We are now one month into the 12 scripture project here at Hyattsville Mennonite. This year as a congregation we are trying new ways of interacting with scripture. So far we have had an interactive sermon/bible study, a bible-themed fellowship meal and a workshop on what to do about the violence in the bible when teaching children. In addition, three new small groups have formed to explore the bible together each month. Several existing small groups are also going to read the bible together this year. This week Michelle and I put together a calendar for the rest of the year, with fun ways we can explore scripture together and individually. That will be posted soon on the website and the list serve.

So with all of this going on in my head, I suppose I should not be surprised at my dream the other night.

In my dream I planted bean seeds.  And they started to grow, really fast. Some of the bean plants grew so thickly, with such beautiful foliage, that I pulled out some of the plants. Under the bean plants that I pulled out I found basil growing, with perfectly formed leaves. It surprised me that the basil was there, that it could even grow in the shade of the bean plants but there it was.

After I pulled out the bean plants, I realized that I had done the wrong thing. I should not pull out plants that are just leaves, no blossoms, no beans, just leaves. Or should I? To make more room for the basil?

I woke up wondering what this might mean. Is this a parable about seeds like Jesus told?

Could the seeds be the word, the scripture that we are reading?  Are we planting it in our minds and hearts? Sometimes it really takes off and we are so pleased to see how it grows that we think we are done. We are done, we can pull out the plants and call it a day.  And maybe that is okay since under the plants that we pull out there may be another plant growing. The second plant may not grow if we don’t remove that first bean plant.

But I wonder, I wonder if sometimes we pluck the plants too soon.  What if we live with the plants a bit longer, stick with the same text for a while and see what happens, if it blossoms, if it bears fruit, if it can feed us, even nourish us body and soul.

I share this with you because our texts today are so familiar that we might be tempted to pull them out before they really have a chance to grow deep roots or bear fruit. They are so well known, so common that we may feel that we don’t need to let them grow anymore within us. I mean, if you have been in this congregation for a year you have probably heard this text from Micah 6 at least 4 times. We have read it, we have sung it, we have confessed it.  What more do we need to do? How could there be anything new to understand?

The bible contains many different types of writing – poetry, narrative, hymns, rhetoric, quotations from other parts of the text.

This passage from Micah is written as a trial transcript; we read here the court proceedings of God v. Israel.  We have the prophet as the attorney/clerk/bailiff who calls the court to order. The mountains and rocks are called on to be witnesses in this trial.

We hear God, YHWH, who speaks the indictment against Israel. God recites many things that God has done for the people over the generations, even naming some of the leaders who were sent, naming the lands they have been given.

Given the evidence, the people know they are guilty and they get defensive. “So what should I do about this,” the people say? The possible responses get more and more outlandish until Israel wonders if child sacrifice, like Abraham attempted with Isaac, is what will satisfy YHWH.

And then YHWH says that familiar line that we know so well, reassuring, as well as challenging. It is not about the sacrifice, it is not about the worship practices, it is about how you live.

Let’s listen to this text from Micah 6. I invite you all to play the part of Israel as it is printed in the bulletin.

Micah 6:1-8

Clerk: Hear ye, hear ye. Hear now what YHWH says.

Come plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Listen to YHWH’s indictment, you mountains and you enduring foundations of the earth;

for YHWH has a dispute with the people and is putting Israel on trial.

YHWH: Oh my people, what have I done to you?

How have I wearied you?

Give me an answer.

For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

and redeemed you from the house of slavery;

and I sent Moses to lead you,

and Aaron,  and Miriam!

My people, call to mind the plans devised by the ruler Balak of Moab,

and how Balaam ben Beor answered him!

Remember the journey from Shittim to Gilgal

and recall how YHWH brought you to justice!

People: What shallI bring when I come before YHWH, and bow down before God on high?

Am I to come before God with burnt offerings?

with year old calves?

Will YHWH be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil?

Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings –

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Clerk: Listen here, mortal:

God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is and what YHWH needs from you:

YHWH: simply do justice,

love kindness

and humbly walk with your God.

Wow, do you feel like you are on trial? Might there be ways that we, like Israel, have ignored God? Not remembered how the Holy has been present in our lives? acted as if we can go it alone? What a remarkable truth to realize that we cannot act anonymously. That we are being watched, not by the NSA but by the mountains, the rocks, all of nature. The earth is a witness to our actions. 

One of the new things that I hear in this text as I read it this way is the patience of God. Here is the prophet giving God new language for the same old commandment that was given to Moses, the same commandment that Jesus later reiterates when asked which is the most important. You remember Jesus’ response –

Mark 12.30:

“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. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is Micah’s version of the great commandment. Do justice (love your neighbor) love kindness, (the way God has loved you) and walk humbly with your God (love God with your whole self.)

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The other seed, the other familiar text, we have this morning is from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth. This is not a court room scene, it is not poetry or a hymn; this is rhetoric – of the most confusing kind.

Paul is writing to a church, with multiple “campuses” in Corinth.  It is in the midst of the Roman empire, a church primarily made up of the 90-99%. Clearly these Corinthians are struggling to know just how to follow this Jesus who was tortured and killed in such a humiliating way- by the Romans. And even though Paul tells them about the risen and living Christ, in this part of the letter he holds up the cross, a weapon of the empire, as the new symbol of triumph. How can that give them any power at all? Paul, strict rule follower turned rebel, even he admits it makes no sense to Jews or Greeks.

Let’s listen to Paul’s argument and see if it makes any sense from 2000 years out.

I Corinthians 1: 18-31

“For the message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin, but to us who are experiencing salvation, it is the power of God. Scripture says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and thwart the learning of the learned.”

“Where are the wise? Where are the scholars? Where are the  philosophers of this age? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into folly? If it was God’s wisdom that the world in its wisdom would not know God, it was because God wanted to save those who have faith through the foolishness of the message we preach.

“For while the Jews call for miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a Messiah nailed to a cross. To the Jews this is an obstacle they cannot get over, and to the Greeks it is madness – but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, Christ is the power and wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

“Consider your calling sisters and brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, and surely not many were well-born. God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame the wise, and singled out the weak of this world to shame the strong. The world’s low-born and despised, those who count for nothing, were chosen by God to reduce to nothing those who were something. In this way, no one should boast before God. God has given you life in Christ Jesus and has made Jesus our wisdom, our justice, our sanctification and our redemption. This is just as it is written, “Let the one who would boast, boast in our God.”

Paul gives this word of hope and direction to the church at Corinth. They may be lowlife in the eyes of the world, they may be poor and fighting amongst themselves. But God can and will work among them. He even quotes Isaiah 29 which might comfort the Jewish contingent a little. “I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing. The wisdom of their wise shall perish and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.”

But foolish as they are, to what are they to look for hope and power? The cross. What could be a stronger symbol of defeat than the cross? How absurd and yet this is what Paul is calling on.

From the outside, this church doesn’t look like it stands a chance. They have split into four different factions with 4 different leaders. They are slaves and free, women and men, educated and not, people with money and people with none. How can they even become a community?

Yet Paul has the temerity to say that it is in weakness that the work of God can be seen; it is in those who are not what the world would call smart or powerful or strong – where God can work. When we are weak then the strength of God through Jesus can be seen in us. Crazy, totally crazy message that Paul is sending in this letter.

What should we take from this? We live in the heart of the empire, we are also part of the 90-99%, but given our education, our homes, our wealth, our almost homogeneity what are we to make of this? Do we need all the more to look to the cross, at symbols of defeat and wonder how God can work through weakness?

Just who defines weakness? The ones with money and status? As followers of Jesus are we called to downward mobility, as some have called it, so that in weakness we can find our strength?  What does this mean for those who are already seen as weak if there is a race by the righteous to the bottom? We can give away our money and try to shed our status but how can we who have education ever really lose that to become weak?

Perhaps this is not only about individuals, perhaps it is about how  we live as a community. Where are the weak places in our life together? How might our weaknesses as a congregation, as a conference, as a denomination, be used to show the power of God?

Right about now my friend, Theda Good, is being licensed for ministry by Mountain States Mennonite Conference at First Mennonite Church of Denver. Theda is theologically educated, pastorally gifted and has experience in ministry. But some in the larger church would see her as “weak” because she has chosen to make her family with another woman.

I am going to be so bold as to say that the infighting around sexuality that obsesses the church is a weakness. It is hard for me to see it, but might there be a way that even this weakness can be used by God? Can we, with Israel, look back and see how God has been working all along? Instead of pouring time and money away to find a way to please God, instead of sacrificing our own children, can we remember again what God desires of us?

It is a foolish walk, following Jesus in humble weakness. Are we foolish enough to try it?

I hope that throughout this year the Word will grow in us. I pray that we will tend it so that it bears fruit to feed us – mind, body and spirit and that we will share that fruit with those around us.