The Preacher's Lectionary Notebook - Thematic Connections
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (Year A)
Micah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12
God’s way of setting the world right does not line up with what people usually expect power, success, or righteousness to look like. In Micah 6, God puts Israel on trial, calling the mountains as witnesses and reminding the people of a long history of deliverance. The problem is not that Israel lacks religious activity; it is that they have mistaken ritual for faithfulness. Burnt offerings, rivers of oil, even the most extreme sacrifices cannot fix a life bent toward injustice. What God wants is almost embarrassingly simple and deeply demanding at the same time—do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Micah strips religion down to a way of life shaped by humility and care for others, especially the vulnerable.
That same reversal of expectations shows up in Paul’s words to the Corinthians. In a culture obsessed with status, rhetorical brilliance, and visible strength, Paul insists that the cross sits at the very center of God’s wisdom. What looks like foolishness is actually where God’s power is most clearly revealed. God does not choose the impressive in order to impress; God chooses the foolish, the weak, and the lowly to expose how hollow human boasting really is. Paul’s point is not that thinking or skill are bad, but that none of them can be the foundation of our standing before God. Like Micah, Paul dismantles religious and cultural systems that try to secure righteousness through achievement, prestige, or performance.
When Jesus sits down on the hillside in Matthew 5 and begins to speak, he brings these themes into flesh-and-blood human experience. The Beatitudes are not motivational slogans; they are a declaration that God’s favor rests in surprising places. The poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers—these are not the people society lines up as winners. Yet Jesus says the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. This is Micah’s call to justice and humility lived out in real lives, and it is Paul’s “foolish” cross translated into a way of being in the world. Jesus blesses those who have let go of the illusion that power, control, or moral superiority will save them.
What ties all three passages together is the idea that God’s kingdom runs on a different logic. God is not impressed by religious excess, intellectual bravado, or social dominance. God is drawn to humility, mercy, trust, and a willingness to stand with those who suffer. Micah names it as covenant faithfulness, Paul proclaims it through the scandal of the cross, and Jesus embodies it in a community shaped by grace rather than competition. Together, these texts invite us to stop asking how to look righteous or strong and start asking how to live faithfully in a world that desperately needs justice, compassion, and hope.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
How do our ideas of success and strength shape the way we read these passages?
What might “walking humbly with God” look like in everyday relationships and decisions?
Why do you think God consistently works through what the world considers weak or foolish?