God’s merciful blessings – fool’s gold?

  

(art: http://www.laurajamesart.com/religious.htm#)

We’re about at the midpoint of Epiphany season, a time we consider Jesus’s manifestation of God in our world (from the Greek epiphania).  We’re celebrating what his incarnation means to all of creation and recounting the significance of major events in his life.  After his birth, we heard of his baptism and then of his gathering of apostles.  Today we find ourselves on a hillside – a mount - somewhere likely along the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee listening to our Lord as he begins a famous sermon by offering a preamble for the constitution of the church as his body.  Before he really gets into his sermon, giving us ethical instructions, he clarifies for us who is already beheld and beloved in the eyes of God and what we can expect as part of that family. 

(anecdote about my readings the Beatitudes last year, as one of my first diaconal services, to fellow pilgrims from a cavern opening on a mount/hillside along a road in Capernaum)

·       home territory of several of the apostles

·       near sites of the Sermon on the Mount, metaphors involving fishing, walking on water, calming the storm, feeding thousands with fishes and loaves, etc.

·       a beautiful and unique place that is fed and drained by the Jordan River and still vital as a water source for modern Jerusalem

Let’s remember that we’re common Jews – rural poor and some trades people - in the Galilee about to listen to this prophetic rabbi who has a reputation for performing miracles and stirring up controversy, and who some of us believe is the chosen messiah who will liberate us from our current conditions under Roman rule and restore us to new life as God’s favored Israel. 

Probably, some of us are harboring resentments toward our fellow Jews who have cultivated status and power by aligning themselves with the dominant Roman rulers; and we’re waiting on the day that we will have such prestige and worldly wealth.  Yet, what we hear from Jesus this day has strong echoes of what we’ve heard from the ancient prophets Isaiah and Micah – a reminder that God is not pleased when we believe we’ve ‘made it to the top’, achieving status and stature, at the expense of compassion, mercy, justice toward others, especially those considered ‘least’ among us.

In today’s OT reading, the prophet Micah (likely a contemporary of Isaiah, who we’ve been hearing a lot of lately) presents a courtroom scene in which God is the injured party who brings a case against his people, Israel.  Micah is writing during a time of relative peace between periods of major invasion and devastation in which God’s people have become complacent, adrift in idolatry and material obsessions, and corrupt and exploitative to the point that leaders are manipulating economic systems to their advantage at the expense of vast numbers of people who are becoming more impoverished and displaced. With all of creation as his witness, God challenges the people to demonstrate cause for their loss of faith and attentiveness to their covenant, citing some of the major ways God has demonstrated fidelity to the covenant.  In an attempt to satisfy their aggrieved God, the people offer greater piety, ritual observance, and costly animal and human sacrifices.  The passage ends with the prophet saying that what is good to God is not transactional ritual offerings (we can’t ‘buy’ God’s favor), but rather offering ourselves as living sacrifices through consistently behaving in ways that honor justice, loving kindness to neighbors, and humility before God.

Jesus’s preamble to his sermon on the mount furthers this message with more explicit explanation that what is held in esteem in corrupt worldly systems is not what is blessed and honored in God’s kingdom. And, Jesus makes the provocative point that living into this kingdom will, in fact, be costly in a worldly sense. 

Micah says that God requires us to, “do justice.” Jesus Christ affirms that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are honored / have God’s blessing.

Micah says that God requires us to, “love kindness.”  Jesus Christ affirms that the merciful, pure of heart, and peacemakers are considered God’s children to whom God delivers mercy. 

Micah says that God requires us to, “walk humbly.” Jesus Christ affirms that the poor in spirit, who mourn, and who are considered meek are, in fact, inheriting God’s very kingdom.

Conventional wisdom of the worldly systems in Micah’s time, and during the period that our Lord delivered this sermon in the Galilee, and arguably in our own time now, revere the financially independent, the emotionally stoic and sure, those who are politically savvy and respected, and wealthy enough to perhaps offer some financial charity to those ‘less fortunate’ and less worthy of worldly fame and honor.  Worldly wisdom points toward value in scarcity by gaining ‘real’ gold for jewelry as a sign of your success and possibly sharing some of it only after you have enough for yourself.

Not to say worldly success is bad, per se (certainly not if it’s put to good use), but this isn’t necessary for God’s favor; and, in fact, success predicated on notions of scarcity often distract us from the generosity God wants us to live into.  We’re told that God’s blessings are already with those who are weak, who struggle, and who are unsure yet faithful and loving.  Godly wisdom points us toward making faithful and loving use of what the world otherwise considers fool’s gold.

Jesus knows that Godly wisdom is counter-cultural and costly.  Yet, he assures us that when we follow divine wisdom, and are persecuted, mocked, and reviled, we’re in good company – fellowship with faithful prophets who speak Godly truth to worldly power, even to the assumed religious establishments of their days, in the spirit of justice and mercy.

Paul keeps this good news alive in what he writes to the church in Corinth, which is struggling to maintain focus on divine wisdom in the context of seductive systems of esoteric knowledge, urban sophistication, and emerging internal divisions/factions in their church community.  Paul knows that following Christ can seem as foolish as paying attention to pyrite rather than ‘real’ gold.  He invokes both the ancient words of Isaiah and then Jesus’s beatitudes in what we heard from his letter today…

“[God] will destroy the wisdom of the wise…. For… in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe…. not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1:19, 21

(pause)

As we take a moment to let our minds and hearts absorb the implications of this consistent message being preached across these scriptures, about conditions and situations that God considers blessed in his kingdom and expectations God has of our behavior – all of which run counter to what the world seems to expect of as valuable, allow me to say a little something about pyrite, or ‘fool’s gold’ as it known.

I remember being given a delightful chunk of pyrite by my grandmother many years ago.  As a child, I had no appreciation of how valuable this material was in comparison to ‘real gold’ in a worldly sense.  I considered it a precious token of my relationship with my grandmother.  For a long time I kept it in special, prominent place on one of my shelves.  People would occasionally say things like, that’s just ‘fool’s gold… it’s not worth anything.”  Nonetheless, when I looked at it, it seemed valuable and miraculous to me – a beautiful golden surface seemingly magically emerging from a clump of otherwise uninspiring rock.  And, it reminded me of my grandmother’s unconditional love for me. 

In fact, unlike the ‘real gold’ that we use to store value by turning it into bullion to keep in vaults as guarantee for our wealth or to adorn ourselves with as signs of status, pyrite is a very abundant, practical, life enhancing substance.  It can serve as an ignition source because it sparks when struck against iron; it’s been used in radio receivers and other electronics because it’s a sensitive detector; and I’ve read that it has been proposed as a low cost mineral component of solar panels.  What the world might label as substance that only fools would consider golden actually has practical value and merit because of its affordable, easily shared, more universal applications.

So, do we consider Godly wisdom like fool’s gold?  If we’re really honest with ourselves, do we believe in the truth and value of the counter-cultural expectations of God spoken of by the prophets and lived as an example by Christ?

What would our lives look and sound like, what would our church community be doing more or less of, if we lived further into this Godly wisdom?  Do any of us quietly consider this path too costly and rather foolish in the end?

Remember, we heard today, that “God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor 1:25)

God’s requirements as summarized by Micah, and God’s blessings as affirmed by Jesus, have been given to us in love through relationships that don’t represent wealth on Wall Street, but hold divine value in God’s kingdom family.

·       Blessings are not things we earn or achieve.  God already considers blessed those who conventional wisdom says are the least among us and those who hunger and thirst with them for justice and shared mercy.

·       Walk humbly with God, deeply aware that it’s not all about you, that you’re ultimately not in control, and that everything you have and are is inter-dependent with God and your neighbors.

·       Do justice – hunger and thirst for what is right.

·       Above all, love kindness - show compassion and mercy toward others… as our creator, redeemer, and sustainer does toward us.

AMEN.