Micah 5:2-5a (NRSV)
2 But you, O Bethlehem of
Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of
Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
3 Therefore he shall give them up
until the time
when she who is in labor has brought
forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall
return
to the people of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed his
flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he
shall be great
to the ends of the earth;
5 and he shall be the one of peace.
Year C
Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2015
Cross~Wind
Title: Thin Places
Introduction
I came across two articles written
in 2012, and a blog, that reflect on the notion of thin places. It arises out
of Celtic spirituality in Scotland. I understand that in instead of thinking of
heaven and earth as at opposite ends, the Celts believed they were about three
feet apart. Sometimes, they thought, that distance was even smaller --small
enough for those on Earth to get a glimpse of the glory of heaven. The Celts
believed that Iona is a place where people could feel that thinness and
experience the kind of revelations and feelings that one might have when so
close to the holy. They believed that was true of other places as well, usually
places far away from the crowd and wrapped in both mist and mystery.
The Isle of Iona in Scotland is a
tiny, windswept place in the western Hebrides off the western coast of
Scotland. It is a skinny little island, only about 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles
wide, but it has become the destination of hundreds of people each year who
brave a long journey involving trains, boats, busses to get there. It is a
quiet place. Only about one hundred people there. You might have even seen
Celtic crosses, and the island has a large one. I discovered that no matter how
thin a place it might be, when it comes to the weather, Suzanne and I would not
want to go. It seems that the rain and wind off the North Sea can drive right
through you, no matter what type of gear you have. In any case, the monks who
live there welcome visitors from all over the world, searching for something
missing in their souls.
The famous 20th century Trappist
monk Thomas Merton once wrote that thin places are even more prevalent than the
ancient Celts believed, but we just do not see them.
"Life is simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely
transparent, and God is shining through it all the time ... if we abandon
ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes ... the only thing
is that we don't (let ourselves) see it." - Pennington, M. Basil, A Retreat With Thomas Merton, Element,
Rockport, MA 1988.
Perhaps the greatest problem in the
thin-place metaphor, apart from its lack of biblical support, is the worldview
it assumes and the implications that flow from this worldview. A thin place is,
by definition, an exception to the rule. Moreover, the rule states that this
world and the heavenly world are separated by a thick barrier. God is on the
other side of the barrier, mostly separate from the world, except for unusually
thin places in which he makes himself known. This worldview is common, but it
is not biblical. Scripture teaches us to see God as much more involved in this
world than the thin place metaphor assumes.[1]
Jürgen Moltmann said in God in Creation (Chapter 7) that one of
the places he thought Karl Barth got it wrong as that heaven and earth are not
dualities. He prefers to think of the Father creating “heaven and earth” as
affirmed in the creed is a way of saying that earth opens up to heaven. The
earth, in a sense, has an upward drift toward God. In the context of this
reflection, earth may have more thin places, it may have more traces of the
divine as Moltmann put it, than we acknowledge.
Preacher Philips Brooks experienced
his own thin place in Christmas week of 1865.
After an early dinner,
we took our horses and rode to Bethlehem. It was only about two hours when we
came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded
by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other
we have seen in Palestine. ... Before dark, we rode out of town to the field
where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with
a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in which, strangely enough,
they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields we
rode through where the shepherds must have been. ... As we passed, the
shepherds were still "keeping watch over their flocks or leading them home
to fold."
Several years later Brooks sat down to pen a hymn about the
experience. The result is the beloved carol "O Little Town of
Bethlehem," a moving meditation on the power of place to inspire
believers. Truly, it felt to Brooks -- both at the time, and as he wrote about
it later -- that "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee
tonight."
Application
In my journey to the Holy Land,
Bethlehem was one of our visits. Yes, there are still shepherds herding their
flocks. The Church of the Nativity, built over the traditional place
memorialized as the where Jesus was born. You go inside this ornate church, but
then you must go down a narrow and winding staircase to get to the place. The
ceiling is low. The tour guide asked me to read the story of the birth of Jesus
from Luke. I learned something about thin places at that point, although I did
not have that phrase. I was pretty focused on the reading. I had so many people
on the tour come up talk to me of how the setting became a thin place for them.
In fact, a layperson on that journey saw me over ten years later and still
looked back at that moment as powerful for her.
Yet, I must say that Bethlehem is a
busy place today. Pilgrims from everywhere, meaning you will have to wait
before you get into the Church of the Nativity. Monks yell instructions,
cameras flashing, and of course, security officers are everywhere. All of this
so that pilgrims can come be close and touch this place. In many ways,
Bethlehem today is more hectic than holy.
I do get it. Some of us have our
thin places, such as a spiritual retreat, a camp, and so on. Yet, let me
suggest that as meaningful as a journey to the Holy Land can be, the pilgrimage
we need this Advent and Christmas is not to the Bethlehem of today. The pilgrimage
we need is spiritual. The thin place we need to experience in our lives is how
near God has come to us in Jesus. We can do that right where we are by simply
focusing ourselves on the humble and powerful way in which God chooses to
bridge the gap between heaven and Earth. God came in the soft skin and helpless
posture of a baby, born to a family under Roman occupation that had their own
suspicion of “the Jews.” I like to imagine that life was thin for Mary and
Joseph, but the life Mary brought forth in the manger was full of more than
God's people and, indeed, the whole world could have ever imagined.
In Jesus, God broke through the
barriers between himself and humanity by becoming one of us. We do not worship
a God who is distant, cloaked in clouds, and oblivious to our world. Instead,
we worship a God who has consented to humble himself, as Paul says in
Philippians 2, and take the road to a cross. This is a God we can know because
he has a human face and in him the best of heaven and Earth come together and
show us what is possible for us and for the world.
Conclusion
So, as you prepare for Christmas,
perhaps the best preparation is to take some time to go to a quiet place and
consider that God is not far away, that the king is quite near and his kingdom
is at hand. Allow yourself to live in the reality of who God is and what God
has done in Jesus. Take a pilgrimage into the heart of the biblical story of
Christmas. Read it as if you are seeing it for the first time. Serve someone
who needs to experience the reality that God has come to give them real hope.
May your Christmas be thin!
[1]
--Mark Roberts, "Thin Places," a 2012 blog entry on patheos.com.
patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/thin-places. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
Going deeper
The prophet Micah was active
from 730-701. Micah, though from Judea, has much in common with the prophets to
Samaria. He was a younger contemporary
of Amos and Hosea. Isaiah had started
preaching earlier. He restricts himself to social criticism. The terms used of military organization
suggest he may have come from this sphere of life.
His focus is “mispat” or
justice, whose opposite is “rebellion and sin.” He denounces the prophets in
3:5-8, 2:6-11 for leading people astray. The people oppose him. His preaching
said that God is actually turning away from them. God expects “mispat” in way
that led some to think of him as preaching a new-fangled god. Micah gives
little home for possible repentance. He seems to preach that God is judge in
such a way as to bring together their action and their destiny, which makes it
appear as if God is turning away from mercy. He seems to have a new experience
of God as he looks upon history. Social institutions are collapsing. He
envisions an increasingly universal idea of God rather than one tied as closely
to the land.
Though many view chapters 4-6 as
from an exilic date, the evidence does not demand this. He proclaims the messianic future. He
attaches what he has to say about the anointed one to a future king. He thinks
of a new David who will restore the original Davidic Empire. He dismisses
contemporary kings. Historically, Sennacherib had just humiliated the king of
Israel. Contemporary descendants of David have lost their saving function. They
have relinquished their right to the praises contained in the royal psalms. He
expected God to blot out Zion from the pages of history.
Micah
5:2-5a (NRSV) Micah
5:1-4 has the theme of the distress of the Davidic dynasty. It has a close
relation to 4:11-13. The prophet acknowledges a siege against Jerusalem, “with
a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.” An acrostic poem from
around 587 BC offers a comforting thought if one is struck on the cheek with a
rod. Lamentations 3:26-33 offers that one should wait quietly for salvation,
bear the yoke in youth, sit alone in silence, eat dust, and allow the other to
smite the cheek and received insults, for the Lord will not reject forever.
Yes, one might experience grief, but the Lord will have compassion in accord
with an abundance of steadfast love.
Thus, when all appears lost, we hear
this promise. I do
not want us to miss the point. With the end of the old city and its rulers
comes a new ruler. The Lord will establish a new dominion on the grave of the
old Zion. What this
means is that he discounts the legitimacy of the current leadership to lay
claim to the Davidic heritage
2 But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
David was from Ephrathah, a
little clan around Bethlehem.
who are
one of the little clans of Judah,
from
you shall come forth for me
one who
is to rule in Israel,
whose
origin is from of old,
from
ancient days.
3 Therefore he shall give them up until
the time
when
she who is in labor has brought forth;
then
the rest of his kindred shall return
to the
people of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in
the strength of the Lord,
in the
majesty of the name of the Lord
his God.
And
they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the
ends of the earth;
5 and he shall be the one of peace.
The more literal Hebrew of verse 5:5a says, “This one will be peace,”
meaning that he will bring peace or salvation/deliverance. In the immediate
context of this passage (vv. 5 ff.), it is the Assyrians who will be defeated,
if they should attack Judah. For the notion of promised peace, consider the
following verses.
Isaiah
9:6
6 For a child has been born for us,
a
son given to us;
authority
rests upon his shoulders;
and
he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace.
Colossians
1:19-20
19 For in him all the fullness of God was
pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself
all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of
his cross.
Ephesians
2:14
For
he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken
down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.
Luke
2:14
14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and
on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
Now, let us step back and
consider the larger canonical context of this prophecy.
Micah is not alone in expecting
a new ruler from the lineage of David. About thirty years before this prophecy,
Isaiah had said the following.
Isaiah 7:14 (733-735 BC)
14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with
child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Isaiah 9:2-7 (soon after 733 BC)
2 The
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those
who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the
harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood shall
be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 His authority shall grow continually, and
there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will
establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time
onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
The promise continued to exert great
influence within that tradition.
Isaiah 11:1-9 (From 525-475 BC)
1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of
Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the
Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the
poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the
earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of
his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall
kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his
waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling
together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole
of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on
the adder's den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy on all my
holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Of course, the gospels (birth
passages and genealogies) understand God’s deliverer to be Jesus Christ (=
Messiah = “son/descendent of David”), born of Mary in Bethlehem.
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