.
– Now, it is interesting that we open the Gospel of Luke and this is exactly what the program is all about. Luke inscribes his Gospel in the tradition (or the countertradition) of the prophets. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was the priest designated to serve at the Temple on that year and he is silenced by the angel, he is made dumb, although he was a righteous man, he cannot instruct the people. But the women will. Over the voices of the establishment, we hear the voices of the poor and the humble: Mary and Elizabeth, and even an unborn child – John The Baptist, bearing his first testimony to Jesus by kicking in the womb.
This is very important to notice because we will hear during all this coming liturgical year from Luke’s Gospel, and these are two major themes in Luke: Humility and poverty. With each story, each parable and even as Luke gives an account of Jesus’s passion, the same statement is made again and again: The humble and the poor, these are the people who are close from God, these are the people who, emptying themselves, can be filled with the Spirit, these are the people who “get it” even if they don’t get anything else. These are the real prophets. No doubt in Luke’s mind that Elizabeth, the barren old woman, Mary, the unwed pregnant teenager, and John, the six months old fetus, are prophets.
And this is interesting we have today in our lectionary this parallel with Micah, because Micah was probably the poorest and most humble of all the prophets in the Bible – a small town man, from Moresheth-gath, a peasant, who had no relation whatsoever with the power structure in Jerusalem and who actually refused the title of prophet for himself (when other prophets like Jeremiah or Isaiah would go at length about their calling) (see Micah 3:5-8).
So what does it say to us when we see that the real prophet not only advocates for the poor and the humble but himself embraces humility and poverty because this is where the voice of God can be heard and where the change of heart happens? The prophet lets go of power, goods and even titles, even their titles in relationships with God- Micah is a true prophet as he refuses to be a prophet as a status – in this, Micah actually reminds me of St Francis of Assisi who refused to become a priest because of his great humility.
Now what about us? Do we want to help the poor and the powerless and stop there, or do we accept our own poverty and powerlessness and above that, do we go as far as choosing poverty and pwerlessness? Not because it’s a good thing in itself to be poor and powerless but because this is actually where the voice of God is being heard, and this is where God brings true salvation – as described in Mary’s famous song we have just heard this morning. The prophecy from Micah about Bethlehem has something to say about that too. This prophecy has been, of course, used many times by Christians. As we have noticed several times, we might just use it as a “prediction”: Micah says that a king will be born in Bethlehem and oh, this must be Jesus because Jesus is born in Bethlehem. But beyond that, what really matters in that Micah, the small town man, saw the real King as a small town man too, poor and humble and yet full of majesty as he would continue in King David’s steps.
– So yes, the prophet preaches repentance for the people – humility and poverty. Now I think we would stop half way if we would just stop at that. I think this is interesting in another manner that Micah would point out to Bethlehem, the city of David, as the place where salvation was supposed to come. To me, Micah means by that that in spite of all the sins of the people, God is ready to start again. God is ready to start again, with a new David, before the throne became completely corrupted in Jerusalem, and not only is God willing to start again, but God is ready to do something even better than what God did in the past. The mystery – and I think this is true in all the books of the prophets and in all the prophecies – is that if the people would repent, if they are really willing to change, God will repent too. God is ready to change too. We noted last week how God’s anger was a huge part of prophecies and how the prophets saw the calamities happening to the people as a punishment for their sins (collective – not individuals) but yet, there is always this possibility that if the people change, God will change too, and again, not only bring things back to normal, but will make things better than they were. More than speaking about God, or on behalf of God, the prophets show us how God feel about people. As Mary and Elizabeth do not only bear a message but bear the messengers themselves, the prophets show to the people how it is like to be God: Angered by their sins, mourning for their crimes, and in the same time full of compassion for the lost and longing to make things new. The care and concern prophets show for the people is a reflection of God’s own care and concern. God is moved in every way by those God chose to call God’s own.
So you see, the God of the prophets does not care for karma and fate and destiny – the people won’t get exactly (the bad things) that they deserve, but they are free to reinvent with God a new way of being, should they choose to. The prophets wrote in the darkest times of History for the people and yet they were able to discern what God was willing to do beyond that. Once again, this is not cheap hope that we find in the Bible, but faith in God’s willingness and power to turn things around. In the words of Mary:
“His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever” Amen.