What we see is more powerful than what we hear. The visual always trumps the audible. I learned a long time ago that what people see is more powerful than what they hear. I learned it when I sat through an education professor’s hour-long lecture about why lecturing was the least effective way to teach. He proved his point amply not by how he argued but by the fact that all I could see was a lecture about not lecturing. I learned that what people see is more powerful than what they hear.
And so we choose visible symbols by which we will be known. Schools, churches, governments, businesses – all have logos, symbols meant to suggest something about that organization. You recognize the Starbucks hairdo immediately. You know the Coca-Cola script right away. If you are a Marylander, the arms of the Calvert family on our flag are visible from afar. And if you are an American, the Stars and Stripes were in your field of vision this weekend. Symbols, visual signs, of the institutions we know. And they are important. If you don’t think visual symbols are important, just ask one of our presidential candidates about what happened when he did not wear a flag pin on his lapel!
Of all the symbols we use, the use of birds is the most intriguing. States and nations choose official birds. Some are obvious, like the Baltimore Oriole; it has those Calvert family colors on it. Some are very popular; it bothers me no end that Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia have all stolen what is properly the Kentucky cardinal! What are they, Kentucky wannabees?! All the states have bird symbols, and, above them all, the bird symbol of the United States is the bald eagle. This magnificent raptor, which almost became extinct, was selected to represent our nation because it was associated with ancient Rome, and our founding fathers patterned us to a degree after the Roman Republic. So from Rome we get the Senate, we get candidates, and we get the bald eagle.
I do like the story, however, about old Benjamin Franklin arguing that the wild turkey would be a more fitting symbol of America, because, Franklin said, the bald eagle is a “bird of bad moral character” who snatches prey from other birds and who is a coward that can be run off by far smaller creatures. Old Ben thought the bald eagle not a proper emblem for what this country should become.
How curious, then, that the prophet Micah also invokes the bald eagle as a symbol of a people! How fascinating that when Micah looked for something visible that would carry God’s message to Judah, he pointed to a bird, a large and powerful bird, but one that had no feathers in its cap. And since in the ancient world, a shaved head showed grief, the eagle’s baldness signaled a nation that would grieve, a people that would suffer loss. “Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair for your pampered children; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they have gone from you into exile.”
Look at the old bald eagle, said Micah; look at his uncovered head. He looks like you do when you are grieving the loss of a loved one. He looks like you will when you learn that your nation is in trouble. “Make yourselves as bald as the eagle.” What a picture of loss! Your very symbol becomes for you a portrait of pain and powerlessness. The nation is under judgment. Grieve for it. You will face severe trials. A conqueror will take you away. Grieve for all of that.
Two questions this morning. Two things that arise out of this pointed prediction of peril. If there is to be judgment, why? What does any nation do that it should become like the bald eagle, a sign of deep grief? What sins are so severe that they would bring about the collapse of a great people?
And, what about this conqueror? Who or what might he be? Is this to be the leader of another nation, with superior military power? Is this conqueror to be a visionary with a new way of thinking? Just who or what is coming to take over the bald-eagle people? Let’s explore these questions with Micah.
I
First, what had the nation done that it should become like the bald eagle, a sign of deep mourning? What sins are so severe that they would bring about the collapse of a great people? Micah is confident that painful days are on the way for the people of Judah.
These things Micah will deal with over the course of his entire prophecy. He will go into excruciating detail about some of them. But the great high water mark of Micah’s prophecy gives us all we need to understand the reasons for God’s judgment. Micah 6:8, which you know by now; let’s recite it together again. “He has told you … what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.
The judgment was to come on bald eagle Judah because, first, she ignored justice; because, second, she was skeptical of kindness and compassion; and because, finally, she left God out of the equation. Judah was headed for a state of collapse – economic, moral, and spiritual collapse. Judah was going to look like a bald eagle, still flying around but showing signs of grief.
On this Independence Day weekend, I must tremble not for ancient Judah, but for my country. I must tremble for America. For we are going through a period of financial uncertainty, and those who will pay the price of it are not the stock speculators or the oil barons. Those who will pay the price of our troubled economy are those who are already on the margins, those who can barely eke out an existence day by day. We are hearing too many stories of people who must compromise nutrition for their children because they can no longer afford proper food. We are reading of homes foreclosed and families evicted because jobs have dried up. I do not have answers to these dilemmas; I am not an economist. But I do know that a land that lives on injustice cannot last long. I do know that those who prey on the dreams of the poor are undermining the nation. Bald eagle America, are we heading for economic collapse?
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness …?” I tremble for a nation verging on moral collapse. A nation where gun-slinging and vigilante justice easily replace due process. A society where dishonesty and greed are so much the norm that a man who finds a diamond ring worth forty thousand dollars and turns it in is reported as if he were a freak. A pop culture where we eulogize a comedian who made popular seven words you cannot say on television and where who is having a baby with whom, never mind marriage, is the stuff of the pulps. When kindness and common decency are laughed at, we are on the way to full-scale moral collapse. And then, bald eagle America, what do we do and where do we go? I tremble for my country if we no longer love kindness.
And most of all, good friends, I am ready to point to the bald eagle as our symbol, shorn as he may be, for fewer of us walk humbly with our God. Fewer of us understand profoundly that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We no longer quake at the thought that a just God will judge us; we want only a nice, sweet, grandfatherly God who indulges us in our little peccadilloes. We do not want to hear Micah, trumpeting a God who will hold us accountable. We want a bland and generous God who really cares very little about how we live and who will give everybody, whether they acknowledge Christ Jesus or not, a nice retirement package in a golden heaven, presumably equipped with sandy beaches and golf courses where you always get a hole-in-one! We are a people who, if the surveys are to be believed, overwhelmingly say that we believe in God, but who refuse to understand that we are to walk with Him, pray to Him, live in and with Him, and live lives worthy of His name! Nor, for that matter, do many want a church that speaks God’s truth and holds out Jesus’ way of life. We want churches that demand little but attendance, entertain us with the latest sounds and sights, and make us feel good but teach little of substance. We are on the way to spiritual collapse.
Economic collapse, moral collapse, and spiritual collapse. How appropriate that the bald eagle is our national symbol, for this great prophet says to us as he said to Judah, “Grieve for the collapse of your nation. Grieve for the disrepair of your country.” ”Make yourselves as bald as the eagle.” And grieve. What does the Lord require but justice and kindness and a humble walk with Him? These things we are throwing away in our time, and we will suffer for it.
II
But now Micah speaks also of a conqueror who will come to Judah. Part of his warning is that God will send someone who will take them over, and their freedom will be lost. “I will again bring a conqueror upon you.” Who might that be?
Well, when Micah was preaching, it could have been Assyria. The Assyrians had already conquered the Kingdom of Israel to the north. But in the end, more than an hundred years after Micah’s preaching, it turned out to be the Babylonians. Babylon was the raging beast that gobbled up the Assyrians and their conquests, plus a whole lot more, including Judah. The conqueror did come, and the bald eagle must fly, a symbol of all that had been lost. Make yourselves as bald as the eagle. Grieve for the loss of all that you could have been and all that God intended you to be.
That’s Judah and her conqueror. What of us? What of America? Who will conquer us? Is God preparing a conqueror for us, as He did for Judah?
Are we to be conquered by the armed forces of another nation? That may seem preposterous right now, when America is the world’s only superpower. But as rogue nations develop nuclear capacity, some day some twisted mind might give the unthinkable order and destroy us all. It could happen. I applaud those who lead us to be vigilant.
Are we to be conquered by terrorists? Will those who attacked on nine-eleven do so again? It could happen, so that we must labor to build systems that will detect those who are after nothing but pain and punishment for us.
Or will our conquest be more subtle? Will it be that no outside force will be so dangerous as our inside forces? Will it be that conquest will come from our abandoning God’s requirements? Will the conquest come from within as we ignore justice, discount compassion, and make a mockery of true faith? Are the seeds of our conquest already sown in our failing economy, our moral misjudgments, and our spiritual anemia? Can it be that, in the immortal words of Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”?
I know that today I sound like a voice crying in the wilderness. I acknowledge that when I speak of building a nation founded on justice, I am sqaured with the real world of “business is business, the devil take the hindmost.” But God is not mocked, and in the end, if we do not dedicate ourselves to the fundamental principle of liberty and justice for all and not for only the clever few, we will fall.
I know today that I sound impossibly prudish. To call for personal integrity, to summon us to treat all people with dignity, of whatever race or standing or opinion, is to tilt at a windmill. To ask for respectful language, to work for faithfulness in marriage, to point out the evils of alcohol and other drugs is a struggle that no 21st century prophet will easily win. But God told Micah to call the people to kindness and mercy and integrity; how can we today do any less?
And I know that today it is no longer fashionable to utter the clear word of the Scripture, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; that outside of Him there is no hope; and that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved. I know that the politically correct thing is to be vaguely spiritual in some non-committal way. But the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Israel and Judah; the God of Micah the prophet and David the King and Solomon the Wise; most of all, the God of Jesus of Nazareth permits no rivals and countenances no imposters. He is God, and beside Him there is no other. If we do not stand there, brothers and sisters, if we do not take that message to a truth-starved world, then we have lost it all. We are conquered. Not by outside forces, but by our own reluctance to stand and be counted. We are bald eagles, shorn of cover, signs of grief and loss despite our outward magnificence.
III
A conqueror, says Micah. I will send a conqueror. Assyria, Babylon, yes, for ancient Judah. Nuclear power, terrorists, perhaps, for America. Or America’s own decay, her abandoning justice, her pooh-poohing integrity, her spiritual smugness – quite likely. A conqueror. What is our hope? What is our way forward?
Here is the good news. Here is the wonderful good news. Our God has already sent a conqueror. Our God has already invaded us, and has sent us one who will conquer our hearts as well as our possessions and our bodies. Our God has already come among us in power, and has poured Himself into one who has gained victory over everything that threatens us.
Our God has sent a conqueror, the captain of our souls, who plodded in painful steps and slow to Mount Calvary, and in His sacrificial death pointed the way. We learn from Jesus the cost of our salvation and we see in Him the way to love.
Our God has sent a conqueror, who in His glorious resurrection has defeated death and has destroyed the powers of evil. Our God has sent a conqueror who has showed us more than justice, whose compassions fail not, and who has taken captive our very hearts.
For though we deserve to die, He gives life. Though we feel grief, He gives a reason to hope. And though we are stripped and marked with emptiness like the rapacious bald eagle, He feeds us, He nourishes us, He loves us. He is a conqueror, though not like any other. “For not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums; with deeds of love and mercy the heavenly Kingdom comes.”
Let our sign no longer be the bald eagle, the raptor that signals grief for a failing people. Let go the bald eagle, to become extinct after all. Let our sign be the dove of peace, descending around the cross. The dove of Christ’s peace, meted out in justice, love, and presence. Come to this table, where the dove of peace, the bird of paradise, has driven away the bald eagle of grief; where gladness removes sorrow; and where authenticity wipes away the sham. Come. Come and be healed, all the ends of the earth.
