Yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch reported that Barbara Hale died. Who, you ask, was Barbara Hale? For ten seasons and later in a number of made-for-television movies she portrayed Della Street, secretary to defense attorney Perry Mason. The other chief characters in the series – Mason (Raymond Burr), private investigator Paul Drake (William Hopper), district attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman), and police Lt. Arthur Tragg (Ray Collins) – have been dead for a number of years.
“Perry Mason” was my most favorite show as I grew up. I idolized the lawyer and his clever ways of revealing the guilty murderer, time after time frustrating the-ever-certain-of-the defendant’s-guilt prosecutor. The courtroom drama was always filled with questions coming from the opposing attorneys. Many were objected to. Some were overruled and some were sustained. Questions were asked in order to get the facts before the court or to expose the truth and free the innocent man or woman whom Mason was defending.
The way to get to the bottom of something is to ask questions. This can be done orally or mentally, conversationally or adversarially.
Those who ask questions sometimes have trouble answering them. Another lawyer, Rick Olson, looked at the panorama of Pittsburgh from Mt. Washington with his young son, Patrick. They saw barges floating up and down the three rivers, the two stadiums, and a host of bridges. Patrick was full of questions — “What kind of boat is that? How do they get the sand out of the railcars and into the barges? Which river goes south to north?”
Rick had been living in Pittsburgh for 22 years and had never really paid attention to things like that. For two hours Patrick made observations and asked questions, and Rick could only say, “Hmmm. I don’t know.”
Rick had been living in Pittsburgh for 22 years and had never really paid attention to things like that. For two hours Patrick made observations and asked questions, and Rick could only say, “Hmmm. I don’t know.”
Then Patrick asked his dad to point out the building where he had been working every day for five years as a corporate lawyer. At least Rick knew where his building was and pointed out the downtown tower.
“What’s the building next to it?” asked Patrick. Rick didn’t know. He had walked past that building nearly every day for five years and he had no idea. How could he not know?(1)
From elementary school to high school to college to professional training conferences we have been told that we need to focus. There’s value in that as current studies are beginning to show that multi-tasking results in slower production and poorer quality work in many workers. But when we focus too intently we miss a lot, like the building next door or the neighbor across the street. As psychologists – and Perry Mason, too – have shown, eyewitnesses don’t always see things accurately, if at all.
Micah, like God’s other prophets, had a habit of seeing things others missed. He worked in the latter half of the eighth century, prior to the fall of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, to the Assyrians in 722 BCE. His name is a short form of the Hebrew word, micayahu, which means, “Who is like Yah(weh)?” or “Who is like God?”
Micah observes that the people of Judah are blind not only to what is going on around them but also to God. He chose to frame God’s dispute with Israel as a lawsuit. This is a model that several Hebrew prophets use in their ministry.
In Micah’s report of what God is saying to the people, he has God asking questions. With Israel God argues, “My people, what did I ever do to you? How have I wearied you? God recounts some of the actions taken on behalf of the people. Then the prophet asks,
Micah is a kindred spirit to those pursuing this ultimate question. As he wrote about the people of Israel in crisis, Micah’s focus was to simplify — to remind the people of their purpose. Like an executive on a corporate treadmill or a doctor who’s given all she had to give, the people of Israel had been relying on their busyness, their ritual, their status as chosen people to make meaning of their lives.
With what should I approach the LordWhat does the Lord require? That seems to be the ultimate question. What does the Lord require of each of us?
and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
with year-old calves?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
Micah is a kindred spirit to those pursuing this ultimate question. As he wrote about the people of Israel in crisis, Micah’s focus was to simplify — to remind the people of their purpose. Like an executive on a corporate treadmill or a doctor who’s given all she had to give, the people of Israel had been relying on their busyness, their ritual, their status as chosen people to make meaning of their lives.
Everything was overly complex in their worship. All the candles had to be the same height. The items around the high altar had to be precisely positioned. The correct words had to be used. Everyone had to face the prescribed direction. And on and on and on. I feel for the people, because that sort of busyness is part of who I am. It is the imperfect pursuit of perfection. There is no way of doing it just right, no matter how hard any of us might try.
The offerings the people gave to God were simply the fruits of their frantic labor, much like those of us who believe that if we can just do enough, give enough, work enough, read enough, pray enough ... then our God, our boss, our families, our friends will finally be pleased with us.
But Micah breaks all that down. The answer to the ultimate question is really quite simple. Our purpose is found in the larger purposes of God. “What does the Lord require of you?” asks the prophet. What really matters? Doing justice, embracing faithful love, walking humbly with God. That’s a challenge. It is just as challenging now as when it was declared by Micah.
Brett Younger writes that when he was in the eighth grade his social studies teacher said, “‘The world is about one-third Christian, 20 percent Muslim, and 13 percent Hindu.’ We thought it was the goofiest thing we had ever heard. In my small town in Mississippi there were four religions: Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and heathen—and in that order. The idea that two-thirds of the people in the world are not Christians was hard for some of us to believe.”(2)
The statistics show a greater diversity now, especially in urban areas (and most people live in urban, suburban, and ex-urban areas, not rural areas). The United States is increasingly home to Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, Sikh communities, and Buddhist retreat centers. Protestant Christians are a minority in the United States.
Believing that Christians are in – and everyone else is out – may be comforting for some, but it does not make sense. The idea that God’s grace is only for a relative few insults God. If we were born in Indonesia we would be Muslim, unless were evangelized into Christianity. Or if we were born in Thailand, we would be Buddhist unless we were evangelized into Christianity.
If we truly believe what we find in Psalms, in Acts, in the Gospels, we know that God is at work everywhere. Since that is the case, we should not dismiss, condemn, or consign the rest of the world to perdition. God’s love does not start or stop at dotted lines on maps, or at rivers or oceans, or at walls. God loves all humanity too much to play favorites. We make a mistake when we try to divide the world into those who attend Christian churches and those who will never have a chance at God’s grace. Jesus told us to go to the ends of the earth. Jesus told us what to do. Jesus did not tell us how it would all end up except that he was the light of the world, which is life.
There is a sense that our individual success rate might be small, given the kinds of people whom he called blessed, happy, contented. Questions abound: What is hopelessness? What is grief? What is humbleness? What is mercy? What are pure hearts?
“What does God require of us?” the prophet asks. God wants us to do justice—to be a voice for oppressed persons, unprotected persons, widows, and immigrants, and to fight for the rights of handicapped persons, minorities, elderly persons, poor persons, and every person treated as less than God’s child. The right to life is more than the right to birth.
God wants us to embrace faithful love. The Hebrew word hesed means Gods loving-kindness, God’s faithful love. We respond to God’s love by sharing it with others.
We are to walk humbly with God: listening for God’s voice wherever God may be heard; listening for God’s voice from people we would not expect to speak it; learning how other people make sense of their lives; thoughtfully examining what it means to live with faith.
Pastor and author Frederick Buechner writes about Micah’s words: “Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things.”
We are called to live the questions. A shrinking faith states what faith isn’t so others can’t come in. An expanding faith asks lots of questions of God. We will be more faithful Christians, not if we can refute every idea that is not Christian, but if we can affirm the truth and keep searching.
(1) “My Life,” Homiletics, January 30, 2005.
(2) Brett Younger, “Micah 6:1-8 Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) Year A, vol 1, 291.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment