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)
Don’t you just love those weird, arcane, and totally unbelievable stories out of the Hebrew Scriptures? You know: the ones that make you ask, “Why the freak is this story in the Bible, and what is it trying to tell me?” Perhaps it’s my perverse love of the whimsical which makes me want to explain all the obscure references which pop up in our Hebrew Scripture lessons lately.
For Epiphany 4, Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary our First Reading is Micah 6:1-8. If you skip reading verses 1 through 7 and just read verse 8 (quoted above) you’ll pretty much get the point. Nevertheless, I’m feeling a strange compulsion to explain the bizarre stuff referenced in verse 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.
Before I do, however, let me just say that I think we could summarize the prophet’s discourse here by saying, “Hey, you guys! God was good to you, so you owe it to God to be good to others.” Simple, right? But, being a Jewish prophet and prone to rather ornate discourse, Micah appeals to the culture of the people with a few nostalgic references which you probably don’t remember from Sunday school.[i]
So what happened from Shittim to Gilgal?[ii] God’s homeless refugee people were finally allowed to cross the river into the Promised Land. No need for them to wade across because they were following a group of priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant. As soon as the first priest hit the water of the Jordan, the river parted and the folks walked across on dry land. If you ask me, this seems slightly less miraculous than parting the Red Sea (the Jordan has a lot less water in it), but it was a miracle all the same.
I’ll bet you probably don’t remember all that jazz about King Balak of Moab or Balaam son of Beor.[iii] This story takes place while this caravan of God’s refugees are still wandering around in the wilderness looking for a home. They’re about to cross the border into Moab, but the Moabite king, Balak, doesn’t want these foreigners in his country. He doesn’t have time to build a wall and he has no busses to ship them off to sanctuary cities. So what does he do? He hears about this sooth-sayer named Balaam who seems to be pretty tight with God or whatever powers are running the universe. He sends some delegates to him to ask him to come to Moab and curse the refugees so they will all die or turn around or something. Balaam meditates on this, and God tells him it’s a bad idea since God really loves these homeless people. Balak asks him again, and God decides to have a little fun with Balaam (God has a sense of humor, and is fond of jerking us around. If you live long enough, you’ll figure this out!).
God gives Balaam permission to go to Moab, so he sets off on his donkey with Balak’s guys to meet the king. On his way, God puts an angel with a fiery sword on the road to block his path. But Balaam, the seer, is prevented from seeing the angel. No self-respecting donkey is going to mess with an angel with a fiery sword, so the donkey veers off the road. This ignites Balaam’s ire, so he whoops the poor donkey. The donkey then heads down a narrow side street, causing Balaam to scrape his foot against a wall. Balaam is even more pissed off now, and he whoops the donkey again. Balaam then finds himself in a narrow passage where he can’t even turn around. The angel is blocking his way, so the donkey does the only thing he can think to do, which is lie down. This really gets Balamm’s goat, and he starts to wail on the donkey a third time.
Now God does a really wacky thing: He lets the donkey talk. (I can’t ever read this story without thinking the donkey sounds like Eddie Murphy as the talking donkey in the Shrek movies[iv].) The donkey goes off on Balaam, reminding him he’s been a pretty darn faithful critter for all these years and demanding to know why he’s getting a beat-down just for avoiding an angel with a fiery sword. God then opens Balaam’s eyes, and he sees the angel. The angel says he’d gladly kill Balaam for animal cruelty and let the donkey go free.
Ultimately, Balaam has an audience with King Balak and tells him in no uncertain terms that these rag-tag refugees he’s so afraid of are God’s chosen people and Balak should be blessing them rather than asking for them to be cursed. Even if Balak offers him a boatload of cash, Balaam won’t go against God.
All of this begs the question of who is blessed and who is cursed. In the story of the Exodus, the homeless refugees from an oppressive regime—the ones who are feared and not wanted—are the ones through whom God will bless the nations. In the gospel reading (Matthew 5:1-12) Jesus gives an in-service lesson to his disciples (that’s us, by the way) and tells them the ones who’ve been beaten down in spirit, who are mourning, who are humble, non-violent, and hurting for the world’s situation—in short, all the ones who don’t conform to the world’s selfish standards of success or worthiness--are the ones God loves. They are to be loved by us and welcomed and cared for.
It’s not our doctrine or our worship or our worldly status that counts. We, like the wandering children of Israel, are blessed to be a blessing. How we act with and for one another reflects our relationship with God.
God bless you, my friend. Thanks for visiting my page this week.
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