Sunday Service 18th May

alvaparishchurch
5 days ago
9 min read

Why doesn’t God do his bit?

18/5/25

Call to worship

Hymn 523: Hands to work and feet to run

Time for all Gil

Hymn 522: The Church is wherever

Reading: Micah 6: 1-8

Prayer

Hymn 252: As a fire is meant for burning

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 694: Brother, sister, let me help you

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 18th May.

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at part of the Old Testament prophet Micah.

Micah lived just before the time of exile of the southern kingdom of Judah. They had seen the Northern Kingdom of Israel destroyed by the Assyrian Empire and the people put into exile.

Somehow the southern kingdom had survived, they presumed because God had protected them, and they presumed that God would continue to protect them, because they were God’s chosen people.

But a few prophets, Isaiah, and Micah among them, were sensing that all was not well.

But we will look at that after the reading from Micah.

Prayer

Loving and gracious God,

we gather in worship this day... probably indifferent, probably unsure what to expect, or what is expected of us.

we hear big and mighty words...that you expect us to act justly, love kindly, walk humbly... but that seems hard.

And what do we get in return?

Do you guarantee good health, or that we find a worthy soul-mate, or that our loved ones will be cured from all illness and protected from all evil?

Without thinking we have created a contract; we do our bit, you do yours.

But the world we see doesn’t seem to reflect you doing anything to make it better, and we aren’t much better at doing even a fraction of what you expect from us.

So we give up; on you, on others, on ourselves.

It feels quite hopeless.

But is that what you ever wanted for us...a contract?

That seems very distant from walking with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,

or wandering with Abraham as he tried to find a home and a purpose,

or encouraging Ruth to stay faithful to her mother-in-law and leading her to romance with Boaz,

or playing with Jonah as he learns to challenge his own bigotry and racism.

We are aware that we let ourselves and others down, but we are less aware that you want to be with us as we work out what to do next.

That as you were friends to those struggling in the past, so you seek to be a friend to us now.

To walk with us as we recover and seek forgiveness...to hold us as we seek healing.

To inspire us to show compassion and kindness to others, as we find it has been shown to us.

May our actions, our words, point to you, letting others see where they should give their trust and find their hope. May your love be the source of our praise as we come before you in worship...

This we ask in Jesus name, and in his name say the words of community he taught us to say.

Our Father,

Which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil;

For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Sermon

Ok, let’s start off with a short history lesson.

God’s people had split into two kingdoms; the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

By the time of Micah the Northern Kingdom had been destroyed by the Assyrian Empire and most of the people taken into exile.

The southern kingdom had survived that. And they then had to come up with a reason why that was the case.

To those who believed in the temple worship it was obvious.

The Northern Kingdom had been unfaithful to God.

The Southern Kingdom still worshipped in the temple, were still faithful to God, and God had protected them.

Sure, occasionally the people had drifted, but when crisis came the people had always clamoured back to the worship of God, and God had come to their rescue.

This view is really exaggerated in the books of 1st and 2nd Kings were each king is judged as worthy or unworthy, purely on whether they encouraged the temple worship of God, in which case they were a good king,

or let the people worship other gods, in which case they were a bad king.

As a result, their first king, David, is regarded as the best of kings because he was trying to create the temple worship and collected all the materials for his son Solomon to build the Temple.

David’s rape/affair with Bathsheba, his murder of her husband Uriah, refusing to discipline his sons rape of his sister...they are all ignored, because he promoted the Temple worship.

Unfortunately, that attitude has now spread to the entire population.

It doesn’t really matter what you do in your private life, what matters is that you worship God in the temple, that is all that God really cares about. And as long as we do that then God will have to protect us.

The only thing is that prophets like, Isaiah and also Micah, are looking around and they don’t feel as sure about that ideology.

And in our reading today Micah imagines the people in front of a heavenly court.

An accusation is being made.

God is asking the people.

‘Why are you so unfaithful? What have I done to lose your trust?

Was it not I who freed you from slavery in Egypt?

Was it not I who protected you when you wandered about in the wilderness?

Who supplied the food and the water to survive?

Wasn’t it I who guided and led you to the Promised Land?’

And listen to the people’s reply...

‘What should I bring to God when I worship in the temple?

What does he want?

One sheep, five sheep, ten sheep, a thousand sheep? What would be enough?

How much olive oil? A litre, ten litres, an endless river of olive oil? What would be enough?

What about my first borne son? Would God be satisfied with their sacrifice?’

Why is this important?

Because fundamentally these are the two questions of faith that we all have to face.

How do we interact with God?

How does God want to interact with us?

I can tell you what God doesn’t want...God doesn’t want a contract.

That was what the people were offering him...a contract.

God...we will worship you in the temple.

We will go to all the expense of giving you our best sheep.

And in return you protect us from all evil.

The sad thing is, I don’t think they realised that all they were creating was a contract.

They may have been truly faithful in their worship.

Every Sabbath eve they went into their fields and picked their very best sheep for sacrifice.

Or they picked the first fruit crops from the field.

Every Sabbath they went to the temple and they sacrificed what they had picked.

They would say a few kind words to the priests and the priests would say a few kind words back.

Everyone was happy.

So what if they ignored the widow that had been cast out of her family house because of debts; that was her own fault for not preparing for the future.

So what if they avoided the lepers with their warning bells; that was their own fault, God was punishing them, and who were they to go against God.

So what if other nations were being attacked and destroyed by the Babylonian Empire; they were no more than heathens that deserved to be destroyed.

The people of Judah knew they had God to protect them.

God was contracted to protect them.

They paid their dues in sacrifices, the best of sacrifices, and God looked after them.

The sad thing is, I have seen this tragedy in churches as well.

People suddenly realising that the relationship they had created between them and God was a contract.

Ordinary members who came week in, week out to the church, they even gave to the Autumn Fayre, so how come they were made redundant?

Elders disillusioned because they had given years of their life to the church, so how come their son had a heart attack?

Ministers who gave decades of faithful service to the church, so how come his wife had left him?

Disaster hits them and they lose their faith,

so why should they still believe in God?

They did their bit for God, how come God wasn’t doing his bit for them?

It’s a contract.

The trouble with the contract is that we are the ones that set it up and create the conditions.

We decide how much is enough Sundays in the year to worship,

we decide how much is enough money to put in the collection,

we decide how much commitment God deserves.

And we also decide when God has let us down, when God hasn’t fulfilled his side of the bargain.

Micah is warning the people that God isn’t interested in a contract.

Which is fair enough.

Why would God care much about our sacrificial lamb when he can create a world of sheep?

Why would God care much about our burnt offering, even the burnt offering of our first borne child, when he can create a volcano that wipes out a city?

God isn’t interested in a contract.

God is only interested in a relationship.

We see it at the very start of the Bible when they describe the relationship we should have...God walks with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

And I can understand why it is so easy for us to slip into wanting a contract with God.

Contracts are easy, we do our part, God does his.

Relationships are hard; they take so much time and effort.

The thing about a contract is that we don’t need to change.

The thing about a relationship is that we have to adapt and change all the time.

But here’s the thing.

There is no assurance in a contract; there is no hope in a contract.

A friend of mine had a contract.

He had car insurance. That is a very specific contract.

And he had a car, a very nice car which he was very proud of.

A wonderful car that he had taken care of for a long time.

Not only did the contract not protect him from someone else hitting his car.

The damage to the car was about £3000 so the insurance folk wrote the car off and offered him £4000, even though the value of the car was over £10,000.

Imagine that instead of trusting in the contract.

My friend had trusted in a relationship.

Imagine that my friend had a best friend that was also a car mechanic.

Having a friend that was a car mechanic wouldn’t prevent my friend’s car from being hit by another car, but he wouldn’t expect that to be the case.

He wouldn’t blame the car mechanic for the crash.

But the car mechanic friend would come round to console him, share his anger and frustration and sorrow.

The car mechanic friend would maybe help him see if the car was fixable, or advice him, as a friend, whether it was time to move on and get another car.

At the end of the day, the car mechanic friend would stick with him no matter what he decided, until his friends heart was settled, or even stick with him if his heart never settled and he carried that loss for the rest of his life.

I was listening to a podcast of the last U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and he spoke movingly of people that were in the last stages of their lives, and they knew they were dying. And invariably all they talked about was the relationships that mattered in their lives.

Not their successes, not their bonuses, not their promotions, their relationships...because relationships matter.

They matter because we are changed by them,

they matter because they make us meaningful, they give us true significance.

That’s what God offers us, that’s what God expects from us.

To be with us no matter what, and for us to be with him no matter what.

Contract or relationship?

Lets’ just make sure we aren’t unconsciously drifting into a contract.