Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For 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 now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
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 6:1-8
Micah 6:8 may be one of the most quoted verses of scripture.
And may be one of the hardest verses of scripture.
How much do we care about justice? Kindness (or mercy as other translations put it)?
Just how humble are we?
If you talk to someone who doesn't believe in God, or who has left the church for some reason, you will often hear their reasoning being something along the lines as to how little we Christians live by this command of God.
And that has shattered their idea of God altogether.
Instead we've made other things central: sexuality, gender, race. comfort. We've formed rules about how to act and how to worship.
How to dress and how to teach.
Who can teach. Who can preach.
Who can receive communion and who can't.
But Micah reminds us what it is God has required.
And it's pretty simple: Justice. Mercy. Humility.
Simple, but not easy.
Help me to follow your command, Holy One, that I may be just, merciful, and humble. Always. Amen
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