Reverend
Debra Cato
Peace
Presbyterian Church
Micah
6:6-8 and Luke 4:14-21
October
5, 2-14
Peacemaking
and the Kingdom of God
Last
week, we talked a little bit about the word “Shalom.” It means
so much more than peace – it means completeness,
wholeness, health, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness and harmony. It
means a return of all creation as God first intended it to be.
Remember the Garden of Eden? As God created the Garden, Adam and Eve
had everything they needed. There was nothing but beauty and peace
and tranquility. There was no sin. There was, Shalom.
This
is the way God intends His creation to be. Shalom. Of course we
know what happened and we know that today we live in a world that is
far from God's ideal. So, how do we live into the reality of the
peace/ shalom/ salvation that God desires for us?
The
prophet Micah
writes during a time
when, after a long period of peace, Israel, Judah, and the other
nations of the region came under increasing pressure from the
aggressive and rapidly expanding Assyrian Empire. Samaria has been
destroyed by God because of its crimes of idolatry, oppression of the
poor, and misuse of power.1
The people are living in captivity.
The
people are saying, “What does God want of us? Does he want bigger
sacrifices, fancier sacrifices? What does he want? What do we have
to give God so that he will release us from captivity?”
And
what is the answer? How does God respond? “I don't want anything!
Your
sacrifices don't mean a thing. Micah says, “What
does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” Justice. Kindness. Walking
humbly with God. That is what God requires. He doesn’t want more
sacrifices. God wants justice. God wants kindness. God wants us
walking humbly
with
Him each and every day.
Imagine
what the world would be like if we all lived that way. Justice.
Kindness. Walking humbly with God. Sounds a bit like the Garden of
Eden. Sounds like shalom.
After
Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, he went
into the wilderness for forty days. Forty days of prayer and
meditation before he began his ministry; his life work. We all know
that he was tempted by the devil while he was in the wilderness –
three times and he passed each test. Luke tells us that when Jesus
came out of the wilderness he went back to Galilee, the region he was
from. He entered a temple in Nazareth, opened a scroll and stood.
Reading from the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus proclaimed to all that were
there, the purpose of his life and ministry:
"The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to
let the oppressed go free,
to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Good
news to the poor. Release of the captives. Sight to the blind.
Free the oppressed. Proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. What do
you think? Sounds like the new heaven and new earth that Jesus came
to proclaim – referred to as the Kingdom of God. Sounds like -
Shalom.
In
scripture, shalom; peace; unity –are tied to justice. In God’s
world, you can’t have peace, you can’t have shalom, unless there
is justice. And we see through the parables that Jesus told, and
through example after example of his ministry, that God's idea of
justice is upside down from the rest of the world. Counter-cultural
to what we are used to; to what we are told. God’s form of justice
brings shalom – wholeness, welfare,
tranquility, prosperity; for all, not just some.
You
cannot read Scriptures without sensing God’s heart for justice. It
is pervasive throughout the Bible. The Hebrew word for justice is
scattered more than 200 times throughout the Old Testament. 2
Over and over again we see God’s love for the widow, the orphan,
the immigrant, and the poor. We see God’s love for the
marginalized, the oppressed,
and the forgotten.
Let's
listen to a few other Scripture passages that focus on justice:
Isaiah
1:17 Learn to do good; seek
justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan,
Jeremiah
22:3 Thus says the LORD:
Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the
oppressor anyone who has been robbed.
And
do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or
shed innocent blood in this place.
Psalm
33:5 He loves righteousness
and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.
Psalm
106:3 Happy are those who
observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.
Deuteronomy
16:20 Justice, and only
justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land
that the LORD your God is giving you.
Psalm
140:12 I know that the LORD
maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor.
Isaiah
30:18 Therefore
the LORD waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to
show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all
those who wait for him.
Justice
is central to who God is!
Ken
Wytsma, the author of “Pursuing
Justice,” wrote this
definition of justice. Wytsma says:
“Justice
is the single best word, both inside and outside the Bible, for
capturing God’s purposes for the world and humanity’s calling in
the world. Justice is, in fact, the broadest, most consistent word
the Bible uses to speak
about what ought to be,
and it has been used throughout the centuries by Christians and
non-Christians alike to describe vital areas of human and divine
concern.”3
Wytsma
says that “doing
justice
means to render to each person what each is due. Justice involves
harmony, flourishing, and fairness, and it is based on the image of
God in every person – the Imago
Dei –
that grants all people inalienable dignity and infinite worth.”4
Simply put: justice is doing for others what we would want done for
us.”
Justice
is the act of restoring to fullness something that has been harmed.
Eugene
Cho, founder of One
Day’s Wages
says, “We lose sight of God’s promise to restore our brokenness
and our fallen world. This is why for us, as Christians, the person
of God, the deity of God, God’s justice, and God’s goodness are
such powerful things. God’s justice is His plan of redemption for
a broken world. God’s justice is renewing the world to where He
intended it to be.”5
Justice is the pursuit of the shalom that God intended for the world
and humanity. This is the reality of justice.
As
the beloved children of God, it only makes sense that we should love
what God loves. God invites and commands His people to not just be
aware of injustice but to pursue justice. Eugene Cho says, “To
be followers of Jesus, we are required to pursue justice and live
justly at the same time. We do justice because justice is rooted in
the character of God and therefore, it must be reflected in the
character of His followers.”6
Jesus
reflected justice in how He lived, how He loved, and how He welcomed
the stranger, the marginalized, the leper, the widow, the prostitute,
and the sick. Jesus reflected justice in how He confronted
religious leaders, how He embraced, welcomed, and empowered women;
how He confronted ethnic biases and prejudices. Jesus both loved
justice and He lived justly. He calls us to follow Him.7
Christians
believe in the gospel that is revealed to us in the life, death, and
resurrection
of
Christ:
A
gospel that not only saves but also serves;
A
gospel that not only saves but seeks to restore all things back unto
the One that ushered forth all that is good and beautiful;
A
gospel that not only saves but ushers in the Kingdom of God;
A
gospel that not only saves but restores the dignity of humanity –
even in the midst of our brokenness and depravity.
This
gospel is not just for us. The gospel is good news for everyone.8
But the question remains, how do we live this out? How
do we live into the reality of the peace/ shalom/
salvation
that God has provided for us?
I
was looking through the Peacemaking inserts that we've had:
Westminster Presbyterian
Church in Nashville, TN pursues justice through their work with
Living Waters for the World, an organization training local leaders
in under-developed countries develop sustainable water systems.
Access to clean water is certainly an issue of justice.
First Presbyterian
Church of Fort Worth, TX works with their local public school
system’s “Disrespect:
It’s Not Okay”
program that teaches students and adults to speak out against
bullying and aggression in the schools. Providing safety and
wholeness to students is certainly an issue of justice.
First Presbyterian
Church in Lakeview, OR works with Lake County Crisis Center providing
emergency services to victims of domestic abuse in their community.
At the end of each month, the church hangs a banner expressing
support of protection for women – encouraging members to raise
awareness about violence and abuse, certainly issues of justice.
Through its’
relationship with International Peacemakers, our denomination is involved
in multiple efforts around the world, working for peace and justice.
One example is their work with Christians in the Middle East who face
persecution only because they worship Jesus Christ. Work that
fosters understanding and religious acceptance in communities around
the world is justice work.
Here
at Peace Presbyterian Church in Eugene, we support FISH Food Bank,
providing food and financial support for people in our community who
are food insecure; people that are hungry. Hunger is an issue of
justice and a matter of restoring Shalom to our community.
We
collected school supplies, giving all the children at Spring Creek
Elementary School the opportunity to have the tools they need to be
successful in school. Even school supplies – providing resources
so that no child goes without, this a matter of justice.
Some
of you knit, and your hats and scarves go to the homeless. Or, you
knit prayer shawls that provide comfort to people that are ill or
dying or struggling in some other way. Some of you meet at the
church and make comfort quilts that go to children when they are
removed from their homes due to violence or unsafe conditions; or to
little babies struggling to survive in NICUs. Can you see how each
of these ministries is a work of justice? Bringing about Shalom?
These
are just a few examples – I know there are other things that you do
individually that are justice related. Are there other ways that we
could be a church that represents peace and justice in our community?
With a name like “Peace,” I can’t help but wonder if there is
more we could do around issues of justice – both locally and
internationally. Justice
is doing for others what we would want done for us. Justice is what
brings about Shalom – wholeness, health, welfare, safety, fullness
– to all people.
God
says we must not only love justice, we must live justly. What do you
think? How are you doing? How are we doing? May
His kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.
3
Wytsma, Ken. “Pursuing
Justice: The Call to Live and Die for Bigger Things.”
Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 2013. P9.
4
Ibid.
5
Cho, Eugene. “Overrated:
Are We more in Love with the Idea of Changing the World than
Actually Changing the World?
Colorado Springs: Cook. 2014. P37.
6
Cho. P38-39.
7
Ibid.
8
Cho. P42.
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