Homily for Monday, 23 July 2018– Ferial

Monday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time


Optional Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden

Readings of the day: Micah 6:1-4, 6-8; Psalm 50:5-6, 8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23; Matthew 8:18-22

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

What is the minimal requirement for something, anything?

I am now into my third summer here at St. Joseph’s College as a sessional instructor. A significant part of any course outline I prepare details the minimal requirements for the course: Which courses students must complete, if any, before taking my course, the assignments required in the course and what percentage of the final grade each assignment is worth, and so forth.

Today, the prophet Micah imagines the people of Israel complaining to God that they do not know what God expects of them. Micah structures this section of his book as a trial speech or dialogue, in which God is the defendant and the people of Israel are the plaintiffs. The people of Israel, in Micah’s time, are being overrun by more powerful nations surrounding Israel and, as Micah and other prophets warn Israel, are about to be overtaken completely and taken into exile in Babylon.

But Israel protests to God through Micah: You say we must change our ways; that our sacrifices of “burnt offerings, with calves a year old” are not enough to stave off conquest and exile. What, then, God, do you require of us? What is required to pass this course, and how much is the final exam worth?

In these kinds of trial speeches, which are fairly common in the prophetic books of the Bible, an important feature is that, when the plaintiff begins by presenting the case against the defendant, in this case God, immediately the defendant has a chance to defend himself. In our reading today from Micah, God does just that against the charge of being unclear to the people of Israel as to God’s ethical expectations of them in order not to be exiled to Babylon.

We hear God say essentially through Micah that he has done everything to uphold and save the people of Israel in their worst moments in history, and now the onus is on Israel to behave ethically, especially by defending the dignity of the most vulnerable and in need of this land, Israel, God has given them. “I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam,” God pleads with the people of Israel. What more could Israel want from God?

As an instructor, if I were challenged on clarity of requirements in my course, I might be tempted to say to a student: “The requirements for the course are in the syllabus. Please download and read it”! Might we imagine God saying, “The ethical requirements to avoid exile have been made clear by the example of my relationship, called a covenant, with you in history.”

And yet, as in many prophetic trial speeches and like a good instructor in class, God patiently and repeatedly answers the people’s questions as to what is required of them: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” God is our living example of justice, kindness, and humility; of doing more than what is minimally required of us. God is just, kind, and humble (which is always poignant to me, because how often do we think of God as humble?). God’s lived example to us of how to behave ethically is better than any course outline on paper could ever be.