What Does the Lord Require of Us? Micah 6:1-8

Recently, I had an opportunity to look at a favorite passage of scripture in a new and fresh way. Often, it is true that we take familiar passages for granted and do not re-think them as frequently as we ought to. Micah 6:8 is a wonderful text that admonishes us to "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God." It sounds so user-friendly and easy to use. That is, until one looks at the whole of chapter 6 a bit more closely. The context of the passage is a trial with YHWH as the prosecuting attorney, the mountains of the earth as the jury, and the cities of Israel as the defendant. The context of the whole affair does have to do with the nature of Israel's worship, but it goes much further than that. The whole concept of Israel's understanding of justice is on trial, and it is found to be wanting. To Micah's way of thinking, and to the ways of thinking of many of the eighth century prophets, justice is, or should be, dictated by the concerns of those for whom justice is denied. It is very difficult for Americans, or for people of any other affluent society to grasp fully this biblical concept of justice, because we have an entrenched understanding of nationalistic justice. America represents 5% of the world's population, but we incarcerate 25% of the world's population of inmates. To our way of understanding, people get what they deserve. After all, justice is blind, signified by the famous statue of the figure with the scales and blindfold. Well, for the prophets, justice was not blind, and God saw, and sees, all injustice. There is nowhere that God's compassionate gaze will not fall; God sees the need in all quarters. So then, this understanding of justice also transforms the understanding of mercy, in this context. Mercy, or hesed in Hebrew, does not translate easily into English. When I was an undergraduate, my OT professor said that it is best translated as "steadfast love." The scholars that I researched would not disagree with that, but some take it a step further and define it as the unbreakable connection that God has with God's people. We are to strive for that same connection with our neighbors. If I was to personalize it, I would say something like, "I will not only love God with the commitment that God first showed me, but I will love you with that same commitment to respect, helpfulness and loving concern." Such an understanding of mercy then paves the way for embodying humility in a way that seeks to take empathy to its furthermost limits. We must be alert to the times when God's hesed, which may cause God's heart to break, also causes our hearts to break with compassion and loving kindness.Though we can never do so fully, we must try to look at the world through God's eyes. This whole attitude must pervade our worship, and carry beyond Sunday morning. As one writer has stated, our Sunday worship does not mean much if it doesn't make a difference in the way we treat people on Monday. In short, Micah 6:8 is a call to stand with every person in every place, everyday. We are called to help to restore God's people, one hand and one heart at a time. No exceptions. Favorite biblical passages can surprise us when we re-visit them. They can cause our faith, and our ability to imagine the breadth and depth of God's community, to expand in ways we do not expect. And the Kingdom moves just a little bit closer.