Walk Humbly with your God | Michah 6:6-8*

Several years ago, while I was working for Creation Spirituality magazine, I had the great privilege of working with Mike, a former Roman Catholic priest whose ministry to the deaf was legend in the San Francisco archdiocese. Mike finally found that the priesthood wasn't working for him, and decided that he wanted to play in a rock-n-roll band instead. So he resigned his pastorate, took up with a grunge-rock group, and got himself a story in Rolling Stone magazine to boot.

Mike was working at the magazine to support himself in his early garage-rock days, and one day found himself chauffeuring me around Oakland in a highly-agitated state. I should say that it was I who was in the highly agitated state, not Mike. I was worried about something that I don't even remember now, and in my distress, I just barked out orders as if I was Attila the Hun.

Finally, Mike had had enough of it. He pulled the car over and gave me what for, "Who do you think you're talking to, John? I don't like being ordered around. I need you to treat me with respect."

I hadn't realized what I was doing. I was in my own little world, obsessed by my own worries, and my own pain. When Mike called me back to reality I was flabbergasted, truly blown away. He was absolutely right, of course, and my shame level instantly went through the roof. I apologized profusely. Mike said it was okay, and started the car again. He may have forgotten the incident, but for me it was a painful and important experience of being humbled.

We don't like being humbled. Chinese etiquette is concerned almost exclusively with saving face, and Westerners aren't that crazy about losing it either. In the dog-eat-dog world that working folks find themselves in, there is already a feeling of being small and insignificant; we certainly don't welcome anything that makes us feel smaller.

This is perhaps why some religious folks have such a hard time with modern science. We already feel small enough on a planet filled with over 5 billion other souls. But in the last 300 years, we have felt this earth itself steadily shrinking.

We used to be the center of the universe, but now we are humbled to find that even the sun is not the center of the universe, not even our solar system, not even our own milky way galaxy is the center of the universe. And we, the human race, have been humbled to find that we are not the crown of creation; that we may be just one of thousands of races in the cosmos. We used to think that we had the laws of physics at our disposal, that we could describe and predict the workings of the cosmos, from the tiniest atom to the largest of galaxies. Then the theory of general relativity came along, followed quickly by quantum mechanics, and every Newtonian rule we had about how the universe works went out the window, leaving us feeling not only small, but relatively stupid as well.

This sense of perspective (that we have only recently gained) is a tough one for those who still think we are the apple of God's eye to swallow. It is a difficult period of adjustment for the human race, one from which I believe we will emerge more mature, more realistic than we could have dreamed before. I am an optimistic person: change is always painful; growth is always hard; but we are almost always better for it, once we go through it.

In fact I believe that the disease, post-modernism, the system under which we live today, in which all the moorings of science and religion have been stripped away, will ultimately prove to be our salvation, once we get over the shock.

The shock is caused only because our paradigm has been upset. A paradigm is a conceptual framework into which the universe fits in such a way that we can make sense of it and function in it. The medieval paradigm of a three-tiered universe, with heaven on top, earth in the middle, and hell beneath, has been shown up as the mythology it is. We have been humbled, and it is not a pleasant experience.

Like all little boys, I loved Robin Hood. I loved the whole adventure, regardless of who was telling the story, or whether it was a movie or a cartoon. I especially loved the ending, though. If you recall, Richard the lionheart had gone off to fight in the Crusades, leaving his weakling, conniving brother, Prince John on his throne. Prince John was a despot, of course, and Robin of Locksley operated under the malignant paradigm of John's government as best he could, but in that paradigm everything was upside down: The bad guys were in charge and the good guys were turned into the bad guys. Everything was twisted, and the land suffered.

Remember the joy, though, when King Richard returned. The twisted paradigm was gone in a puff, and the true and proper paradigm took its place. Prince John was humbled, but all the land prospered.

I submit that we have been living under the paradigm of Prince John for way too long, my friends. We have exalted to power those who would exploit the people, and the land has suffered. We have puffed ourselves up until we believed that we were the center and crown of God's creation, and we felt at liberty to destroy this creation. We prop up those who uphold our own selfish interests and demonize those who cry for justice and change. And we resist any challenge to our allegedly "divinely ordered" paradigm.

Post-modernism is God's word of truth which humbles us to the core. It hands us the paradigm of King Richard, a framework of right relationship in which we see ourselves as precious and integral members of a great web of being, in which we are no more or less important than any other strand in that web. It calls us to see ourselves as we really are: parts of this whole, not the summit. It calls us to right relationships with our fellow human beings: relationships of equality and mutual respect; it calls us to right relationship with our fellow creatures: relationships of interdependence and awe; it calls us to right relationship with the earth: relationships of both sustenance and reciprocity.

There are two Micah's in scripture. George Marshall writes that it is our task to choose between them.* The first Micah we encounter in the book of Judges. This wealthy man has his own private chapel, his own gods, and even his own priest to serve the spiritual needs of his household. One day, some Israelites were passing through, demolished the chapel, stole all the gods, and offered Micah's priest a higher-paying job. No dummy, the priest went with the Israelites. The scripture says that Micah followed after them, crying "You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and you are gone away: and what do I have left?"

The second Micah comes nearly a thousand years later, in a time when Israel's own house of worship has been destroyed, and her people carried off into exile. This Micah, however, does not despair at having the trappings of his religion torn away. He confronts the people of Israel with a new paradigm. Religion, he tells them, is not in a building or in rituals or in gods made of stone -- you have been told what true religion is: act justly, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.

We 20th-century Christians have been like the first Micah, despairing that our gods have been carried away. Source criticism has done away with biblical authority and history betrays the church's claim to sole truth. Our chapel has been sacked, and we feel bereft of spiritual meaning, crying like the first Micah, "You have taken away my gods... and you are gone away: and what do I have left?" This is where we are at the end of the 20th century. We feel bereft, and even abandoned by God. It is painful, but it will pass.

Chicken Little, take heart. The sky is not falling. That is just your paradigm in tatters at your feet. The sky is still high and hale. And though you feel humbled, be of good cheer, for you are in the company of billions of priceless and humble beings who will make you feel welcome and needed. The new paradigm just feels scary and shaky; but that is just your legs that are shaking. You will soon learn to trust, and the ground will once again feel firm.

This shift into a healthier paradigm is already underway. Consciousness is being drawn from the mere trappings of faith to the true action of it. We are being called to move away from the outward appearances, into an interior reality. From a place of safety into a place of challenge; from a place where it is how we look that matters, into a place where it is what we DO that matters.

Once blinded our own worries, and our own concerns, in Post-modernism we are being called back to reality, as Mike called me back justly and forcefully so many years ago. Just like that encounter, it is painful; as being humbled always is. But in it we are also being called back to health, to wholeness, and to right and true relationship.

Let us pray.

Wise and embracing God,
You are so much bigger than all of our ideas about you
And we have come to find
that most of our ideas about ourselves are wrong.
Comfort us in our humility, give us courage
to take our right and proper place in your creation
not as masters of each other, but as companions
not as masters over other creatures, but as their equals
not as masters over the earth, but as daughters and sons
with true gratitude of our mother earth
Teach us to act justly, to love kindness
and to walk with you with humility, all the days of our lives. Amen.

*Challenge of a Liberal Faith, p. 22.