SERMON “True Prophecy” Audio link http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/111030Micah3.mp3
Direct us, Lord, to bring you glory and delight. Live in us so we may delight in you. Amen.
There’s a right time to mourn for our unrighteousness. It isn’t a time we want. But it’s a time we need. As we look to Reformation Day tomorrow – celebrated this evening, we ask ourselves an important question. Why do we need reformations? It’s about time that we admit it. We do need reformation, though we would like to deny it. Our Old Testament and Gospel passages for today make it very clear. And they are hard-hitting. Especially the passage from Micah is rough on us. What will we do with the Word of God? More importantly, to the point, what will our Lord do among us with his Word? So we will move along. We will look bravely at our passage from Micah 3. may the Lord use his Word to reform us as well.
What are the leaders of God’s people doing? They hate good and love evil (v. 2). They harm God’s people – acting as cutthroats, murderers, cannibals (v. 3). Should we take verse 3 literally? Actually, there is no evidence of cannibalism in Israel. But we can see that kind of killing and eating going on today as well. Does anyone here know a cutthroat businessman? I ask you not to point at anyone in the room. But we know some of those people. If they can get something for themselves they will. There’s no concern for the health of the business. There’s no concern for the customer. It’s the profit of the moment that counts. I’ll take all I can and give as little back as possible.
Woe to me if I should do that to you! That shows that I hate good and love evil! But some of us have seen this in the Church. It is nothing new. It was there in Israel at the time of Micah, about 3000 years ago. It was there at the time of Jesus. It was a crisis point in the 1500s with Martin Luther. And it’s with us today. May the Lord reform his Church. It isn’t God’s purpose for the Church to kill and eat her people. It is God’s will for his shepherds to nurture their flock. My job is to feed you, to care for you when you are weak, to delight in you when you are flourishing.
What happens, though, when we are not engaged in this? What goes on when we are not being reformed by our Lord’s word? Then in verse 4 we see a dreadful situation. What do you expect when I pray for you? Not that I pray any better than any of you. Maybe I get more practice, at least in public. Maybe I have a cool voice. I’m not sure. But you like me to pray. And you expect what I expect. Or at least I hope we learn, bit by bit, to expect when we pray what we expected when we were young. Do we expect that Jesus will answer us when we pray? I hope so. He’s promised to be with us. We know he can hear and answer. But what happens in verse 4? God will not hear the prayers of those priests and rulers who have turned to evil instead of good.
What will we do if our Lord has abandoned us? We have no life, no hope, no future. We are blind. We will have no way to find what we need. Our death sentence is sealed. Woe to us when we refuse the calling of God. Woe to use when we treat God’s people as those to be plundered. Woe to us when we flee from God’s gracious commands.
This has been heavy so far. And the weight of Micah’s prophecy is enormous indeed. As Luther puts it, the Law crushes us. It makes us despair. If we are comfortable in our righteousness let us ask our Lord to confront us with his Law.
But if we leave it there we’ve done no good. We left you despairing. Don’t leave yet. I want to turn the page and look to the Gospel. For there is hope here. There is life here. We know something that Micah didn’t know. I know, though, as biblical scholars, that you know what happened to Micah’s people, the people of Judah, the line of promise, the people from whom the Messiah would come. Not long after Micah’s time the Assyrians came. And what did they do? They took away the northern ten tribes who were assimilated into the other nations and never emerged again. But God preserved his chosen people, the people of Judah. God preserved the line of the Messiah, Jesus, who came to cleanse us from sin. God preserved his people.
Why did he do that? Not because of their righteousness. Not because of their faith. Not even because they reformed themselves. Our salvation is not because of our works. We’re condemned. We’re blind, we’re deaf, we’re dead. We do not offer prayers that result in deliverance. That’s what the priests said to do. That’s what Rome told people to do at the time of Luther. That’s what much of American evangelicalism would tell us today. We gather as many people as possible together and if our prayers are good enough maybe God will hear us. It sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it won’t work.
How did God deliver Judah? He did it not through their prayers. He did it by his good pleasure. He kept his promise and he did it despite the unrighteousness of his people. He raised up a deliverer – not because of our cries to him, but because he said the time was fulfilled. This was the other, unspoken part of Micah’s message. This was the deliverance. Though his people were unfaithful, yet God remained faithful. Though they were vile murderers, yet God was the God of life. According to the great love of God he preserved his promised people, preserving the line of Jesus, the Messiah. Even though God’s people could not call on God rightly, he raised up Jesus, the one who would live, pray, and even die on our behalf to renew us. He has ushered us out of our own realm, our own kingdom, a kingdom of death. He has created faith in our hearts and made us trust on him for all we need.
Some 1500 years later we see the Church by and large telling people what they needed to do to earn their salvation. We needed reformation again. By his grace God raised up reformers like Martin Luther who pointed us back to Christ’s work on our behalf. But is the work done? No, we still need reformation. We need our Lord to draw us into his Word. We need him to use Word and Sacrament to show us once again that he has accomplished salvation on our behalf. We cannot and will not repent well enough. May the Lord work repentance and faith in us, turning us from our self-centered evil. May he put our attempts at righteousness to death, bringing us to life by faith in our Lord, the one who takes his righteousness and places it upon us.
Lord, reform us always. Amen.
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