Today's Meandering Thoughts

An Imperfect State

1 Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2 Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. 3 "O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord." 6 "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

The Imperfect State of Our Union

The Micah passage above is not in today’s lectionary readings, but is one of the readings for this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. But I am drawn to it in light of last night’s State of the Union Address.

Looking beyond the spoken words themselves, this author is concerned over these three items:

• Visible body-language images of continued divisions, despite rhetoric of a more civil assembly that would work on the crisis issues facing our nation, even on the most basic topic of unity
• Post SOTU commentary which spoke to continuing to "stand our ground" on the details of the broader picture upon which we agree
• Post SOTU commentary that focus more on political gaming and gain, rather than upon the issues that are hurting our nation and each of its citizenry

Like the national tensions of Micah's era, we too are an imperfect, divided nation. And, likewise, I believe that "the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with (the United States)." These next two years will be defining ones for our country. We can pull together and labor on all the ills that we face as a nation, while lifting up and caring for our poor and outcasts, or we can continue to hide within our political agendas and destroy ourselves in the process.

I guess that I shouldn't have expected much more, from this annual national ritual of the SOTU address, than what we got. Like our weekly Sunday worship and rituals, the words are only as good as how we live them out in the moments of our everyday lives.

... what does the Lord require of you but to

do justice, and to love kindness, and to

walk humbly with your God!

Almighty God, I beg of you to help us to break down those idealogical barriers that divide us, and instead to focus on all the suffering and injustices in our land. May our thinking, decisions and lives be ones that reflect your kindness, your mercy, and your justice towards everyone. Everyone. 

Amen.

Rev. Michael Kirchhoff