Are you easily pleased?

I am and am not. My culinary tastes are well known – there is little need to go beyond the delights offered by Golden Wonder or Ginsters.

But in many ways I can be highly demanding. I rarely walk away from something feeling that it was the best that it could have been, and can tear holes in an achievement in seconds.

My parents were both teachers who, quite rightly, pushed me to achieve through education the best grades possible and had high standards. Now it was my opinion that if you needed 80% for an A, and I got 81%, then I'd done 1% too much work. However my parents tended to see it as 20% too little.

I remember when I got 7 A* and 4A's at GCSE my Dad's first comment was what happened to the four? He was only half joking, and secretly I agreed. Despite a somewhat laid back approach to life, I do tend, underneath, to believe that perfection is the only objective standard, that perfection is what is really required.

And for many years I struggled with my faith because I extended the same belief to God – that God is hugely demanding parent writ large across the sky, with standards of perfection beyond our achieving and a million and one exams in which the pass mark is 100%, in which perfection is required.

And I think that I was both right and wrong about that.

God is easily pleased. And impossible to satisfy.

God is easily pleased in each of our readings – for example Paul stressed how spectacularly ordinary his church community was – they were 'nobody special' in the sight of the world, not rich, or wise or famous or noble or successful – but they were everybody special in the sight of God who chose them. And yet, having chosen them, the rest of the letter goes on to make clear – he has the highest expectations and aspirations for them and for the love that they can show.

But it is Micah I particularly want to focus on:

Micah wrote in the 8^th Century BC. At this time the Northern Kingdom of Israel had been conquered by Assyria – whose armies had marched as far as the walls of Jerusalem, laying waste to the land, before mysteriously turning round and leaving again.

In response to this King Hezekiah decided that the surviving lands of Judah should turn back to God for protection in the future – and that they should do this by trying to live according to the law of Moses and by worshipping not each at their own local altar or shrine, but at the one central Temple in Jerusalem. It was the time in which the book of Deuteronomy was written – as a rule book and manual for these changes – and the time in which Judaism as we understand it was born – a Jewish reformation if you like.

So the central questions of this time were, How do we please God? What is required? It was a real back to basics campaign. And Micah had his deep conviction, his 'Word of the Lord' to offer to the controversy.

Sometimes I think it is good to stop and take stock and ask those questions – what is really important – what of everything I feel called and pressured and required and told is important, is really required?

I'm on the governors at Wats Dyke school and suffice it to say that these are interesting times – we have just had an inspection report, and so we need to digest its findings and recommendations along with what we feel are the true priorities for the life of a school.

At the same time, we are interviewing in a couple of weeks for a new headteacher following Alan's retirement – in the last ten days we have had over 12 hours of meetings – very valuable ones – asking exactly these questions – what is really important?

Have we got those things right? Are new things important now? And when you are fortunate to have applications from a large number of very very talented and capable and impressive people – how do you narrow the field? What is required of a new headteacher? Which of the many gifts and skills and experiences of a candidate is the deciding factor? What exactly do we want?

In his interview process – Micah feels that it is perfectly clear what God wants. He is surrounded by those who think that God requires sacrifices of ever more lavish and excessive dimensions. Even the spectre of child sacrifice rears its ugly head, the ultimate example of religion twisted in on itself, when ritual becomes more important than life and humanity.

In reply Micah holds up his hands and says STOP. It's simple. It is not about jumping through religious hoops or making extravagant outward gestures. God is easily pleased. what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Now this may resonate with us. We may want to strip away all the "extras," the unnecessary and supposedly empty religious practices, the laws that seem oppressive and excessive, the bothersome rules that only produce guilt. It's tempting to want simply to quote this passage and the Gospel blessings and then "not sweat the small stuff." But can you imagine how hard it is in fact to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God"? (Or, for that matter, to love God and our neighbor the way we should?) If we boil it all down to this, and actually practised it, what would the world look like?

Maybe it is because this is so demanding that we look for easier options – religious rituals and beliefs – things that are clear cut, open and shut – things that tick the religious box. God is easily pleased, but impossible to satisfy.

So if you were Micah, speaking to this generation, what would you say?

There are so many things that we think are required, so many outward signs we could use to prove that we are successful human beings, that we are wise, or powerful or noble, unlike the congregation in Corinth. But what do you really require? Are you easily pleased? Can you be easily satisfied?

And what do you require of yourself? What pressures do you put yourself under to prove to yourself that you come up to scratch, that you pass your own tests?

And what does the Lord require of you? Well Micah can help you answer that one. He has told you what is good, and what does he require of you, except to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

For God is easily pleased, but impossible to satisfy.

Amen.