My first experience as a mission volunteer changes my life forever. In 1988, the Republic of Haiti is struggling to emerge from dictatorship. Coup d’etats are frequent. While the leaders fight among themselves, the people languish in poverty.

My volunteer-in-mission team is to build a wall to enclosed a school yard. While working side-by-side with Haitians, we un-cover an amazing story of sacrifice by the Methodist Church.

The Bishop of the Haitian Methodist Church is asked by the United Nations to participate in planning the first democratic elections.

However, the money that is promised to fund the election process never reaches the local officials. The Methodist Church ends up printing the ballots for the national election on their copy machine. Methodist pastors serve as couriers to the polling places throughout the country.

On election day, the United Nations observers are detained at gunpoint in their hotels. Methodist pastors are killed en route to the polls. The military police massacre over 3,000 citizens as they stand in line waiting to vote. The home of the Bishop is torched. He and his family are rescued by UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, and flown to Miami.

Our group is the first Volunteer-in Mission team to get into the country since that aborted election day, exactly one year earlier. We find ourselves giving comfort to an isolated, grieving people.

Several of us become investigative reporters, recording the story on video tape. When we return to the United States, we find grant money to produce a documentary on the faithful witness of the Haitian Methodist Church. We distribute the video to every Volunteer-in-Mission coordinator in the United States, encouraging their support for projects in the Republic of Haiti.

Those of us who come home impassioned are never the same. I vow to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, committing myself and my congregations to global mission. Another colleague leaves a career in real estate to work as a fund raiser for World Vision. A school teacher gives her summer months to mission work. Another friend manages the hunger services of Denver Urban Ministries.

The latter half of the eighth century before the birth of Jesus is also a time of political transition. In the early part of the century, both kingdoms in Palestine prosper. Both Judah and Israel are free from foreign domination.

That situation changes very rapidly after 746, when Tiglath Pilesar III comes to power in Assyria. After several rebellions, the northern kingdom, Israel, is defeated in 722. The ten tribes living there are dispersed and lost.

Judah, in the south, avoids a similar fate but pays a high price to Assyria – taxes, domination, corruption. Into this time of change, the prophet Micah steps forward with a word from God.

Micah feels compassion for the poor, holding leaders responsible for their suffering. He paints a picture of a society where the rich use their influence to exploit the vulnerable. The poor are further aggravated by military escalation. The tribute demanded by Assyria adds to the problem. The wealth needed to buy them off has to come from someone, and the poor surely pay more than their share.

Through Micah, God reminds the people of their blessings.

O my people, what have I done to you?
I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember…that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.
(Micah 6:3-5)

The people ask what God expects in return. “What can we do to please God, especially when we have gone astray and need to make things right?”

What constitutes an acceptable offering: year-old calves, rams, rivers of oil, even our firstborn? The questions of quantity rise to the ridiculous: “thousands of rams” or “ten thousand rivers of oil”. Their questions push the point to extreme: “Can anything suffice to move God to accept us?”

The people are preoccupied with how to please God in worship. Micah, however, knows that God is more interested in the way people live their everyday lives.

What does the Lord require?
To seek justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

I meet a Micah by the name of Jason Ward, January, two years ago.

I walk from the Train Depot to the Wyoming State Capitol in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Marade. The multi-racial crowd of 200 persons is living their kingdom spirituality: elected state officials, the mayor of Cheyenne, the commander of the 90th Space Wing at Fort F.E. Warren, church leaders, college students, and children with their families.

Legislators and lobbyists lean over ledges in the Capitol as we blow into the rotunda, propelled by Wyoming’s infamous wind, and begin singing, “We Shall Overcome”.

The guest speaker, Airman Jason Ward, says,

“My friends, we must have an internal flame burning within us. We must have a burning desire for change, a burning desire for freedom, and a burning desire for justice for all God’s children.”

His prayer echoes throughout the Capital dome, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Kingdom spirituality couples the mystic experience of God with an intellectual style of gathering data, producing visionaries who are have a focused, almost crusading, type of spirituality. People of this spirituality care less about affiliation with organized religion than do others.

Their aim is simply to obey God.

Theirs is a courageous idealism that takes responsibility for change; they have a passion for transforming society.

While type 3 tends toward retreat, the type 4 is inclined to be assertive, even aggressive, in their desire to implement a vision of the world as the kingdom of God on earth.

Extreme Kingdom Spirituality is called “encratism”, an unrelenting tunnel-vision. If we are not supporting “the cause” with the same selfless effort that they expend, then we are not a part of their world.

The type 4 can trouble our lives, even make us feel guilty, but we find ourselves admiring these transformers for being willing to make a difference.

When I fill out my spiritual profile, I have a clear strength in #1, Head Spirituality. I am almost equal in my second tendencies toward #2, Heart, and #4, Kingdom. My least comfortable arena for relationship with God is #3, Mystic.

I remember that the quadrant opposite my dominant strength will be a place of growth. Therefore, I attend to God regularly in silence and solitude.

However, I also know that the quadrants to either side of my greatest strength can drive me crazy.

The persons to either side are enough like me to be inviting,
yet enough different from me to try my patience.

So, in order to keep myself in balance, I associate with Heart people like Yvonne, making myself sing and worship in the spontaneity of the Spirit. I also seek Kingdom people, like Susan, because together, we make a difference.

As a congregation, we ask our Kingdom seekers to lead us in the ways of transformation.

We walk the AIDS Walk with SLY, Jr., raising funds for the Colorado AIDS Project.

We write our names next to Susy Halloran on a petition that says, “All are welcome in this place.”

We travel to Guatemala with Mark Eli and Laurie Gilbert…to Mississippi with Betsy Keyack.

We lobby for political asylum with Jan and Charlie Rufien.

We mentor homeless families with Karen Meade and David Fornoff.

Thanks be to God for the “Micahs” in our midst.

When we want to gather in the safety of this sanctuary, they remind us of what the Lord requires:
to seek justice,
to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with our God.

So be it!

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May God give you courage to walk in the paths of peace,

Patience to outlast the troubles of the day,

Joy that radiates from the inside out,

And love that erases barriers.

God go with you.