The one of peace (Micah 5.1-5a)
The one of peace (Micah 5.1-5a)
Eastminster United Presbyterian Church, Advent 4C (December 23, 2018)
Tom James
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. The word “Advent” has a specific meaning. Literally, it means “coming.” This is a brief, four-week season right on the cusp of Christmas, placed right here and now to remind us that our Christian faith is built on hope for a better world. During these days, we await the coming of the Lord, when the world will be set right, when wars will cease, when injustices will be overcome, when fears and sorrows will be turned into joy.
Advent happens right here and now, though, when wars continue to rage, when injustices still multiply, when fears and sorrows sometimes engulf us. The word of the gospel comes not to a world that is getting better and better all the time, but to a world that is, you might say, under siege. Worse than that, the word of the gospel comes to a world that is on the verge of destroying itself, that courts catastrophe and seems to have no solutions to the problems that it creates. The word comes us who have created armies which now dominate us, encircling us, drawing off our resources, choking out our life. The word comes to us who have created an economy that turns us all into dispensable drones, cogs in a machine to create wealth while destroying the people, using our bodies and minds as fuel to be consumed. And so, it is appropriate, perhaps, that one of the prophetic texts that come to us just a few days before Christmas in 2018, here and now, was written for a people who appear to have been under a literal siege.
The prophet Micah lived and wrote during the eighth century B.C.E., partly during the reign of King Hezekiah in Judah. This was during the expansion of the Assyrian empire which destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 and threatened the southern kingdom of Judah, from which Micah wrote. We know from history that, at one point, an Assyrian army encircled Jerusalem itself. This is where our selection from Micah’s prophecy comes from.
But we need to take a step back. Some of us may remember some of Micah’s most famous lines—“What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” The prophet preached and wrote in the context of a kingdom, and kingdoms in the ancient world were set up for two reasons: first, to maintain a standing army; and, second, to extract surplus produce from the countryside. And these two reasons were closely related. In other words, kingdoms represented a massive centralization of wealth and power, and were able to maintain their dominance by means of a permanent armed force that was used to exact tributes from the peasantry, to protect massive accumulations of private wealth, and to keep peasants, who actually produced most of the wealth in the ancient world, feeling helpless and afraid. The ancient kingdom was, in fact, just what the tradition of Moses had refused and fled because the early Israelites understood that kingdoms inevitably meant slavery, whether it be the kingdom of Egypt or of the city-states of ancient Palestine which they fought off during Joshua’s time. And, so, prophets always had issues with kingdoms, and Micah was no exception. In fact, you might say that prophets like Micah, and, later, Jeremiah, were telling Judah that, if you want to play the kingdom game, just be aware that there are those who are going to be able to play it better, like Assyria and Babylon, then later, like Persia, and Greece, and Rome. And just be aware that you might end up being slaves again. In fact, ancient world history can be read as a series of great kingdoms succeeding one another in violent suppression of the lands and people of the ancient world.
Israel was not created to play this game. Israel was created to be different, to be a light, a beacon of righteousness to the nations. Israel was to be a land in which the vulnerable were not forgotten; in which land and work were to be shared; where there would be justice and peace. But here we are in Micah’s time, with the Assyrians on their doorstep, with Judah having tried to play the kingdom game, having bet on its armies, and lost.
Here comes a little word that changes everything. The word is “but.” That little word, so easy to miss, signals a change in direction that sums up the meaning of Christmas. “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.” Bethlehem was a small town, in the shadow of Jerusalem. It was quite easily overlooked. Bethlehem, though it was not far from Jerusalem, might as well have been a thousand miles away. It had nothing to do with the halls of power in the kingdom. It was outside of the royal courts; its inhabitants were far removed from the line of royal succession. Bethlehem was the settlement of a minor clan and not a great family. If you had been there, you would have found it easily forgettable.
But we do remember Bethlehem, right? It isn’t forgettable to us Christians. We read about it every year. We have songs about it! But it didn’t turn out to be the seat of a new monarchy for Judah. It wasn’t as if leaders in Judah read Micah’s prophecy and thought, great, let’s move the capital to Bethlehem and start a whole new kingdom, a whole new dynasty, and then maybe we’ll be able to hold out against these empires that always threaten us. No. What was to happen at Bethlehem, many centuries later, was that a story was to take hold of something much more in line with Micah’s other famous words—less a matter of setting up a grand kingdom than with acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. What was to happen at Bethlehem, many centuries later, was that songs would be sung of a new beginning, humble, in a stable, with animals and shepherds and a peasant family from Nazareth.
One these peasants from Nazareth, many centuries later, was given the same gift of prophecy that Micah had. Before she went to Bethlehem with Joseph, Mary of Nazareth cried out that God had “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” She would go on to say, “[God] 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.”
Now, if we are being honest with ourselves, Mary’s words sound a little divisive. After all, Christmas is for the powerful and the rich, too, is it not? But, in the ancient world, it was understood that the rich are rich precisely because they have taken from the poor. There was no theory of all boats rising with economic growth in the ancient world—for the good reason that that’s not how it worked! Kings grew rich by siphoning off wealth from the countryside, and that meant that those who lived in the villages in places like Galilee worked not for themselves but for those who ruled: the great and the powerful. It meant that they had barely enough to survive, even though they produced more than enough. It meant that much of what they worked for was taken from them by force of arms. And that meant that the simmering antagonisms between city and country, between rich and poor, could only be resolved by redressing the imbalance between them. So, the “one of peace” that Micah prophesied many centuries earlier is the one who restores community in Judah by destroying the imbalances that fracture and divide it. Lift up the low places; level the high places to make the road straight. Lift up the lowly; humble the great. Give good things to the poor; send the rich away empty. Establish justice in the land. And then you will have peace.
And so it is. For unto you this day a child is born. Unto you a son is given. A new beginning comes to life. Not a new king or a new kingdom. Not a new ruler or a new master. They will call him “Lord,” but he will be the kind of Lord that forces us to rethink what we mean by “Lord.” He will be one who teaches us how to love and respect each other; how to form true community with each other. He will be one who teaches us how to cross borders and boundaries, who inspires us to imagine that there is now no longer Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, that we are all siblings in Christ.
Many centuries later, we still haven’t caught up with the meaning of Christmas. Perhaps we are still a little too tied to the prestige of kingdoms, a little too impressed with splendor and power.
Our annual celebration is just two days away, now. Hopefully, we are ready—or at least ready enough not to have to scramble. And, as always, for most of us, Christmas day will be a day wrapped in the familiar. Traditions that we have honored for years, if not for generations. Familiar songs, foods, and faces. The same tree, perhaps, hung with ornaments that recall pleasant memories of perhaps simpler times. And yet, the full meaning of what we are doing is still a mystery, as always. There is something unfamiliar amid all the familiarity. The one whose coming we celebrate is still bringing new life, still announcing a new world, still shaking our expectations, still challenging our kingdoms, still calling us to a better way. And we still can’t imagine quite what that means.
And that’s ok. Because the one who comes is meant to confound us, to cause us to reach out a little beyond what we know, maybe even beyond what is comfortable. The one who comes is meant to stir our imaginations and to stretch our abilities.
And, so, may each of us wake up in a couple days like that great Charles Dickens character, Ebenezer Scrooge, rejoicing that night has not taken us, that the kingdoms of the world have not destroyed us, rejoicing in a day that is new. May each of us receive our savior as a promise and an invitation to life, as the one who brings peace. In the name of God, our creator and redeemer. Amen.
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