Sermon Title: "What Does the Lord Require?"
Date: January 31, 2010
Reflections by Kirsten Sumpter, Dave Winter, and Tom Stanton

Prayer by Mindi Ehrlich

Lesson:  Micah 6:6-8

Kirsten Sumpter’s Reflection:

I have always been drawn to our Bond of Union.   I can remember when I was in confirmation class we spent one meeting dissecting each piece of the Bond of Union, discussing what it meant to us and its history in Bay Shore Church.  The statement “we cherish for each person the fullest liberty in the interpretation of truth, and we gladly grant other the freedom we claim for ourselves,” embodies what I have always loved about the United Church of Christ.  The diversity within the UCC is one of our most defining aspects and one that I am most proud of.  Wherever you are on life’s journey you are welcome in the United Church of Christ, which I believe is one of Jesus’s most powerful messages. 

When I opened my Bible to re-read the scripture from Micah I found a copy of our Bond of Union and re-read it, along with the United Church of Christ statement of faith.  I was struck that as I was searching for Micah 6:6-8 I found our own statement, founders of this very church wrote, saying “we believe the Lord’s whole requirement is to do justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.” 

How does our church, and I as a part of this church, go about these tasks of seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God?  Are we acting the words not only of Micah but also of our Bond of Union?

Seeking justice: doing what is fair and just to your neighbor.  What is fair and just and who are our neighbors? Our neighbors are near and far, on our porch and around the world.  Monthly we prepare meals for hungry and homeless people at Christian Outreach in Action.  These meals are driven just a few miles away from here to our cross-town neighbors who would not have a hot meal if not for our, your, willingness to help.  We also have members of our church working with other churches and organizations in Long Beach to come up with better assistance for the homeless population of this city.  Though life is not always fair and consequently people suffer in differing ways as a result, we continue to seek justice for these neighbors. 

Love kindness: being compassionate and loyal in your love.   How are we compassionate and loyal in our love? Ask the Long Beach Unified School District how many families we have assisted over the years with our Christmas Family Project.  Each year representatives from Bay Shore Church meet with the school district to identify families most in need of assistance.  Year after year people in this church donate gifts, beds, appliances, and more to these families.  That is loving kindness.   

Walk humbly with God: not taking your own pride to seriously; instead taking God’s grace seriously.  At Bay Shore we do take God’s grace seriously.  We continually work to share God’s grace.  Weekly we write prayer requests, sometimes for people and matters that are directly affecting us: our families, our friends, our neighbors.  Often those prayer requests are for more worldly concerns: prayers for employment and shelter, prayers for victims of natural disasters around the world, and prayers for our service men and women trying to bring peace to troubled lands.  We know God’s grace is real and present in our lives and through our prayers and our actions we work to share that grace with others. 

It was easier for me to reflect on what others are doing to live out this requirement, this task set before us by Micah and past leaders in our church, than it was for me to come up with my own specific actions.  I strive to seek justice for my neighbors, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.  And I’m still working hard to take myself less seriously.   In the end I think Bay Shore Church is living the words of our Bond of Union.  We are seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. 

 

Dave Winter’s Reflection:

What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.  The way I see it, this is one of the Biblical passages most pertinent to the way we ought to live as Christians.  Of course, many other important scriptures tell us to love and respect those around us and to love the Lord with everything we are and all that we have.  And I believe those are integral in speaking about our purpose as people in relationship with each other. 

But, I have to appeal to the philosopher and theologian in me and take it one step further.  Something about Micah 6 seems to take the theme of similar verses and strengthen them in my view by adding an important question…  what does the Lord require of you?  For me, this proposal introduces a challenge to us… a responsibility to be proactive about opening our relationships through the wonder and power of God’s love. And I believe that our response to these words stands at the heart of what it is to live in the presence of others as people of God. 

Certainly, when we reach beyond the comforts of our own relationships to connect profoundly with a stranger, an amazing impact can be felt.  But, that difference can also be made in the lives of those close to us, individuals whom we know well.  One example of this love that I have felt came from one of the closest people in my life, Susie’s mother, Marilyn.

Marilyn is an active member at First Congregational Church of Colorado Springs and, in my experience, she really strives to answer the challenge of Micah 6 in her life.  In 2005, Marilyn organized a group of members in her church to begin a Prayer Shawl Ministry, not unlike the Ministry we see active at Bay Shore Church today.  This group of mostly women knits blankets and scarves which they donate to homeless shelters, centers for battered and abused women, and various other organizations where those blankets can provide warmth and comfort to people in their time of struggle.  And some blankets are knit for members of the church family also in need of comfort while ill or after experiencing loss.  If you ask Marilyn her motivation for beginning such a ministry in her church, she will tell you that it is her best way of praying for healing and comfort for the recipient of those shawls… praying with every stitch.

Not long after moving to Colorado Springs after Susie and I finished school, Marilyn surprised the two of us with a prayer shawl that she made especially for each of us.  I brought mine today.  Its draped over the lectern right in front of me.  And in receiving this blanket, I was reminded of just how much God’s love can be felt in my own life every day.

Marilyn must have had some supreme knowledge of what my immediate future had in store for me because about a week or two after she presented me with this blanket, I went through one of the most frightening and physically difficult times in my life.  I was admitted to the hospital, where I began to recover from what would be an agonizing nearly month-long bout with kidney stones.  As anyone who has been in the hospital or has spent significant time with a loved one in the hospital is well aware, it’s not a place where the best life experiences often take place.  But even in this, the least desirable of situations, I found myself feeling the radiant love of God through the love of those closest to me.

Not only did my prayer shawl help keep me warm in that cold sterile hospital room, it provided a constant reminder of just how much love I am blessed with.  Of course, I had many visitors during my stay at that hospital, including almost constant company from family and friends.  And that presence overwhelmed my temporarily-confined life there with an obvious abundance of love.  But, during those times when I was alone, this prayer shawl remained with me… even during x-rays and other tests.  And I can’t convey enough how comforting it was just to have a blanket that I knew was made with love, especially for me.

My experience just goes to show exactly how great an impact that we can have on our fellow neighbors by just giving our time and talents to others.  I know that I am not the only person to have felt such an impact from the love of those in Marilyn’s prayer shawl group or the prayer shawl ministry of this church and others.  But I do know that the force of God’s love that I felt through such a simple thing as a blanket will stay with me forever.

So, I ask you, “What does the Lord require of you?”  The Biblical text responds, “To do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  It seems to me that this isn’t such a terribly hard thing to practice in our everyday lives.  It seems to me that each one of us enters into a relationship with anyone whom we come into contact every day.  It seems to me that each of us already embodies the love of God through many of our everyday actions.  So, really, I think that this text is not necessarily calling us to go out of our way to embody the love of God in our lives more, though I certainly would not argue that we should not.  I believe that Micah 6 is calling us to simply be more aware of how our everyday interactions foster God’s loving justice and kindness.  And I believe that these words should inspire each one of us to make a difference in the lives of those around us.  Even if those lives belong to those closest to us.  Amen.

 

Tom Stanton's Reflection Outline:

WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE?

- QUESTION ON MY MIND LAST 2 WEEKS

- WONDERING WHAT I CAN DRAW ON THAT IS RELEVENT

- THOUGHT BACK TO SCRIPTURES I REMEMBERED

ONE THING POPPED OUT IN MY THOUGHTS  ----- TO SERVE

- CHRIST SAYS WITH HIS WORDS AND ACTIONS THAT WE SHOULD HELP THE POOR, THE SICK, THE ORHAN, AND THE WIDOW

- HE DEMONSTRATED THIS WHEN HE WASHED THE DISCIPLES FEET

- THE WORDS ABOVE THE DOOR TO THE SANCTUARY SAY “ENTER TO WORSHIP” AS YOU COME IN AND “DEPART TO SERVE” AS YOU LEAVE

ONE THING ABOUT SERVING OTHERS IS THAT IT ALSO LIFTS THE SPIRITS OF THE SERVER

- EXAMPLE- 1999 TO 2000 HELPING WITH THE HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH GROUP MISSION TRIP TO NEW YORK CITY.

- WE USED SOME OF OUR VACATION TIME TO HELP OTHERS

- I CAME BACK MORE REENERGIZED THAN IF I HAD RESTED AND RELAXED THE WHOLE TIME

- 3 PROJECTS BOWERY MISSION, MIDNIGHT RUN, NEW YORK CITY RESCUE MISSION: THE TWO MISSIONS WERE SHELTERS AND RESCUE MISSION IS A NIGHTLY SHELTER LONG TERM PROGRAM

BOWERY

- FIRST THING IN MORNING  WENT OUT IN VANS WITH MEN IN THE PROGRAM TO HAND OUT WARM DRINKS AND FOOD

- THESE MEN HAD HIT ROCK BOTTOM ONLY MONTHS BEFORE WOULD PROBABLY STILL BE CONSIDERED HOMELESS, AND YET THEY WERE NOW HELPING OTHER PEOPLE.

MIDNIGHT RUN

- ORGANIZATION GOES OUT ABOUT MIDNIGHT TO DELIVER FOOD, CLOTHING,BLANKETS TO PEOPLE CAMPED OUT ON THE STREETS. 

- AT THIS POINT HOMELESS PEOPLE COULD NOT SET UP SHELTERS IN PARKS OR OTHER PUBLIC AREAS.  POLICE WOULD KEEP MAKING THEM MOVE. 

- THE ONLY PLACES THEY COULD WERE BY CHURCHES AND OTHER PLACES THAT REQUESTED THE POLICE TO ALLOW IT. 

- NOTE: FEBRUARY IN NEW YORK IS COLD! 

- WE WENT IN SMALL GROUPS SO PEOPLE WEREN’T STARTLED.

- WE WERE OUT OF COMFORT ZONE QUITE OFTEN

- GOT INTO CONVERSATIONS WITH ONE OR MORE PEOPLE LISTENINGTO THEIR STORIES.

- NEVER EXPECTED THAT I WOULD BE SEEKING OUT HOMELESS PEOPLE IN NEW YORK CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

NEW YORK CITY RESCUE MISSION

- I VOLUNTEERED TO WORK IN THE KITCHEN: THOUGHT I WOULD BE SORTING OR CLEANING LIKE SOME OF THE WORK WE HAD DONE AT THE BOWERY

- I ENDED UP COOKING THE NEXT MEAL WITH THE COOK, CHEF TOM (WE CALLED OURSELVES CHEF TOM SQUARED)

- AMAZED AT AMOUNT OF FOOD

- WE WEREN’T JUST FEEDING THE MEN IN THE SHELTER, BUT THEY OPENENED THE DOORS TO ANYONE WHO WANTED TO EAT

- THE MEN IN THE PROGRAM ATE WITH US FIRST AND THEN WE ALL SERVED THE PEOPLE WHO CAME IN FROM THE STREET. ONCE AGAIN HOMELESS MEN TRYING TO TURN THEIR LIVES AROUND WERE HELPING OTHERS AS PART OF THE PROGRAM NOW

- ALL THIS TIME I THOUGHT THAT TOM WAS ONE OF THE STAFF MEMBERS OF THE MISSION: HE HAD BEEN SHOWING ME HOW TO GET A MEAL TOGETHER FOR A LARGE GROUP AND GIVING ME POINTERS LIKE “ALWAYS DO A QUICK CLEANUP WHEN YOU GET DONE WITH EACH STAGE OF THE PROCESS”  – BUT SUDDENLY I REALIZED AS WE TALKED THAT HE WAS IN THE PROGRAM!  EVERYONE IN THE PROGRAM HAD SOME RESPONSIBILIITIES TO HELP THE MISSION RUN.  COOKING WAS HIS CONTRIBUTION

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY IS “WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE?

*  HE REQUIRES MANY THINGS.

          * ONE OF THEM IS SERVING OTHERS

          * AND SERVING OTHERS CAN BE VERY REWARDING.

Mindi Ehrlich's Prayer:

Dear Lord,

As a congregation, we come to church on Sundays to celebrate your name.  How refreshing to hear in today’s scripture that simple acts like the one of coming to worship in the spirit of justice, humility, and compassion are all that you require of us in the time we spend here on Earth.

          It isn’t always so easy, though, to grasp the concepts of seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with you.  We forget how little you demand when we are faced with so many personal requirements and qualifications in our daily lives.  With the global economy in its current state, we find ourselves constantly questioning whether we measure up, whether we’re doing what is necessary to secure the jobs we need in order to provide for our families and ourselves.  As we pray for our ill or grieving loved ones, or see tragedies that affect people in parts of the world like Haiti that are already challenged with so much, we sometimes grow pessimistic about working toward the goal of justice, letting our anger and resentment prevent us from being as open, kind, and loving as we can possibly be.

          We pray for all that are overburdened with these worries and fears that we find the presence within to stay optimistic and to always take you more seriously than we take ourselves.  Whatever our hectic lives throw at us, let us see that there is always enough time for us to nurture our relationships with you and with those around us.  We pray to remind ourselves that you are the guide on the path we share.  Amen.