“Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has a case against his people,
and he will contend with Israel. …

He has told you, O mortal, 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?”
(Micah 6:1–2, 8)

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”
(Matthew 5:1–10)

I’ve somehow acquired a reputation as an “early adopter of change.”

People see me volunteering for new projects, experimenting with new programs, nudging congregations to try something different, and they assume I love change for its own sake.

I don’t.

What I am is an early seer of the writing on the wall. I can see that change is coming a mile away. I’m not the one joyfully hopping onto the latest trend. I’m the one lying awake at 3 a.m. thinking, “Friends, this thing we’re clinging to? It’s not going to last. We need to start planning now.”

I’m an early adopter of planning for change.

By the time most folks have finally admitted that change is necessary and unavoidable, I’ve already drawn up the six‑step plan, the timelines, and probably a colour‑coded spreadsheet or two. I haven’t “gotten onboard early”; I boarded a decade ago, worked through my panic, paced the decks muttering like Chicken Little, and am now quietly steering toward adaptation while everyone else is just buying their ticket.

And no, I try very hard not to say, “I told you so.” Years of ministry have taught me that line never lands well.

When I began in ministry—twelve years ago now, as a student supply—I had already wrestled with the reality that I was being ordained into a changing church.

I knew, deep down, that full‑time ministry would become unusual, even rare. I knew that our long‑standing “habits” of being church—big buildings, big programs, multiple staff, busy calendars—were not going to be sustainable forever. I suspected that smaller, more intimate gatherings would increasingly become the norm. And I could see that fewer and fewer people would be employed in what we call the system of the United Church of Canada.

Into that mix, I still hear my Old Testament professor, Rev. Dr. Bill Morrow, his voice like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea:

“What if it’s God’s will that the Church should fall?”

You could have heard a pin drop in that classroom.

What if?

What if what we are experiencing now in the church—and in our fragile political and social systems—is not simply an unfortunate accident or a sign of failure, but a necessary reckoning? What if some of what is crumbling really does need to crumble?

The biblical story certainly gives us a pattern that sounds uncomfortably familiar. As many commentators like to remind us, Israel’s history often unfolds like this:

1. God calls the people.
2. The people enter into covenant with God.
3. Over time, the people forget the covenant.
4. God calls them to account—sometimes sharply.
5. The people repent.
6. A renewed covenant, a new beginning, takes shape.

Micah 6 drops us right into the middle of that pattern. God summons the mountains and the foundations of the earth as the jury. “The Lord has a case against his people.” This is covenant‑lawsuit language: God is saying, “We had an agreement. You have forgotten who you are.”

But then, as the prophets so often do, Micah cuts through all the religious noise. Sacrifices, offerings, rituals—none of that is the point.

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good.”

You already know this.

Do justice.
Love kindness.
Walk humbly with your God.

That’s it. That’s the covenant, in three deceptively simple lines.

I wonder if that’s exactly where we are now, in our life as the church in Canada.

We have not abandoned the covenant in theory—we still read Micah, still recite the Beatitudes, still talk about love and justice—but in practice? We are often far more interested in being successful than in being faithful.

Over time, we have quietly equated being “blessed” with being:

• powerful
• prosperous
• important
• large and impressive

We imagine that God’s favour looks like full pews, healthy balance sheets, prominent public influence, and a busy program calendar. We treat “blessed” as a kind of spiritual brand name for “doing well by all the usual cultural metrics.”

And then along comes Jesus in Matthew 5, climbing a mountain and sitting down—rabbi‑style—to teach. The mountain matters: it echoes Sinai, where Moses received the law. Matthew wants us to see Jesus as the one who interprets and fulfills the law and the prophets. If you want to know what Micah’s covenant looks like fleshed out in a human life, listen here.

Who does Jesus call “blessed”?

The poor in spirit.
Those who mourn.
The meek.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
The merciful.
The pure in heart.
The peacemakers.
Those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

In other words: the overlooked ones. The grieving ones. The non‑aggressive, non‑triumphant ones. The ones who ache for justice so deeply it feels like hunger and thirst. The ones who keep making peace even when everyone else is making war—on each other, on social media, in the boardroom, in the sanctuary.

Jesus’ list of “the blessed” is a radical re‑ordering of values. It is as if he is saying to the church:

“Stop looking for my blessing in size, status, and success. Start looking for it in vulnerability, mercy, and a fierce longing for what is right.”

That stings a bit, doesn’t it?

So perhaps the question is not:
“How do we get back to being big and important again?”

Perhaps the question is:
“What if the Spirit is calling us back to the covenant—back to Micah’s three‑line summary and Jesus’ upside‑down blessings?”

What if this season of decline, anxiety, and restructuring is not simply “the end of the church,” but the end of a particular way of imagining church that was more about comfort and control than about covenant and calling?

I don’t say that lightly. There is real grief in closing buildings, combining congregations, losing staff, shrinking budgets. We should not rush past the mourning; Jesus names mourners as blessed, not as people who need to hurry up and move on.

But buried in Micah’s courtroom drama and in the Beatitudes is a promise: God is not done with us. God contends with the people because God still cares. Jesus blesses those who are struggling and small because the kingdom is already theirs.

So perhaps—just perhaps—the invitation in this moment is to lean into being small and faithful rather than large and impressive.

To ask:

• Where are we being called to do justice right here, in our neighbourhood, with the resources we actually have?
• How might we love kindness—not as a vague warm feeling, but as concrete, stubborn gentleness in a harsh world?
• What would it look like for us, as a community, to walk humbly with our God—to be honest about our limits, to listen more than we lecture, to trust that God is at work even when we are not in control?

Those are not questions about institutional survival. They are questions about covenant faithfulness.

And I suspect that is precisely where Christ’s blessing is waiting for us.

I am, by nature, a planner and an “early seer of the writing on the wall.” I still see more change coming for the church, and I still lose sleep over it sometimes. But more and more, I am convinced that the real task in front of us is not to save the church as we have known it.

The task is to remember who we are, and whose we are.

We are a people called to justice, kindness, and humble walking.
We are disciples of the One who blesses the poor in spirit and the peacemakers.
We are not promised success; we are promised God’s presence.

So maybe it is time—not to fight the falling of old structures—but to renew the covenant.

To say again, in our time and place:

Yes, God. We will do justice.
We will love kindness.
We will walk humbly with you.

Trusting that in all our smallness and uncertainty, Jesus still leans in, looks at this fragile, changing church, and says:

“Blessed are you.”

And Remember you are Loved,

Rev. Lynne