To Kill a Mockingbird, Law & Order, The Crucible, Judy Judy, Legally Blonde, the Seinfeld finale–it may come as a surprise, but the popularity of these movies and television shows can actually help us unpack a sermon preached by the ancient biblical prophet named Micah more than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus.
But first, did you notice what those movies and shows have in common?
All of them are either set in or see their climatic scene take place in a courtroom.
And that’s where our approach to the scripture begins this morning.
You see–authors, playwrights, screenwriters have been mining the conventions and rituals of courtrooms for material for centuries.
The Greek author Aeschylus wrote history’s first courtroom drama, or at least the oldest surviving example, in the four hundreds B.C.
Shakespeare explored the dramatic potential of courtrooms. So did Charles Dickens, Verdi, Dostoevsky, and Andy Griffith, to name a few.
Basically, storytellers working in every form and genre of storytelling have found court proceedings to be a useful tool for making their point or entertaining their audience.
And when we give it a little thought, it’s easy to understand why.
Courtrooms create endless opportunities for drama and keep open the possibility that the good, the bad, or the ugly among us might enter the stage at any moment.
Courtrooms are inherently places of conflict. Why else would a story end up there?
Judges and juries aren’t necessary when everyone agrees that a handshake or a “My bad. Sorry about that” are sufficient forms of restitution.
No, courtrooms are places of division and disagreement where accusations are made, defenses are presented, and someone–a judge or maybe someone just like you–has to decide what really happened and if someone is lying, misremembering, guilty, innocent, or just really unlucky.
Courtrooms bring to mind some of our highest ideals–things like truth and justice–but they’re also places where some of our worst characteristics and behaviors are recounted and put on display.
Courtrooms allow equal access to the salacious and the virtuous, they invite unexpected twists, turns, and revelations, and, more often than not, they allow their stories to end with a verdict or a resolution.
What more could a storyteller want?
There’s no question that countless generations have understood and experienced the same pulse racing energy we feel when we’re watching the cross examination of a star witness or listening to a powerfully delivered closing argument.
This brings us back to Micah.
Micah, like his prophetic peers, saw a direct connection between the unjust and immoral behaviors of God’s people in ancient Israel and Judah and the national calamities and crises they were facing.
Specifically, the problem in Micah’s day was a war with Assyria that the people were sure to lose.
The gist of his preaching, therefore, was that since the people had allowed their hearts, minds, and institutions to become rotten and no good, they were going to go through some things, but that repentance, changing their ways, and returning to lives of integrity–even as they experienced the consequences of their actions–was their best and most faithful hope.
This is the background for chapter 6, in which Micah imagines or envisions a courtroom drama to deliver this message.
We only read a few verses of the scene this morning, so we need to pull back a bit to appreciate what’s happening here.
In verse 1, for example, God brings the charges.
Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.So Micah casts God as something like a prosecutor, the people as the defendant, and the mountains and Creation itself as the jury.Hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel. (Micah 6:1-2)
As the passage unfolds, the charges reveal a people who have forgotten what God has done for them. They’ve lost all affection. They’ve given up on the relationship.
And when they finally have a chance to defend themselves–they only prove how dire the situation has become.
The scene looks something like a neglected spouse pleading for attention, pleading for their partner to become a part of the family, to take an interest in what’s happening in their lives only to have the other say, “What do you want? Some flowers? A nice piece of jewelry? A vacation?”
"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? 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?"(Micah 6:6-7)What comes next is the most famous line Micah ever wrote.
The speaker is a bit ambiguous. Is it the jury or the prophet himself? Maybe it’s meant to be anyone in the room who’s paying attention.
It could even be a shout ringing through the courtroom as the judge bangs the gavel and calls for order.
Regardless, the words are iconic.
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?( Micah 6:8)How could the people be so thick-headed? How could they be so clueless? How could they think that over-the-top, osentatious displays could fill a yearing for genuine connection and realtionship?
Case closed. The people were guilty.
The rest of the chapter is the verdict and the sentence, and it’s not a pretty sight.
Thus says the Lord,
Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the despicable false measure?
Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights?
Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
Therefore I have begun to strike you down, making you desolate because of your sins. (Micah 6:10-13)
It’s a stinging rebuke, the kind of which we find throughout the prophets, but it’s the rhetorical question at the center of it all, the courtroom cacophony, that endures.
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? (Micah 6:8)The intervening centuries have done little to dislodge these words from the core of our faith and practice. Far from it, in fact, as Jesus’ ministry–from the Beatitudes to the Cross–only underscores their importance, reminding us that while the grace of God’s mercy and forgiveness are always offered to us, we’re called to live like grace matters—like this relationship with God matters—and that what God delivers is better than all the treasures promised by greed, violence, arrogance, and deceit.
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor. 1:25)Asbury Church, what is good, and what does the LORD require of you–even as your heart breaks when the powerful trample on the weak, when the rich buy and sell the poor, when the promises of this nation that you thought would elevate all of us are being used as a cudgel to degrade, diminish, and even destroy life itself.
Do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
As we seek a deeper understanding of the prophet’s words for our lives and for our times, may our hearts be renewed, may our neighbors be blessed, and may we rediscover the power of the Good News that truly sets people and nations free.
Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen.
Image: Chris Potter, CC BY 2.0
