[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome to the Collective Table where we celebrate the intersections of Jesus, justice and joy. This podcast is brought to you by Oceanside Sanctuary Church. Each week we bring our listeners a recording of our weekly Sunday teaching at Oceanside Sanctuary, which ties Scripture into the larger conversations happening in our community, congregation, and even the podcast. So we're glad you're here and thanks for listening.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Good morning.
It's good to be here with you. I'm not on staff or anything, so don't worry. You only have to see me every so often.
But it's great to be here. And I was really excited about our theme of prophetic imagination because I think that as Christians that's something that we can really offer the world a different way of seeing, a different way of being, different way of interacting, different questions to be asked, different answers to be given.
And so to spend several weeks in that and to look at various prophets has been very exciting for me. Hopefully for you as well. Today we're looking at one short passage. It's Micah 6:8 and it simply reads, God has told you mortal one what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But two do justice to love mercy and walk humbly with your God.
This passage has become a fixture in my life since July of 2016.
I'd been at Lake Tahoe for a week finishing up a book on discernment and so I was offline for five days. And so I packed up my car and I decided, oh, let's see what's been happening since I have been gone.
And I looked online and then immediately posted this on social media.
This afternoon I watched a shocking video of the murder of Alton Sterling at the hands of two police officers. This was wrong.
Yes, I was not there, but I patrolled the streets and carried a gun in LA county for five years and on more than one occasion decided whether I would use deadly force or not.
What I saw in this video was unconscionable for a trained police officer. Again and again I see police officers escalate from an initial confrontation to deadly force with no intermediate steps taken, unwilling or unable to control the situation.
And too often it is a white on black encounter. Yes, it may very well not be as simple as all that, but if I was black, I would be afraid for my life every time I encountered the police.
Alton Sterling was not the first black man killed by a police officer in the years following Trayvon Martin's murder, but it was the one that God used to break open my hearts.
Doing justice, being a voice against injustice, became Something I made a priority.
This activity was ramped up following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and a number of other killings of black men and women by police officers within that following year.
Admittedly, my early understanding of doing justice was limited, but that would change in the following nine years. And some of that I will share with you this morning.
But before we do, I want to pause.
During the protest of 2020, following George Floyd, one of the things we would say is this. That was a hashtag as well. Say their name.
Five years ago today, Ambre Aubrey Ahmaud. Aubrey, I mean, was killed while he was jogging. Three people pulled him aside, shot him dead.
Eighteen days later, an illegal search warrant was served on a place where Breonna Taylor was sleeping.
She was killed two months later on May 25th. As I mentioned earlier, George Floyd was murdered. And probably everyone in this room has seen that video many times. So right now I just like to pause not just for these people who have died, but also for all the people right now who are living in fear because of what is going on in our country, to lift up a prayer on their. A silent prayer. I'm not going to pray anything, just to silently hold them up. Some of them, you may know, neighbors, friends.
This is, as Jason mentioned earlier, a fear filled time. Joey mentioned the same thing. So let's just pause and cry out to God from our hearts, Christ, have mercy. Amen.
All right, so let's pray and we'll. We'll jump into it.
God, we ask that you would open our hearts and minds to what yout have for us today.
That those who need to be encouraged would be encouraged. Those who need to be challenged will be challenged. Those who just need to find a place of rest would be able to rest what is to come. Thank you for this safe place, welcoming place that proclaims your love, celebrates the freedom that is ours in Christ, to be the unique creations that you've created and called us to be.
May we live freely and fully and invite others to do the same. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
All right, my introduction is done.
Okay. Whoa, 1046, right? All right. So the passage is to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. And oftentimes when we think of the word justice, especially this is in the Hebrew Scripture or what some people call the Old Testament, we think justice is this sort of eye for an eye, tooth for tooth kind of justice. In other words, punitive, destructive justice for the sake of justice in A sense that someone did something wrong, we need to punish them.
And so when we hear do justice, it's not going to be surprising that that's what we think of, especially because it's in the Hebrew scriptures.
But that's not the case.
The word justice in our passage and primarily used or predominantly used use that word, actually predominantly used throughout the Hebrew scripture is not one of retribution, but it's one of restoration.
See, God is not a God out to destroy people. God is a God that is here to restore people, to bring healing, to bring hope, to bring transformation. On the cross, Jesus extends his arms and says, I love you, come to me.
That's the justice that we are talking about today.
It's not a justice that says, I'm out to get you. It's a justice that says, come to me and find healing and find acceptance. No matter who you are, no matter how you identify.
This is the justice of God that permeates both the Old or the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. That is the love that we welcome, that we share, that welcomes us each and every day.
It's a restorative justice.
How is this different than the way we tend to view the justice of God?
Some of you grew up as I did in conservative churches, and it was like God was out to get you.
Not in a good way, not in a I got you way, but in a I got you way.
But this word says, no. God is a pursuing God that says, I gotcha, you're okay, I gotcha, you're safe, I gotcha.
Nothing can come against you and nothing can separate you from my love.
So when it says to do justice, that's what it's talking about. Oh, and I skipped a very clever part that I came up with. So I want to go back to it. So you know that I'm almost as clever as Jason Micah is. And that's a prophet Micah. Micah is answering three questions or two questions actually.
What is good and what does God desire? And the first answer is what we just talked about. God desires us to love.
Restorative justice, it's just another word for love. You know Joey's song Testify to Love? That's really what this message is about. And I'm glad that Jason has three things that he likes to talk about. But as Tina told me, Larry, you have one.
And she's right. And my wife told me the same thing, and it's love. That's why when I got to choose this passage, it's like, whoa, this is all about love.
And justice is a form of love. And we're going to come back to that because I have this great quote.
But the heart of God is restorative justice. God's justice is based on the universal dignity and worth of all people.
All are created in God's image. Thus the foundation of justice is God's love for those she created. Borrowing Joey's stuff from last time, and desire for a relational connection for the sake of flourishing, God wants us to flourish, to have fullness of life. Jesus talks about. What does that mean? I have no idea. But it's a good. Doesn't that sound good? And so it's for our welfare, to give us a sense of future and hope.
God's justice is more about delivering the oppressed and treating people equally than pursuing wrongdoers. This understanding of justice is expressed as restorative, putting things right again, repairing and restoring broken relationships with God, with one another and with creation. I would dare to say that, given all this, that God's justice is in essence dei.
It's.
It's this inclusionary, diversified saying, hey, all are welcome. That's why I love that we do communion every week. It's an open table. All are welcome. You don't have to come, but you can.
You can. Even if you don't know what's going on, even if you're just thirsty and you need some bread, you can come because everyone is welcome.
This is the justice of God.
So what is God? What is good and what does God desire? Number one is to what love do justice for. Think of justice and love. Start bringing those together again. We'll get back to that at the end of the message. Number two. So the second answer is to love. Mercy.
And the word love there speaks of a relational connection. Kind of love can be used in a whole bunch of different ways, actually.
But it denotes a deep covenant love that God has for his people as well as love that individuals are called to have for God and for one another. So again, justice is love. Then this says love, mercy and the mercy. I'm going to teach you a Greek word today.
I mean, a Hebrew word today. It's hesed. But it's like you're. I don't know if you guys use this terminology anymore, but we used to hawk loogies.
Do you remember that, Phil? And you go, that's. How you say chesed. Hesed. So everybody.
Phil, Phil, calm yourself.
Chesed. Let's say that again.
Yeah, it's a great Hebrew word. And there is no translation of it possible in English like There's no word that says, oh, this is what chesed means in English for a friend of mine, Gary Ventimiglia. He's just finished a book and it's on two words, chesed, and then my favorite word from the. From the New Testament, from the gospels, splegna. But a whole book on just those two words because they're so rich. If you want to know what splegna means, you can talk to Jason later. So love, love, mercy, and it's hesed, and it is also translated as love. So this verse could actually say, do justice, love, loving, and then walk humbly with God. Because again, at the core is this idea of love.
The Hebrew word translated hesed. Like I said, there's no English word for it, but it can mean kindness, faithfulness, compassion, goodness. In fact, if you read our passage in various translations, that we use some of those words.
But people who really study this word, they don't use one word for hasid. They combine words just to fill it out a little. Because goodness, faithfulness, kindness, those things, they're synonyms, sort of, and they sort of give a sense of what it means, but not full enough. So two words that I like when I think of hesed to use are steadfast love, the steadfast love of God. And what is the second one I like? Loving kindness. That's it. Loving kindness, the steadfast love of God is a great reminder that God's love is steadfast. What does that mean? It keeps on keeping on, like you can't outrun it, you can't escape it, even if you want to.
God loves loving us, and so he's looking to pursue us and catch us with love. Again, not that I got you, but I got you like you might do with a grandchild or a small child.
And they fall into your arms and you embrace them long or steadfast love. There's a verse in the Bible that says God is faithful even if we are unfaithful. For God cannot deny God's self. Is that great. God cannot deny God's self. Somehow we are so interrelated to God for God to deny us is deny God's self. And I think Moses was tapping into that. If you were here a few weeks ago when he would start arguing with God, saying, you can't do that. What are you talking about? Can't destroy all these people, because that would be to destroy yourself.
So we have a God who's steadfast in God's love, that even in the midst of your sin, God loves you. God says, hey, I got you.
That's steadfast love. Paul puts it this way. Nothing, nothing you do, nothing that has been done to you, nothing that you will do, I added those parts, can separate you from the love of God. Nothing, no thing. That's steadfast love. The other word is loving kindness.
Loving kindness emphasizes God's commitment to our well being and flourishing. It speaks to me of a God and us who is with us and who is for us, whose unceasing loving kindness is Described in Isaiah 64. 4. This is a verse talking about who God is. Isaiah, who is actually a contemporary of Micah by the way, says this. Since ancient times, there is no. No one has heard, no one, no one has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you. He's talking about the God of Israel who acts on behalf of those who wait for him or wait for God. In other words, this is saying, God, you're here to serve us. Whoa, that's sort of radical. Until we see the person of Jesus who says, I did not come to be served, but to serve and give my life as an example, as a sacrifice for the sake of others, to show what embodied love looks like, the price love is willing to pay.
So hesed steadfast love, loving kindness.
There's a verse in Proverbs 10:12 says this. Love covers all sins.
Love covers all sins. So let's say that together, that word for love, chesed.
Chesed covers all sins.
Sometimes I'll ask a person, if you were, if Jesus was here right now and we asked Jesus, what's the worst thing that you have ever done?
What would you say? Or what would Jesus say? And I don't let them answer because I just, I don't want to hear that.
Of course they, they think. And I say, okay, when do you have your answer?
And then I say this, here's what Jesus would say. Based on scripture, I think Jesus would be thoughtful and kind and looking at you, maybe rocking a little as Jesus is thinking and then would have to say this, I don't remember.
See, our sins are gone, tested, they're covered.
Nothing can separate us from God's love. And when God sees us, God sees our dignity, our worth as those created in God's image that chesed has covered our sins.
Steadfast love, loving kindness.
So what does God call? Or what is good to do justice, to love, mercy, and then finally to walk humbly with God.
I love that concept of walk. We see it in the Hebrew scriptures throughout and we see it in The New Testament. Also, this idea of relational connection. I mean, we see it actually in Genesis chapter one that Adam walked in the garden with God from the very beginning. There's this relationship is pictured poetically in Genesis chapter one. And when Jesus says to the disciples, what does he say?
The Bible says, follow me. But he could just say, hey, let's take a walk.
Let's take a walk through life together.
That's what this is talking about.
Walk humbly with God.
And humbly is an interesting word here in the Hebrew. And let me get to it, because it's like, wow, that is amazing. I never knew that before.
It says, it's not about thinking lowly of oneself and here's the cool thing, but about recognizing one's place and acting accordingly. And not in a, again, pejorative way. Know your place, but know who you are, know what you're about. Know your gifts, your abilities, and take up that space that is yours to take up.
It's the middle ground between timidity and cockiness.
It involves acknowledging one's limitations, but also recognizing our strengths. All of you have gifts, all of you have abilities.
And one of the great things about this church is it gives us multiple opportunities to use them because they're needed. And together we form this beautiful symphony as we each play, in a sense, our instruments together.
And here is a place where they say, come on and play. I mean, one of the gifts, you know, the beginnings and endings. There's always the good in each. But one of the gifts of Joey not being here as often is these other people have been able to rise up, and it's been amazing, hasn't it?
Pause for applause. Yes.
And yet it's great when Joey's here, too. And again, it's that both. And.
And even as Jason was saying, hey, today he talked about community. Usually that's not the case because we have other people come up, because it's about using our gifts or abilities and owning them for ourselves, but also helping other people discover what they are.
This humility is recognizing that each of us have their own unique purpose and have been given gifts to carry it out. And the same goes for everyone.
What a great community. When people gather together and say, wow, you're really good at this.
I'd love to see you do that more.
And that's how I started on the road I'm on. I was in a community. I said, hey, we think you have this gift. Oh, really? All right, let's try it out. Let's see. And to have the support as you are in the beginning stages is a huge, is a huge gift.
Some people writing about this, some of the master teachers of Judaism, rabbis put these words around it.
The whole world was created for me.
I am but a speck of dust.
Isn't that cool? And both are true.
And one doesn't minimize. They're just both true.
And then recognizing that each of us are on a mission that only we can complete. And the rabbi said about that, said this, the day you were born is the day God decided that the world could not exist without you.
The world cannot exist without you. We cannot exist without you. We need you. Not just your body on a Sunday, we need, but your gifts. And not just in these four walls, but throughout our community.
So we have the pantry, we have the queer community, we have the justice works, we have the anti racism group, all of them sometimes meeting here. But it's about getting out in the community, doing justice, loving mercy, and learning what it means to walk humbly with God.
Now, I'm a big fan of Jesus, so apologies if you're not.
And I see the Bible as, you know, Jesus is sort of the Rosetta Stone of the Bible. So I cannot not draw parallels between this and the Beatitudes, because we see them in here, you know, do justice, hunger and thirst after we say righteousness. But a better translation would be justice, be merciful, love, mercy, walk humbly with God. Blessed are the poor in spirits.
See, poor in spirit doesn't. Again, it's not about putting ourselves down, but it's realizing our limitations and our need not just for God, but for others. Ours is a communal faith. It's not a me and Jesus faith, it's an us faith. You know, we hear that in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, our daily bread, our sins. It's about all of us together, working together, living together, doing life together. And so as we humbly walk with God, the cool thing is in blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. The resources of God come to us. And now we can use the resources of God that helps us to be that prophetic presence that sees differently, knows what could be, asks different questions, gives different answers, loves mercy is doing justice as we're walking through life, as we're living day in and day out.
So what is good to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God. What does God desire?
To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God, to live Jesus, to be who, who God has created and called us to be, using our Gifts and our abilities.
So I want to share. I think I have time for this. Yes. A couple things I've learned in the last nine years of being on this journey in terms of doing justice.
Number one, when I first started doing justice stuff, I did much. Many of my posts were just like the one I read.
As soon as something happened, I'd get as many facts as I could that I get in line and I say something about it.
And so that went on for a number of years, probably about three or four years with George Floyd. Suddenly things started to change.
Have a number of. This will sound weird. I have a number of black friends, I really do. I've known them for years. I have one in particular that we were actually asked to do a couple national panels, you know, she being black, I being white, and then talking about our relationship that time. I think we'd been known each other at least a decade.
And as I watched her respond to things after George Floyd, I noticed that every time something happened, she would actually disappear.
You know, I would text her or call her, but I knew she wouldn't respond.
And I said, what's, you know, help me to understand what's going on.
And, and she says when these things happen. And this was the learning for me. My first response is lament.
Why? Because it's her community.
This is not actually my community in one sense, but that's when I began to know that I need to enter others stories. Not just be in proximity, but enter their stories so that their child's death impacts me, breaks my heart. Maybe not in the same way, but I take the time to feel that the word compassion means to suffer with.
So I began to more fully enter into lamenting the other thing I learned, and this was a hashtag back in the day, listen, learn, act.
We need to listen.
A lot of times, especially people who maybe have greater agency than others can just act and that can actually do harm.
But to listen what's going on? What are we hearing from God, from those around us, from even our own body, and then learn, read, study, and then out of that begin to act again. This allowed me to enter into other stories in ways that I never did before.
And that's, you know, back to the Greek word that I like, that's splegna, that guttural feeling that you can't contain, that aches for those who are hurting.
Remember I talked about justice and love. So here's a quote from, from Cornel west, it says this.
Justice is the public face of love. Isn't that Great justice is the public face of love.
And so, again, it's tying those two things together.
The other thing I've learned in the last several years. Well, I want to talk about one thing that I learned here, actually, right here on the stage.
I was part of Justice Works back before I was even a member. And Judah was in charge of it. Judah, who very close to Jason Janelle in many ways.
And so I was there to set up chairs, and she said, we need you to speak.
I was like, hey, I'm an old white guy. What do you need an old white guy to speak for?
There's other people who could speak no, because you were a police officer. Because you speak their language. Because they will listen to you.
See, humility isn't saying, no, no, no. It's like, oh, okay, you're right. I can do that.
And so, actually, on this stage, I spoke to 100 or so people who were gathered here, to the police chief and the captains, and not because of me, but because of this group that had been working together for all these years. Something was changed that night.
The de escalation policy was put in place.
Yesterday I spent the whole day with the SWAT team.
Those guys. What are those things? That fly drone team and the dog team. Every one of them, in their presentation mentioned the emphasis on de escalation happened because of this group. Justice works here.
And that was. That was probably three years ago, and it's still happening. They still. Every presentation talks about that.
Because why? Because we were about doing justice. We're about loving mercy.
We were about walking humbly with God.
John Lewis says this.
Do not get lost in the sea of despair, which is easy to do.
Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year.
It is a struggle of a lifetime.
Never be afraid to get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
See, as Jason alluded to, nowadays, you are going to get in trouble if you start doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. And I say, bring it on, because that's what God called us to. And that's why you need a place like this where we can gather. Last Sunday after church, seven of us went out to lunch together. Sorry if you weren't invited, but we were just able to talk about this stuff. Not apologize, not what we had to say.
We could just talk about it. And that's what we can give to each other. Because there's not a lot of places where that can happen, where we know we can be heard. We know we can say Some things we know we can process out loud.
But this has to be done together, not by ourselves, but by, but in community.
And that's why gathering together, not just on church, but in small groups, but also just going to lunch or whatever is so important and so needed in our day and age.
And then one last thing is to pace yourself.
Pastor Janelle talked about this last week that we do need to be rest. We need to rest.
And I was comparing 2020 with 2024, not in terms of who's president, but in terms of what was going on.
And in 2020, it was basically same body blows over and over again.
Killing police, killing police, killing police, killing. Well, when they keep coming, you can start blocking them.
But this every single day is coming from a different place. So I'm ready for this one. And all of a sudden I get hit from the side and then I get hit from this side and it is exhausting. So you're going to need to know, how do I pace myself? But you can't get out of the game.
See, one of the things I learned, and I did this after George Floyd, I posted every single day for a year.
And it was exhausting at times, but it was a reminder to me that my black brothers and sisters, my queer community, they can't take a day off.
There's no escape. There's no timeouts. Because every day it is coming and I have a luxury to say, hey, I'm out of it for a while.
Don't use that as an excuse to not be involved.
Because even when we're out, we can pray. Even when we're out, we can send a text. Even when we're out, we can do justice. We can love mercy. We can walk humbly with God.
So now I'm going to close.
There was a book, there is a Bible called the Amplified Bible. Probably many of you don't. I don't even know they're still around. But basically they could take a verse and then write whatever they wanted to. And it was amplified.
So here's my amplified version of our verse from today.
Do justice, love faithfully, communally, steadfastly. Own who you are and are not as you walk with God. Affirm and celebrate the worth and dignity of all people together. Come against the policies and practices that dehumanize while also feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting and journeying with the disenfranchised as you experience the unforced rhythms of God's grace.
Or simply do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. Let's pray.
God, we thank you that you are a very present help in times of trouble and that you often use your us in each other's lives.
Help us live our lives, order our lives in such a way that we can be there for one another as we seek to do justice, as we seek to love mercy as we walk humbly with you, we thank you that nothing can separate us from your love. May we be channels of that love, one to another.
In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us for this Sunday teaching, no matter when or where you're tuning in. To learn more about our community or to support the work we do, Visit
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