Micah 6:1-8
January 29, 2023
Rev. Deborah Beloved Church
White Rock Presbyterian Church
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 6:8, NRSV)
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
As I thought about this morning’s sermon, I considered just repeating that verse– maybe a few times–and calling it good. Letting Micah preach the sermon today. Because that’s it in a nutshell. Right??
What does God require of us as God’s people? To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.
And by the way, the Hebrew verb, “darash,” translated as “require” in that verse, doesn’t mean “demand” or “insist on,” like we sometimes understand “require,” but rather it means “seek,” or “yearn for,” or “need”–like a child requires their mother’s love…or a flower requires sunshine and rain…
And so, in asking, What does God require of us as God’s people? Micah is raising the question, What does God seek from us who are God’s people? What does God yearn for from us who are in relationship with God? What does God need from us as intimate partners with God in this world, where God longs for healing and wholeness and the creation of God’s beloved community?
What does God require of us as God’s own people? To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God.
Simple. Straightforward. And short!
I wish I could let that be my sermon and sit down. Maybe some of you wish that, too… 🙂
But I can’t. Or at least, I’m not going to.
Because yes, it’s short, and straightforward, and simple.
But it’s not easy.
It’s not easy to do those things.
It is so far from easy.
And it’s so important.
And it’s so needed!
And I’m tempted to say that it’s so needed especially now, in these days when it seems like injustice, and unkindness, and arrogance are more the norm… But honestly, I don’t know if these days are any different from times past with regard to those things…
I think we’d like to believe that there’s somehow less injustice, less unkindness, less arrogance now than there’s been in times past. I think we’d like to believe that we humans have evolved and are living in times of greater justice and more widespread kindness and deeper humility…
Maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t.
Whatever the reality of all of that relative to times past and even times to come, it seems to me that what matters is that we are here, now, in these days. And if we want to do something about any of that, if we want to do something about any of that…(do we??) these days are all we have.
But before we jump in and try to do something about any of that, I think we have to be willing to talk about all of it. To talk about doing justice and what that means. To talk about loving kindness and what that looks like. To talk about walking humbly with our God and what that is.
For many of us, I think, just talking about all of that can be where the “not-easy” starts… And, I think we have to do it anyway.
It’s too important and too needed not to.
Not to mention, for us who are people of faith, it’s a huge part of what our faith is about! All of that!
As people who claim to follow Jesus, I think we have to be willing to talk about what it means to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God…in full recognition that it’s not easy.
I want to consider for just a minute why that is–Why is it so hard to talk about doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with our God?
I think it’s hard because in order to talk about doing justice, we have to be willing to acknowledge and talk about the realities of injustice…and we have to be willing to consider our participation in those realities, both individually and communally…
And that’s not easy.
I think it’s hard because in order to talk about loving kindness, we have to be willing to recognize and talk about the prevalence of unkindness…and we have to be willing to recognize our thoughts and actions that have been unkind, both as individuals and as a society…
And that’s not easy.
I think it’s hard because in order to talk about walking humbly with our God, we have to be willing to acknowledge and name and talk about arrogance…and we have to be willing to see those tendencies not only in others but also within ourselves and our practices and our institutions…
And that’s not easy.
And, all of that is so important. And so desperately needed in these days.
“What does the Lord require of you” declared Micah, “but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
That was declared by Micah, but it was lived by Jesus. Fully. Unwaveringly. Unhesitatingly. Well, there was that one occasion of hesitation…but other than that…Jesus fulfilled those requirements of God’s in his words, and in his actions, in what he taught, and in how he prayed, in whom he healed, and by what he was angered, and in how and whom he loved.
Jesus did justice. He loved kindness. He walked humbly with God.
Micah declared it; Jesus embodied it.
And we claim to be followers of Jesus–which means that simply by being here, we’re making a statement about our intentions to do as he did–to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.
Simply by participating in the life of this community of faith–which is built around the life and death and resurrection of Jesus–we’re communicating our intentions to follow him–and do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
Whether we’re broadcasting it boldly and publicly or not, whether we’re even aware of it or not, part of what we’re saying to each other and to the world around us simply by our presence here, at White Rock Presbyterian Church, is that we are interested in doing justice, like Jesus did, and in loving kindness, like Jesus did, and in walking humbly with our God, like Jesus did.
Are we, in fact, interested in those things?
If we are–and based on my experiences among and with you over the past three and a half years, I think we are–let’s go beyond simply being interested in them.
Let’s get talking about them.
And let’s get talking about them so that we can begin to consider–or continue to consider–what God is inviting us to do about them.
Because justice and kindness and humility are so needed in these days. And these days are all we’ve got.
Over the next few weeks I’ll invite you further into this conversation, spending time next Sunday talking about justice and injustice, and what it might mean to do justice. And then the following week we’ll explore kindness and unkindness, and what it might look like to love kindness. And the week after that, we’ll consider humility and arrogance, and reflect together on what it might feel like to walk humbly with God.
Because justice and kindness and humility are so needed in these days. And these days are all we’ve got.
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
What does the Lord require of US but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God.
Amen.
Rev. Deborah Beloved Church (aka "Pastor Deb") 