Readings of the day: Micah 5: 1-4a; Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45
The “rags-to-riches” motif is one of the more common ones in storytelling, because it resonates, does it not, with our heartfelt human inclination to encourage the heroic underdog to overcome the odds against her or him. In reality, these kinds of scenarios may be less common than we would like them to be: So many poor, maligned, marginalized people remain poor, maligned, and marginalized in our world. But occasionally some people overcome all odds against them, or at least they become the heroes of their stories or of pivotal moments in the greater history of our world or a society, or they keep other people from suffering the same marginalization as they have.
From the word of God, we hear today from the prophet Micah. Maybe the most memorable verse from Micah, at least for me, is his admonition about what the LORD requires of his people: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” I especially love this verse from Micah because it does not only exhort the people of Israel (and us) to act with justice, kindness, and humility. The Hebrew words Micah uses, which are notoriously difficult to translate but that we hear in English as justice, kindness (or mercy), and walking humbly, apply attributes of God to the people: Do justice, because God is just; love kindness, because God is kind and merciful; and, maybe most strikingly, “walk humbly with your God,” who walks humbly with us.
This verse, Micah 6:8, portrays God himself, and God’s prophet Micah, as by nature just, kind, merciful, and humble. And Micah is known as just that: A just, kind, merciful and, above all, humble prophet. Micah lived and preached at the same time in Israel’s history as much more famous prophets than he: Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. These other prophets were from Jerusalem (in Isaiah’s case) or small towns. Micah, though, was from the countryside, between the downslope of the Judean mountains away from Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea coast. Other prophets preached to kings; Micah was the prophet of the common people.
And the part of the Book of Micah we hear today, Biblical experts say, may not have been his but an interpolation or insertion of a text from another, even more anonymous prophet. How is that for a humble situation, that of the prophet Micah? And his message today is one of the humble becoming great. Not from big, showy Jerusalem, with its mountains and its temple, but from little Bethlehem, the “house of bread” in Judah, the economic “have not” region of Israel in Micah’s time, would arise a great king in David’s line: “One who is to rule Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”
We Christians have traditionally understood this prophecy of a great ruler in David’s line from little Bethlehem in light of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. And that is fine. Our Gospels often connect Jesus with the Davidic line of kings of Israel. But Micah looks back into Israel’s history in order to look forward, too. Micah’s references to David today are clear: David was a native of Bethlehem. He was a humble, obscure shepherd before slaying the giant Goliath and inheriting the throne of Israel. The ruler of Micah’s prophecy, like King David, will be a shepherd from Bethlehem. And, Micah says, while the king of whom he prophesies rules, he will return to be on a level ground with the common people; he will rule precisely by shepherding: “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.”
The Psalmist carries on Micah’s shepherd-king contrast: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.” Here God himself is depicted as a shepherd and, at the same time, a heavenly and mighty ruler. God is mighty in his humility, and humble in his might. If we are to be anything like God, we are called, as Micah once said, to “walk humbly with [our] God,” because our mighty God walks humbly with us.
Our mighty God was born, humbly, to us in Bethlehem yet again, in the person of Jesus. This Jesus, shepherd-ruler of the universe, was born into a stable; a manger where animals eat, in Bethlehem, as a vulnerable human baby. We are less than one week from celebrating the birth of this shepherd-king who has saved this universe, sisters and brothers, by choosing to walk humbly with us and inviting us to walk humbly, justly, kindly with him and among one another.
If God’s humility is shown to us in the Nativity of Jesus, it is shown that much more in Jesus’ giving of his life for us on the cross. When I was in my first parish as a priest, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Rochester, New York, one of my favourite liturgical elements during this time of Advent and Christmas was the conclusion of the Prayer of the Faithful (or General Intercessions), which reminded us how “the wood of the cradle” was fundamentally connected to “the wood of the cross.” May we always remember this connection, sisters and brothers.
The letter to the Hebrews today reminds us, in a way, of this same connection of the wood of the cradle and the wood of the cross; of Bethlehem to Calvary. Hebrews draws on the Psalms and prophetic writings, especially those of Isaiah, and places them on the tongue of Jesus: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me… See, God, I have come to do your will.”
I admit that Hebrews’ reflection on sacrifice is challenging to me personally: Not only that Jesus made the ultimate, saving sacrifice of himself on the cross, but that doing God’s will, in an ambiguous sense in our reading, somehow replaces or “abolishes” the need and the value of religious acts of sacrifice. Even our Eucharistic celebration is often called “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” I do not think, then, that Hebrews is saying that what we celebrate here is worthless. By no means! But any religious ritual, including our Eucharist, can only have meaning if it is God’s will for us. And Jesus, at his Last Supper, commanded his disciples, “Take and eat… Take this cup and drink from it… Do this in memory of me.” This is how we know that our Eucharist is God’s will for us. In our Eucharist, we celebrate a historical action by Jesus, his sacrifice of himself through his passion and death on the cross, that is finished and past. We make it perpetually real and present through our memorial of Jesus’ passion and death, Jesus’ once-forever sacrifice, but that sacrifice can never be replicated or outdone.
This is the surpassing humility of God that we remember and celebrate here: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired… See, God, I have come to do your will… Do this in memory of me.” It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the preaching of Micah about a shepherd-king to arise from little, insignificant Bethlehem; a shepherd-king who would save Israel; humankind; the entire created universe. It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the song of the Psalmist that called upon the LORD: “Stir up your might, and come to save us.”
And it was the surpassing humility of God, whom the Virgin Mary carried within her in human form, as she “went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” to visit and care for Elizabeth, also pregnant, with John the Baptist. Luke’s Gospel gives us many sublimely beautiful words and images today. Luke gives us Elizabeth’s greeting, on which part of our “Hail, Mary” is based: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit,” as Mary was from the moment she conceived Jesus at the Annunciation. John leaps with joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greets them.
But maybe the most moving moment of today’s Gospel for me is in Elizabeth’s question to Mary: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me”? Elizabeth was not lacking in humility, by any means. But this event, the Visitation and these last days of preparation for the Nativity of the Lord, are greater than Elizabeth. These events are greater than us. They are greater than a simple lowliness-to-riches scenario. We could ask the same question as Elizabeth does: “Why has this happened to us, that our Lord has chosen to be born as one of us, to come to us through the Virgin Mary, through a humble manger in Bethlehem”?
This event is all about God’s humility: That not only would God send his Son into our world in this way to save us, but that now God regards us, little and insignificant though we are (if we think about it), as fit to do his will: To feed his flock (that is, one another); to act with justice and kind mercy; to “walk humbly with our God,” if only because God has chosen to walk humbly as one of us.
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