Micah 7:1-20

Woe is me! for I am like the fruit pickers and grape gatherers. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat; or a first-ripe fig which I crave. The godly person has perished from the land, and there is no upright person among men: they all lie in wait for bloodshed; they hunt each other with a net. Concerning evil, both hands do it well. The prince asks, also the judge, for a bribe, and a great man, speaks the desire of his soul: thus they weave it together.

The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is like a thorn hedge. The day when you post a watchman, your punishment will come. Then their confusion will occur. Do not trust in a neighbor; do not have confidence in a friend. From her who lies in your bosom guard your lips. For son treats father contemptuously, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Do rejoice over me, O my enemy: though I fall, I will rise; though I dwell in darkness, the Lord will be a light for me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me:

He will bring me out to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said unto me, Where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look on her; at that time she will be trampled down like mire of the streets. It will be a happy day for building your walls. On that day your boundary will be extended. It will be a day when they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the Euphrates, even from sea to sea, and mountain to mountain. And the earth will become desolate because of her inhabitants, on account of the fruit of their deeds.

Shepherd Thy people with Thy scepter, the flock of Thy possession which dwells by itself in the woodland, in the midst of a fruitful field. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. “As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt I will show you miracles.” Nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will put their hand on their mouth; their ears shall be deaf. They will lick the dust like a serpent; like reptiles of the earth they shall come trembling out of their fortresses; to the Lord they will come in dread, and will be afraid before Thee.

Who is a God like Thee, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the transgressions of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger for ever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion upon us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt give truth to Jacob, and unchanging love to Abraham, which Thou didst swear to our fathers from the days of old.

 Matthew 19.16-30

And behold, one came to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” And he said unto him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good: but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, “Honor your father and mother; and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The young man said to him, “All these things have I kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and You shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.”

But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus said unto his disciples, “Truly I say to you, It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

And when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” And looking upon them Jesus said to them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything, and followed You; what then will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man will sit on His glorious throne, you shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life. But many who are first shall be last; and the last, first.”

Sermon

Our focus in recent days has been directed to world peace and the anniversary of September 11, 2001. We wonder what we have learned from the tragic events of those terrorist actions and how it has affected us. To me, it seems that we have taken the path of revenge rather than the path of peace. It took only a matter of a few months for the nations of the western world to commit over 30 billion dollars to the war on Terrorism, but the wars on Poverty, Aids, Drugs, Child Abuse, Racial Discrimination and a host of other social problems seems to get left with very little serious support or attention. This leaves many of us feeling helpless to do anything but get on the current bandwagon and just accept the situation knowing in our hearts that war does not lead to lasting peace. What can we do? I think the song “Let There Be Peace On Earth And Let It Begin With Me” may give us some idea of how we can make our contribution. It is not a material contribution but rather one of attitude and behavior. It is a matter of working on being a “Peaceful Person” and allowing that growth within us to affect the ever widening circle of people we come in contact with. I am therefore devoting this sermon to the matter of being and becoming such a person.

We all know how good it feels to grow in some positive way. There are times in life when we experience some activity or have a learning experience that makes us feel that we have really added something to our stature as human beings or to our person-hood. When we develop or master a new skill we feel pleased with our accomplishment. Sometimes, the accomplishment might seem to be rather trivial, such as learning to use the remote control for a television set, or our debit card instead of cash at the store, but at other times they are profound like when you master a new skill for a job you are doing, or discover a new way to assist people in your community. At these high points we can look closely at ourselves and see the completeness of our being. We see our whole person reflected in our accomplishment. The mistakes and blunders we may have made along the way become insignificant. The growth, or the process of becoming fully human, enhances our overall sense of what and who we are when we successfully achieve a new goal.

Sometimes we spend lengthy periods of our life as a particular type of character or in a specific role. One set of acquired skills or knowledge will be dominant in all that we do during that time. Then we move on through new growth and changes in circumstances to other things that then, in turn, may become the dominant force, or primary love in our life. There is a close parallel between physical growth and mental growth with their slow periods and fast periods. There is also, a parallel growth occurring with our spiritual development. The difference is that our physical and psychological growth reaches an eventual end, whereas our spiritual growth continues on through eternity.

In our reading from the Old Testament, a woeful Micah was bemoaning the low estate of his situation as a person and also that of mankind in general, but he had a period of enlightenment and his whole attitude and the tenor of his oration changed when he began to focus on the role that the Lord was playing in his life. Gradually he worked to the point of presenting a picture of a positive future and growth for all his people. The man who approached Jesus felt good about him-self and was anxious to continue his development. He had obviously been quite successful as he is described as being rich. But he is also said to be young, which indicates that he lacked the mental and emotional maturity to be able to immediately move to a spiritual state where he could give himself into the hands of the Lord with complete trust. He still had to go through a psychological growth period, which would require many experiences and much more knowledge before he would be ready for such total Spiritual Life commitment. He was saddened by the realization that he still had a lot of growing up to do. He apparently had assumed that because he was materially successful he was also mentally and spiritually mature. He had not realized that although he was a very good person he was still in the process of becoming.

Jesus used this situation as an object lesson for His disciples. They had likely viewed this bright, energetic, well off, young man as a good prospect to recruit into their group. Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Jesus was not being cruel to the rich young man, He was simply being realistic. He knew that this fellow was only in the early stages of becoming a complete human being and had a lot of living and learning to do before he would be ready for the spiritual life that leads heaven.

The analogy of a camel going through the eye of a needle was not just made off-handedly. It was carefully chosen first of all because the disciples were familiar with the objects mentioned and secondly because it suggested an action that is obviously physically impossible. A needle was chosen because of its function of tying together or uniting various pieces of material into useful forms like clothes or curtains or tents. The eye of the needle is the opening through which is passed threads which are the binding material that ties unlike pieces together to become functional forms. Thread is said to represent truths. There are many types and sizes and colors of thread and they represent the wide variety of truths that are used to unite ideas and principles together in order to become usable entities in our life. Course threads represent natural truths and fine threads like silk correspond to spiritual truths.

The eye of the needle is useful regardless of the type of thread or truth it is guiding through the pieces of material. It signifies the spiritual truth inherent in the instrument which facilitates the joining together of other truths into things that are good because they are useful. What then is the Camel that has such a difficult time in passing through the eye of the needle? Camels correspond in general to earthly scientific things that serve the natural life of people. They have large feet which gives them great contact with the earth and is useful for transporting people and goods across vast desert spaces, which are like the periods of ignorance and uncertainty that we all feel at times when we are considering matters of behavior and of right and wrong.

These general scientific and natural truths can serve our need for natural knowledge and understanding, but they cannot provide the spiritual truth and understanding that serve the spiritual part of our being and lead to wisdom. The rich young man was steeped in natural riches in material goods and in intelligence and physical ability, but he could not rely on those things to provide the spiritual characteristics he needed to develop into a true follower of the Lord. Outwardly he had obeyed all of the laws but inwardly he was still immature. What did he have to do to gain the kingdom of God? He had to recognize that his earthly acquisitions were of no, value spiritually and be prepared to see that there is a higher form of life, which is unrelated to earthly possessions. "Give everything you own to the poor and come, follow me." The Lord advised him to let his earthly talents and wealth be used for unselfish purposes by those who need them and enter into, the life of real religion by placing his trust for his future well being into the hands of God. Such a quantum leap was not possible for the young fellow and he felt depressed over it and went away. The disciples then saw the difficulty of entering into the spiritual life and wondered how anyone could ever enter it. Jesus reply was that what is impossible with man is still possible with God. He had shown them how to begin the process in his instruction to the young man, which was to actively do good and loving deeds for others who are in need. This will bring about a gradual change in ones attitude toward the value of general scientific knowledge and the material things of the world, thus putting them in their proper perspective, and allowing a person to, develop a true idea of what has real and lasting value in human life.

In our time, World Trade and Commerce has become the focal point of living what we call “The good life”, but when the symbols of that institution were attacked and came tumbling down bringing with them as it were an earthquake to the whole system and the economies that support it; then where do we turn? Do we grow up and mature to the point of dealing with this worldwide problem in a loving and spiritual way such as looking to the Lord for guidance and practicing love for one another, or do we shake our heads and walk away and return to our old ways of war and violence?

Being and becoming, is lifetime process that is associated with the natural, mental and spiritual aspects of human life. There is an orderly progression through each one to the next although there is also a simultaneous growth occurring in all three areas. It is just that one is dominant over the others at specific periods in our development. As infants we learn to, crawl before we walk, but when we walk we can still crawl but we soon find there is more advantage to walking and so we walk more and crawl less. At the same time we are developing mental skills. We absorb knowledge and learn to process it in order to, understand it and use it. So we can walk and think at the same time. As we are growing physically we find we can walk farther and faster, and as we grow mentally we find we reason and figure things out more quickly and accurately. From our natural vantage point, our inner spiritual being may seem to be in the infant or dormant stage for a long time, but this is just an appearance because we do not yet have much spiritual awareness. In fact the existence of our spirit may be so dim that we deny it exists at all. We may become frustrated at times because we think we should be further advanced than we are. But we must learn to enjoy where we are at and allow the Lord to work on our spiritual growth in His own good time. The work of regeneration is done by the Lord alone through Divine Love and Wisdom operating actively in our lives.

We can experience the joy of becoming when we stop worrying about our spiritual development and trust it entirely to the Lord. Even as our physical and mental growth may be winding down, we are still regenerating spiritually. We are still becoming more and more human.

We can enjoy the experience of being when we learn to accept what we are at any given point in our life. We do not have to wait for those rare brief moments when we accomplish something outstanding or significant. We can look at what we are and see what is good, and can then appreciate the growth and regeneration that the Lord has affected in us at any given time in our life. We can also see that there is no limit to how far we can grow spiritually.

Praise the Lord. For the works of His hands are truth and justice; all His precepts are trustworthy, they are established forever and ever. They are performed in truth and uprightness. He has sent redemption to his people; He has ordained His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all who do His commandments. His praise endures forever. Amen