“Celebrating Beauty”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Reading: Micah 4:1-4
An obscure detail in our weekly order of service: it announces the scripture for next week. My Tuesday Bible study workshops that scripture to help me prepare to preach. And they do the homework. I sat down Tuesday and asked folks to turn to Micah and y’all they let me have it: ‘Who’s ever heard of Micah? Where is it even?’ They’re called the minor prophets, which sounds like the junior varsity (it just means they’re brief). Then one of you asked the only question that matters when it comes to the prophets or to anyone at all: “Who is this person, and why should we listen to them?”
Micah is nobody special. We don’t even learn his family’s name. He prophesies around the same time as Isaiah and Amos, who both get a better press. When I introduce a guest preacher up here, I say their fancy degrees, their impressive accomplishments, why they hung the moon and the stars. Micah is just a nobody from nowhere. When God needs a spokesperson, God has different criteria than we do.
Many have been claiming to speak for God of late. Some say God raised up president-elect Trump to restore American greatness. That’s not just a majority of voters down south: it’s not a few Canadians. Others say he’s no prophet. Convicted felon, admirer of dictators, mistakes bullying for strength, shreds norms he hasn’t bothered to understand. That’s a lot of us in Canada, a lot of my friends back home. But I’m not sure who is a prophet for this side. Has the left had a prophet since Dr. King? Some after the US election are jubilant. Some are more afraid than ever. And if just 2.7 percent of Americans had voted the other way, it would be vice-versa.
It was a long, hard week: pogroms in Amsterdam that could happen here, Judge Murray Sinclair’s death. Why should we think this nobody prophet from nowhere can help us? I mean, in Bible study we had to turn to the table of contents just to find the guy.
Micah’s message is this. “He has showed thee, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of thee? To do justly. And to love mercy. And to walk humbly with your God.” That’s it—the whole secret to how to human. Our church has carved these words in wood above the fireplace in our boardroom just to my left—have a look after service if you’ve never seen it. There are more false prophets in the Old Testament than true ones. Sound familiar? How can you tell the difference?
By the fruit they bear.
If the fruit of the prophecy is deeper love of God and neighbour: well, have a listen. If their fruit is hatred of God or neighbour, well, don’t name a book of the Bible after them.
And while you’re in that board room, check out the photos of the men who died from this neighbourhood. They’re babies. If you look at those about to deploy overseas, you’ll see about half are kneeling. Are those soldiers Catholic? Anglican? Just doing what the guy beside them did? I want to reach through the photo to bless their uncovered, defenseless heads so they’ll come home safe.
Last week I had to miss my Christianity 201 class Wednesday night. I love teaching you all, but brought in Professor Joe Mangina from Wycliffe College, best professor I know. Why? Well, Jaylynn and I had tickets to Bruce Springsteen fall in our lap for the day after the US election. Springsteen is in that Woody Guthrie tradition of singing for the underdog in America. Joe, also being from New Jersey, understood, if you can go see the Boss, you go. Bruce took the stage and said one thing before playing non-stop for three hours, not even a pause between songs. “This is a fighting prayer for my country.”
Ooh, that’s good, a fighting prayer for my country.
Today is Remembrance Day, and we got some fighting prayers for our country. One thing I love about Canada is our patriotism is a bit more restrained—more of a modest bowed head than a “We’re #1” taunt. In Canada people still turn up at cenotaphs for a prayer and a hymn one Sunday a year, and civic leaders don’t use faith to gin up votes. We are not under the misimpression that we saved the world all by ourselves. Russia thinks that of itself too, not just America. But we know we were part of the British Empire, one of three whelps of the great lion along with Australia and New Zealand. And together with dozens of allied countries, we turned back two wars we didn’t start, at great cost. The scars of those two wars last more than one generation, don’t they? So today, one day a year, we gather and remember them. Nothing worth doing can be done alone.
Micah makes two prophecies in just four short verses. Two prophecies but I bet you only noticed one. The famous one. Even people who have never set foot in a church or shul probably know this verse:
3 He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war, any more.
That’s almost identical to Isaiah 2:2-5, an Advent favourite in church. A professor would demand to know: who copied who? Isaiah or Micah?! Why do non-religious people know it? Well, there’s a renowned spiritual about it: ain’t gonna learn war no more. The words grace a wall outside the United Nations in New York. There’s also a sculpture of a giant smashing a sword into a plowshare. Some words leak out of religious spaces into the broader world.
But it’s not very realistic, is it? I mean, Micah, Isaiah, have you seen how bad things are out there? There’s a competing verse in the prophet Joel, the mirror opposite:
Beat your plowshares into swords
and your pruning hooks into spears;
let the weakling say, “I am a warrior”
... Bring down your warriors, O Lord
... For their wickedness is great.
That impressive sculpture was donated to the UN by the Soviet Union. It was trying to say that Micah’s promised world is here. In the Soviet Union swords have been beaten into plowshares—without God. All we have to do is get rid of religion, the workers will rise up and take over the means of production, and the kingdom will be here if we get rid of the king. That didn’t really work out, did it? The peaceable kingdom comes not through our efforts—Soviet or UN, Canadian or American. God gets the world God wants in God’s own time.
The earliest Christians were mostly pacifists. Taking Jesus’ words seriously they turned the other cheek and changed the world. We need people committed to peace at the price of their own lives. I sometimes say I’m not really a pacifist, but God might be. When Jesus is presented with swords to fight the Romans he sighs, put those away, that’s not my way at all. Christians live by the cross, and those who pursue faith often wind up on crosses themselves. Ancient liturgy prays “the white robed army of martyrs praise you, oh God.” More of this, please Jesus.
But we also have an ancient tradition of fighting what we have called “just wars.” This is a rigorous Christian tradition, as difficult as pacifism. A justice-loving soldier does violence not to protect herself, but to protect the weaker neighbour. Soldiers fight because if they don’t someone who can’t defend themselves will suffer. Soldiers who pursue Jesus know their profession should not exist. Swords should already be beaten into plowshares. But that day is not yet. In the meantime, some have the hard and sad duty of fighting so that the rest of us can live well.
This is why I prefer Canada’s subdued patriotism. Soldiering is a sorrowful duty. It’s not a video game. These are real people’s lives. People who like violence are the wrong kind of people in uniform. I got to know a cop in one church I served. He was telling me how he took target practice and cleaned his weapon every week. I swallowed hard and asked if he’d ever used it in anger. He looked at me like I’d blasphemed. No, and I plan to retire never having done so. I sure hope the world lets him.
The best movie I saw this past year was called Rebel Ridge. I know you haven’t heard of it, but it is on Netflix, do yourself a favor and watch it today. In one scene the lead is being treated for a gunshot wound by his older Chinese friend in the back of his dim sum place.
A woman asks, does the dumpling guy know what he’s doing?
Mr. Lee was a medic in the Korean war.
Oh, thank you for your service, sir.
He’s Chinese, he was on the communist side.
Oh. Uh, isn’t it great that we can all get along?
Micah knows we can’t all just get along. Yet. The world is a dangerous place. Micah prophesies that Jerusalem is about to be tested, smashed like glowing hot metal between an anvil and a hammer. And sure enough, the Assyrians sweep down on Israel in 722 and the ten northern tribes are never heard from again. Jerusalem and Judah will be conquered also in 586 by the Babylonians. Prophets are not peaceniks. But Micah still makes this promise: swords will be plowshares. Spears will be pruning hooks. Nations shall not always fight. No one will even train for war anymore. That day is coming. In Jesus Christ, it’s already here. One urban ministry in Philadelphia makes a practice of beating weapons into gardening tools. After wars sometimes tanks or anti-aircraft guns are repurposed as tractors. Don’t tell me it can’t happen, it already has.
Today the pillar we are discussing in our church’s vision is “celebrating beauty.” I think this is the one that is most intuitive for us at TEMC. This sanctuary. This music. You’re here because you long for beauty. Every human being does. We could do so much more. Someone wise said we can live briefly without food or water. We cannot live even briefly without meaning. There can be a kind of terrible beauty to warfare. Robert E. Lee, not someone I ever thought I would quote in a sermon in Canada, said “It is well that war is so terrible, else we should soon grow too fond of it.”
But I told you there were two prophecies in the Micah passage. You missed the first one, didn’t you?
Many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away
The high point in Judaism is the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God. He comes down with his face shining and with Torah for God’s people to live by: God’s instructions for how to be freed slaves. There’s thunder and lightning and earthquake. Judaism teaches that every Jew who has ever lived is gathered at the base of that mountain.
Micah promises a day when not only Moses is on that mountain in God’s radiance. All peoples will be that alive with the love of God. Even gentiles—can you believe it? Even gentiles will stream to Zion “that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” The church has always said: that’s us. We’re the nations streaming to Zion, begging God to teach us his ways too. The only God there is has given gifts not just to his people. Even false gods claim to do that. The only true God has given gifts through his people for everyone else. That’s why we’re here now today. Because the Word of the Lord has gone out from Jerusalem in the apostles’ teaching. So many nations—even Canada, even the US, even everybody—can stream to Zion. No wonder there’s a sword or two that’s already a plowshare, an AR-15 that’s now a snow shovel. One day soon they will all be.
A Canadian Baptist preacher I admire quotes the journalist Fareed Zakariah: in the modern west we have replaced religion with partisan politics. That’s why our politics are so bitter. We are fundamentalist in our partisanship. As people of faith who are trying not to be fundamentalist about anything, we can see that. You can only be that committed to one thing. We suggest Jesus. And all other commitments will be offset a little. And one day his peace will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That’s a fighting prayer for the country God is bringing as surely as day follows night. Lord, bring your everlasting day. Amen.