HRPC Office

Micah 6:1-8

We used to play “truth or dare” when I was at slumber parties as a kid. In case you have never played it… you sit as a group in a circle. One person is it, and chooses anyone else in the group to question. The questioner can ask any question, usually the kind of question designed to embarrass, like: “Do you like Stefan?” or, “Which basketball player on our team is your favorite?” The person can respond with the truth or she can respond, “I’ll take the dare.” If she doesn’t want to tell the truth, the questioner makes up a dare that the responder has to do in order to get out of telling the true answer to the question. In our day, the dares were like: “I dare you to go outside in your pajamas and shout: Look at me!” Now everyone goes outside in their pajamas and no one looks twice. Or it could have been: “Call the Pizza Hut, order a pizza, give your name, and hang up.” Now everyone orders online so that is not such a daring thing to do. Our dares were usually kind of silly and harmed no one.

This month I have a dare for you! I dare you to try some different kinds of prayer. For the month of July, we will be exploring different texts in Scripture which challenge us to follow a variety of prayer examples– maybe praying in a different location, in a different posture, using a different pattern. Most of us are accustomed to prayer before meals, prayer to begin the day, prayer to end the day. Most of us are accustomed to prayers of thanks to God, prayers for forgiveness of our sins, and prayers which are pleas to God for help for ourselves or for a loved one. We use those kinds of prayers regularly in our worship together. This month, let’s make a commitment to try different ways to pray. When you agree to take a dare, you agree to try something that is new or difficult, either physically or emotionally. To take my dare, you will need to sacrifice some of your time. To take my dare, you will need to step out of your comfort zone. When you take my dare, you run the risk of drawing closer to God in a way that you have not before. I challenge you to take my prayer dare! I am going to take it. I will put some comments about my reflections on new ways to pray up on Facebook and on our website throughout the month. Please offer your comments and share your insights.

Today your prayer dare is praying for justice. The way to pray for justice is simple but difficult. It requires a certain level of courage. In the words of our friends at Nike, “just do it.” The 8th century prophet (that is 8 centuries before Christ was born) Micah nails it when he describes what God is expecting from us. Not stuff, not money, not being on our knees and talking non-stop. In Micah’s day, he had to say to his people– God is not waiting for your multitude of animal sacrifices. God is not waiting for your calves or your oil or even your first born child. (That is hyperbole at the end of his escalating list of sacrifices, obviously God does not want you to sacrifice your first born!) God is waiting for you to do justice, which is a way of showing steadfast love, or mercy, and in doing so, you will be walking with God. It is a moving prayer, not a stationary one. It is an active prayer, not a passive one. It is a prayer with your life, not just with your mind or voice or heart.

Praying for justice is living justice. The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat. Simply put, living justice is living in such a way that we treat one another by following the ways of God. It is yielding our lives to God and God’s way. Doing justice is upholding what is right according to God’s practices, God’s expectations, God’s love. It is caring for and about the powerless, the inequities in our justice system, the job market for immigrants, the guys who live in the tents at the end of the highway. And doing justice is not only our one on one relationships with people we meet, but it is also our role in society at large. One example: I can’t believe it is God’s way to gun one another down. Right here in this sanctuary, we are not so far removed from places in our city where gun violence is happening. What is our role as residents of a city racked by gun violence? Different people will feel called to take different actions, but I am sure that it is unjust to sit and do nothing.

Earlier in this book of Micah, the prophet condemned the leaders of Israel for their failure to live justice, for ignoring the needs of the people, for hating good and loving evil, for taking bribes, for causing bloodshed, for failing to listen to God. To address their injustice, Micah uses the imagery of a court case between God and the people of Israel. The mountains and the hills will be the jury, listening to God’s complaint against God’s people. Using rhetorical questions, he points out that it is obvious that God never did anything against them, that God did not weary them. It is the people of God who are in the wrong. The people who seemed to have forgotten that God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, providing them with leaders like Moses, Aaron and Miriam. The people who seemed to have forgotten the blessing they received from the prophet Balaam when King Balak of neighboring Moab tried to buy him off so that he would curse the people of Israel because he was afraid of them. The people who thought they could buy off God, bailing themselves out with their offerings and sacrifices. That is not the way to resolve the dispute between God and God’s people. Micah calls them back to what God expects of them, to what they should have known, to what is good. To do justice, embrace faithful love, walk humbly with God.

Praying for justice can not be just words. It can not be just showing up when the news media is around. We have a pastor in Baltimore who has been outspoken since last year’s riots. At one point this spring he was asked by the neighbors in Sandtown/Winchester to leave the neighborhood because he only seemed to show up when he could look good and did not seem to be doing anything for the community. Since that time, they have met and talked things out. Tomorrow under the JFX they will be working together– Muslims, Christians, gang members and police– to hand out food to anyone who is hungry. Living justice, not just talking about justice.

As we celebrate the 240th year of our nation’s birth, we can’t forget that we are here because people before us insisted on justice. I think of the people in Boston who protested the unjust policies Britain had exacted on the colonists in the 1770’s. They did not just write letters to the king. They took action and threw the barrels of tea into the harbor, creating a big blow to England’s cash flow. I think of the young people in Greensboro, NC and other cities who did not just picket outside the whites only lunch counters in the 1960’s. They went in and sat down and refused to move. Insisting on justice requires action. I really appreciate the words of Cornel West, American scholar, social activist, currently a professor of religion at Princeton University: “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

This week I dare you to put feet to your prayer. Find a way you can take some form action to follow God’s commitment to justice for all, not just for some. Make the time to write or call an elected official. Let them know your concern not just for your own neighborhood, but for someone else’s. Why are the worst roads in the poorest neighborhoods? What are we really doing about the high number of vacant homes in our city? Find out where your elected official stands on issues that affect this city as a whole. You can even compliment where a compliment is due. We discovered brand new lighting on Edmondson Avenue that helps the entire street to be much better lit for safety. I am going to contact the city and find out who to thank. It is a way to encourage our government to keep the needs of the neighborhoods on the front burner. Instead of always complaining and requesting, how about a “well done” every now and then? Get involved in your own neighborhood association. Find out who the president is, when the next meeting is. Take the president to lunch and find out what he or she is concerned about. Make time to find out where there is a job training program that you could offer your assistance to. You have skills and wisdom that could benefit someone else. I know one called “turn around Tuesdays” which meets on the East Side, but surely there are more. Resume writing, tax preparation, interview practice, donating clothing to help people in the job search process. Go down to the JFX tomorrow and bring some 4th of July food to share. Be a part of an effort to bring Baltimore together. This prayer dare requires action. Praying for justice means living it.

Next Sunday I will invite you to share your experiences with my prayer dare by writing them down and offering them up to God via the offering plate. Dares are not easy. Dares require you to step out of your comfort zone, to make some sort of sacrifice, to try something new. I dare you….. to do justice, show faithful love, and walk humbly with God. Amen.

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10 What do you see? 6/12/16

Some of you may not know Almeda Lewis. She and her family were the first black family to move into her block of Rokeby Rd. back here behind the church in 1968. She became a member of Hunting Ridge in 1999. She was an ordained ruling elder. But in my 5 years here, she has not once set foot in this building due to her failing health. Our only contact with her has been through calls or visits to her. Almeda Lewis had a birthday one week before she died. She was 94. For the past several years she has basically been living in a bed. In a bed in a room in a care facility. In a bed because her body was wasting away. Already thin, she got thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. The outer nature, the physical body, the “tent” she was living in for 94 years, was coming to the end of its usefulness. Her family knew it. She knew it. In recent weeks, she and they knew it was soon time to move into the house built by God. She would be moving into the permanent house that cannot be seen from here.

As we talked together this week, Almeda and I wondered about what that house might look like. She was sure it would be big. I was sure it would be comfortable. We both agreed there would be a lot of music going on. And that we will be welcomed with open arms. Living in God’s house will clearly be different from living in a tent. Like those clay pots we talked about last week, tents are temporary. The apostle Paul offers encouragement to his peeps in Corinth, telling them not to lose heart, to be confident. To be confident that there is a lot more to life than what meets the eye. To be confident that there is a house not built by human hands which is always ready for move-in day. There is a song by Audio Adrenaline in our summertime Faith Place on Friday curriculum called Big House, imagining what this house not made with human hands might be like. Maybe you know it. Here is part of it: Come and go with me to my Father’s house. It’s a big big house With lots and lots a room A big big table With lots and lots of food A big big yard Where we can play football A big big house It’s my Father’s house.

A big house means lots of room. And its a big house you don’t have to worry about cleaning or furnishing or maintaining. It’s a big house filled with people you have never met who are family you’ve always known. A big house where you fit right in. Be confident, says Paul. Whatever you are struggling with while you are housed in this body—this tent—is not going to last forever. What you see is not what you get. There is so much more to life than what you can see.

This week I had the opportunity to speak with the woman who leads the African dance ensemble which performed at the Strawberry Festival last week, Jewel Wilson. She raved about the event, the diversity of the crowd, and the joy of being a part of it. Then she said—there was a lot more going on that you could not see. She meant that perceptions were being challenged and barriers were being cracked. People from different neighborhoods laughed, jump-roped, and danced together. There was the universal attraction to the drums which she was used to seeing, I am sure. But then there was the black woman showing the white teens how she jumps rope. There was the older white guy working the grill next to the young black guy. There were brown and black and white hands serving side by side as you collected your hamburger and chips. If you were a kid living in an all black or an all white neighborhood, you saw something very different on our front lawn than what you see every day when you walk out your door. You really got a picture of life in God’s big, big house on God’s big, big lawn. There was a lot more going on than we could see.

Paul wants his readers to be reminded that this is not all there is. When we look around at the level of violence, the amount of trash on the streets, the drug deals that happen boldly in front of our eyes, police officers being tried for murder, and the number of people needing food from 40 West, (which, by the way, is in great need of food for the pantry shelves—make a mental note to bring canned or dry goods with you to church next Sunday)—when we see all that is going on around us physically, we can get depressed or angry or both. Angry is better, because then there is more chance we will do something about it. When we simply look at the world around us and see it as a lost cause, we are letting the visible control the invisible. What can be seen is temporary. It is what cannot be seen that is lasting. Paul says, we walk by faith, not by sight. That means we don’t let what we see limit our forward direction. God works in ways you can not see. God works on renewing the inner nature, the part unseen.

Let me offer a couple of examples. God has done something to the Hernan family to make them work their summer schedule around taking a return trip to serve at the Lakota Reservation in Minnesota later this summer. That includes lots of meetings, trainings and even reading a book to learn more about native American culture. God has done something to those adults who have agreed to teach this summer in our Faith Place on Fridays experiment, creating a willingness to give up Friday nights, to prepare for a lesson, and to better get to know a teaching partner. At first glance, you might think a crowd of 30 kids is just a noisy crowd. But 30 kids saw on Friday night that adults care about them, that the church is a comfortable place to play and learn and use their creative abilities.

Perhaps walking by faith means staying attuned to what is going on under the surface, recognizing that there is always a lot more going on than what you can see on the outside. Walking by faith involves a level of trust in God and God’s hand at work all around you. It is possible to breeze through life and not notice God’s hand. It is possible to think that what you see is what you get, and nothing more. I choose to walk by faith, to not only trust what I can see, but trust the One who helps me to see different possibilities, different outcomes, different gifts at work. What do you see? Amen.