Text: Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10
It is amazing how people, things, and events we consider to be insignificant can suddenly become significant as history plays out. Consider the banana. Bananas were an insignificant fruit until 1870 when they came to North America. By 1900 they were an indispensable commodity and thus begins the illustrious career of what is known as the United Fruit Company or Chiquita as we know it today. The UFC, owned by a number of powerful people about this time became a very large landholder in Latin America, particularly in Guatemala. In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz became the second freely elected president in Guatemala and unfortunately for him he was a socialist. When he took office 70% of the land was owned by 2.2 percent of the population and 90% of the people, mostly native peoples, had to live on 10% of the land. A very large portion of that 70% of land was unused. So, Arbenz decided he would redistribute the unused lands. The government would buy the land and then give small plots to families to farm. Well, the UFC didn’t like the price he offered.
Here’s where the UFC/Chiquita story gets interesting. Remember the powerful people I spoke of earlier? Well, two of them were Americans and both sons of a Presbyterian minister. They were John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles; both were stockholders in the UFC. Allen had at one time been its president and John Foster had been one of its lawyers. Allen is significant because he became the first and longest serving director of the CIA in 1951. John Foster was significant because he was Secretary of State under Eisenhower; so significant that Dulles International Airport is named after him. Eisenhower’s brother-in-law was also a major player on the board of the UFC which brings Eisenhower into the picture. When UFC interests were threatened in Guatemala, the Dulles brothers aided by President Eisenhower began a media campaign in the U.S. claiming that Guatemala had gone Communist and this would have a domino effect leading Communism right into the backdoor of the U.S. In reality, Guatemala had only four communist members in its 51 member Senate. So, in 1954 and with large public support the CIA orchestrated a coup d’etat in Guatemala called “Operation PBSUCCESS” which resulted in the overthrow of a freely elected democratic government which they replaced with a military dictator who looked out for the interests of the large landholders by murdering the poor. Guatemala has never recovered. This pattern of propagandist behavior – incite public fear that our nation and its way of life is being threatened so that a military option seems reasonable to the public yet behind the scenes it is all for the protection of the financial interests of individuals holding high offices in the government - was carried out upon nearly every country in Central and South America and in Vietnam. Pinochet in Chile was a product of the Nixon administration. It seems the insignificant banana has played a significant part in world history.
Let’s talk about the prophet Micah for things weren’t too different in Judah in Micah’s day than they were in Guatemala in the 1950’s. Micah was from an insignificant little rural town in Judah, Moreseth, about 40 klicks SW of Jerusalem. He lived in the early decades of the 700’s when the Assyrians were destroying the Northern kingdom of Israel and making their way to Judah and Jerusalem. The Lord gave insignificant Micah from insignificant Moreseth a preposterous message to give to the significant wealthy power-holders and priests in very significant Jerusalem. It was that God was going to destroy significant Jerusalem and all you significants along with it because of your idolatry and your abuse of the poor.
You see, a handful of wealthy powerful people in Jerusalem owned most of the outlying lands and they squeezed every penny they could out of it by means of the very lives of the rural people. To justify themselves, the Jerusalemites thought they could buy the LORD off with lavish sacrifices, even child sacrifices. So, Micah came to tell them that doing the will of the LORD, not sacrifices was the Lord’s desire. Micah’s most quoted verse is 6:8, “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?”
In the midst of his prophesying Micah mentions another insignificant city, Bethlehem, and foretells the birth of the one we know to be the most significant person to have ever lived, Jesus the Christ. Micah says “his origin is from of old, from ancient days.” That’s Old Testament prophet code for his being somehow the LORD himself. Significant Jerusalem and the significant Jerusalemites would not have the honour of bringing forth the Messiah. Rather, Bethlehem, a rural town of no significance just ten klicks out of Jerusalem, is where the one who would bring salvation would be born.
In our passage from Hebrews Paul further speaks of this child’s significance quoting Psalm 40 he writes that this Jesus came to do the will of God and to do it once and for all. The significance of his life, insignificant by the world’s standards, was that he was the only person to do the will of God the Father and he indeed has done it for all. He truly sought justice, truly loved kindness, and indeed walked humbly with our God. Paul says that by him and because of his faith and faithfulness we are all sanctified. Sanctified means to be made holy which is to be cleaned up and set apart for God’s purposes.
Yet, there is more to Jesus than just his being the one truly faithful person. Paul again says in Hebrews 1:1-5, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’? Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’?” This Jesus is the Son of God, God the Son. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of who the Father is. This means that if we really want to know God and his ways we must get to know this man Jesus and devote ourselves to his ways. That then raises the question of how do we do this?
First, Jesus reveals himself to us and through him the love of the Father by the gift of the Holy Spirit to us. The Holy Spirit is the unseen radiance and warmth that rests upon us this very moment making us to feel that this time together must be shared week after week after week or as often as possible. The Holy Spirit is that something we can’t explain but just is that makes us to know personally the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Father and the obedience of the Son.
Second, as Jesus came to do the will of the Father so by the gift of the Holy Spirit he enables us and sends us forth to do the Father’s will. He does not call us to a religion of sacrifices where we say “God, if you do this then I will do this” or “I do what I think the LORD requires of me which is my duty so he has to do what I want.” Rather, after having done in us what Jesus the Son has done for us, he sends us forth walking humbly able to seek and to do justice and able to love and to do kindness simply by the very fact of having been in his Presence.
The Holy Spirit equips us for participation in Jesus ongoing ministry by the simple means of our being in his Presence experiencing the steadfast love and faithfulness which the Father has for the Son and the adoration for and desire to do the will of the Father. It is that simple. Simply being in the Presence of the Trinity transforms us to be more and more in person and character as Jesus the Son is so that we may live faithfully in the way he lived his earthly life. So, the more we devote ourselves to being aware of the reality that we are in the Trinity's Presence the more we find that we are in the midst of doing his will. So also, personal devotions and gathering together as the Body of Christ are indispensable to living the Christian life which Micah described as walking humbly with the LORD God all the while loving kindness and seeking justice.
We are integral parts of what the Trinity is doing, of his Kingdom coming on Earth. Being faithful is not our simply doing what we think we ought to be doing or what we think churches ought to be doing and hoping that the Trinity will somehow be a part of it. Faithfulness flows from faith and faith is the word the Bible gives to the relational reality of our being in the Presence of the Trinity. Time spent in the Presence of the Triune God of grace transforms us by grace to be able to walk the walk of faith and faithfulness. As the Trinity is a relational Communion of Persons it follows that our nurturing together our relationship with the Trinity is utterly fundamental to anything we do as Christians. The transformation the Holy Spirit works in us by grace is a new heart that loves kindness and seeks justice. Again, he does in us what Jesus the Son has done for us.
Therefore, we as individual Christians and as a community of faith are able and should do our best to make sure that everyone we come in contact with knows that the LORD God is kind and yes this does indeed mean that we Christians must learn to be kind to each other. I have known children who knew their parents truly loved them but that love was greatly overshadowed by a lack of encouragement, love, and support from their siblings. Brothers and sisters do pick on and hurt one another for some very fickle reasons and it does little to reinforce a sense of being loved in the family even though the parents love is not not doubted. So, it is often the case in the Church. People may know that God loves them, but if Christians don’t reinforce that sense of being loved with encouragement, compassion, and real support then what good is it to know the Trinity loves us. Church is the place where people know they will be listened to, encouraged, respected, and cherished. That’s called kindness.
Justice or fairness is another component of being faithful that flows from being in the transforming presence of the Trinity. In our consumeristic-materialistic culture wealth and how we get it is Public Enemy #1 when it comes to justice. The Trinity did not been put us on this earth to be financially successful, but rather to be faithful. The command to faithfulness demands we be financially just. In our wold something as insignificant as a banana can lead to the oppression and death of thousands all for profit. As Christians in a Capitalist society we must be mindful of how we use wealth to generate wealth. We should check our stock portfolios to which our retirement security is "faithfully" entrusted and see if our investments are just. Do we have investments in companies that do as the UFC/Chiquita has done in Latin America or as Nestle has done in Africa or in the war, tobacco, pharmaceutical, mass food, or oil industries which are notorious for making wealth at the expense of all things vulnerable? Is it just for us to be making money at the cost of the oppression and indeed starvation of the poor? There are just ventures to invest in such as community self-help initiatives or micro banking in poorer countries. As disciples of Jesus the Christ our mandate is to invest in justice not in profit. The LORD has given you a new heart that desires justice and loves kindness. Please don’t let it go to waste. As participants in the life of the Trinity we each are significantly insignificant. As a banana can be used for destruction, so the Trinity uses each of us to bring in his Reign. Amen.
