Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2Hear, 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. 3“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! 4For 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. 5O 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.”
6“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? 7Will 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?” 8He 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?
Just Imagine: it’s a lazy weekday afternoon, and you are sitting home after all the roads are closed because of a snow storm. Remember snow storms? None of us here would ever take a day off from work just because we need a day off! You turn on the television and you hear the start of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. You find yourself in the court of everyone’s favorite Judge Judy.
Most of us know the Judge Judy proves herself to be a no-nonsense judge. Just try to pull something over on this shrewd lady and you will find yourself quickly put in your place before you bat an eye. Did any of you think of Judge Judy during that first reading today? With words like plea, and calling on witnesses, we might imagine that the prophet Micah is setting up a court scene for us. We might imagine that God is calling on witnesses and planning to lay the law down.
These words of Micah come to us in another place during the liturgical season. On Good Friday the church has sung these words of Micah placing them on the lips of Jesus: My people, what have I done to you or in what have I offended you, Answer me.
In Micah, God recounts the many gifts God gives us. On Good Friday, those same gifts are remembered by Jesus and in response we have brought Jesus to the cross. If you dare to emotionally enter into the heart of God as revealed by Micah and as revealed by the hymn of Good Friday, we encounter the deep pathos, the deep anguish of God who comes to us and finds us unresponsive.
God tells us of how God came to us when we were slaves in Egypt, when we endured the cruel lot of oppression, when God struck down the first born of the Egyptians to open the heart of Pharaoh to liberate God’s people, when God opened up the heart of the Red Sea and created a path where no path existed, when God called us to be God’s people at Mt Sinai and gave us the Commandments as our way to God.
God shows the immensity of God’s love for us. What does God receive from us? Nothing. So the prophet is trying to stir the hearts of God’s people to come back, to return. God is appealing to the hearts of God’s people by showing us God’s own broken heart.
In an ironic turn of phrase, God asks the unimaginable from the people: Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Yet God gives God’s firstborn for our transgression.
What greater love can we witness? How can we respond to this God of unimagined love, unheard of compassion, unthought of generosity? The prophet asks the question: What does the Lord require of you? And the answer stuns us in its simplicity: Do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.
Do Justice. We know that we live in a world where justice is not done. Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry responded to the horrific murder of Tyre Nichols and said: “Sense cannot be made of the murder of a young man at the hands of five men whose vocation and calling are to protect and serve. This was evil and senseless.” We feel a deep grief and anger that persons responsible to maintain the law so blatantly break the law and that persons of color regularly endure such injustices. In this world of inequality, God gives us a simple directive: Do justice.
We have witnessed people who abuse others with offensive language, with hurtful comments, with hateful schemes. We have participated in patterns when we have retaliated for injuries real or imagined, even though Jesus requires us to forgive others. We live in a secular culture and in our hearts secular values override the values Jesus asks us to practice. In this world of meanness, God gives us a simple directive: Love kindness.
More and more people are describing our generation with the word narcissism. We are totally fixated on ourselves. Ours is the generation of people who invented the word “selfie.” Ours is the generation of people who are rushing here and there and everywhere because we just have to do all these things. Ours is the generation of people who are fixated on ourselves. In this world of narcissism God gives us a simple directive: Walk humbly with your God.
Did you ever consider these three commands? Do Justice, Love kindness, walk humbly with your God? These are the ways God acts with us. God does justice for us. God loves us kindly. God walks humbly with us. May our hearts hear the broken heart of God crying out to us today. May our hearts respond with love, returning love for love to God.
In the mystery of doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God you will find yourself transformed. Changed into the God who does justice, kindness and humility through you. That’s what it means to walk in love.