Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

What Would It Take?
Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

The prophet Micah stood outside somewhere, maybe on a street corner near the temple and cried out, “Hear what the Lord says.” And people stopped to listen. Maybe not everyone, but many stopped, knowing that this prophet spoke God’s words and that God was speaking to them. They accepted the personal immediacy of God’s words for them. But that was a long time ago; times have changed.

The Gospel for today recounts that people drew near to Jesus. Even before he began to speak they gathered around him, yearning to hear God’s words spoken to them. And they knew that Jesus would speak the Word of God with authenticity and authority and potency—to them. But Jesus, the Word made flesh, no longer walks among us in the flesh. Who can speak God’s word so directly into our lives today?

In both of these readings God’s word is spoken with power and authority directly to the individuals who came to hear. Through Micah, God spoke words of rebuke and guidance. Jesus spoke God’s words of blessing. And the people seem to know and accept that God is speaking personally to them. That acceptance of the personal immediacy of God’s word seems to come much harder to us today. We might ask ourselves: What would it take for us to really hear and know God’s word intended personally and powerfully for us? What would it take for me to hear God’s word with such immediacy and potency that I would have to take notice? That it would change my life forever? What would it take for these words on our Scripture inserts to be more than just words on a page about God and become God’s own voice speaking directly to me, to you? The Beatitudes are very familiar and speak to us of a wonderful God who bestows blessing. What would it take for us to experience ourselves personally addressed and blessed by these words?

Would it take hearing them intoned by an extraordinary, modern-day prophet? Would we feel the immediacy of God’s words in our lives if they were spoken by a person of extraordinary power and stature, someone outside our normal sphere of experience? What if we were in the presence, say, of Martin Luther King, Jr? Or, by a very circuitous route, I’ve recently been reminded of Barbara Jordan. That was a voice of extraordinary power and a person of extraordinary authenticity and authority! If Barbara Jordan’s voice spoke directly to you saying, “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” you truly might feel that God had spoken directly to you.

Is this what it takes? Do we need to hear God’s words spoken, not by the person next to us in the pew or the person with whom we chat at coffee hour, but by an extraordinary, larger-than-life, modern day prophet?

Here in church we are surrounded by God’s word, printed and spoken, read and preached. What would it take to hear those words spoken with immediacy and potency into our individual lives? Maybe it would take an extraordinary church setting. This building is beautiful, but maybe if God’s words came to us in the midst of the awesome majesty of a great cathedral? Or maybe if we heard them preached by a truly extraordinary preacher. Not the one we see at the grocery store on Tuesday, but someone like George Whitfield, whom we’re studying in the adult education class. Someone of truly extraordinary skills of oration, who could evidently move thousands by his words. Or maybe God’s words would become real and powerful for us if we heard them in the midst of an extraordinary parish community, not this one that is so familiar to us, but one of remarkable sanctity where everyone is already half-way to heaven.

Or maybe it takes a time of extraordinary personal crisis before God’s words really strike home in our lives.

Some of you know that one of my favorite comics is Zits. I’ve enjoyed it for years. If you don’t know it, it’s about teenage life. It’s about being a teenager, about living with a teenager, about the high school experience. I think one reason I enjoy it is that it so often reminds me of life in the church. Think about it. We all behave like teenagers a lot of the time in our relationship with God and in our life in the church. In our religious lives, we are all teenagers. The stereotypical teenager is: (1) totally self-absorbed and seemingly indifferent to the external world and (2) totally dependent upon the external world to meet his or her every need. Self-absorbed and entitled. That’s us in our religious lives. Self-absorbed in our personal spirituality, focused on our own spiritual needs, with a powerful expectation that the external world, the church, should meet those needs.

We would like to hear God’s word with personal immediacy, but we look to external, extraordinary events or people to make that possible. We depend upon someone or something other than ourselves to break us open to God’s Word. Ultimately, however, it is not the responsibility of some extraordinary prophet, nor preacher, nor church building, nor church community… it is not their responsibility to make us hear. Nor should we be dependent upon some singular, grave occurrence of personal trial. It is our responsibility to listen. And if we really seek to listen, we will hear. It’s that simple. If we approach God’s word seeking to hear it spoken to us, we will. If we approach life yearning to know God’s presence with us, we will find it.

If we yearn to hear God speaking powerfully, personally to us, we will. In extraordinary voices and events when those are given to us, but also in the very ordinary events of daily life. The beatitudes are addressed to people who yearn… who yearn and hunger for peace, for fulfillment, for righteousness. And those who yearn are blessed, filled by God’s blessing.

I’m reminded of the story of the Wizard of Oz. Part of that story is about Dorothy’s discovery that she did not need the extraordinary intervention of others to make her way home. She did not need the wizard’s magic, nor even the charlatan’s balloon. She did not need the intercessions of the Good Witch. All she needed was a yearning, a longing in her heart, and then the power to go home was within her.

All we need is a yearning for God’s Word and it will be spoken to us. What does it take for us to hear God speaking with personal immediacy and potency in our individual lives? All it takes is a yearning within. If you yearn to hear God’s word, you will.