“Justice, Mercy, and a Humble Walk”

A Sermon on Micah 6

by Walter Miedema

Picture this:

You enter a court room. There are many people there. This is an important case. A high profile couple who everyone knows has been unable to agree on their divorce settlement. The husband has cheated on the wife many times. Everyone knows it. The trial is bound to be sensational. It is, but not in the way that you expect. The former spouses enter with their high-priced lawyers in six figure suits. They sit down. The court quiets down in anticipation of the judge's arrival. But the door behind the Judge’s bench remains closed.

To everyone's amazement the wife who has only recently sat down beside her lawyer stands up, puts on a judge's robe, and sits in the judge's seat. Everyone is shocked. “Who does she think she is? It's not done this way!” True, she's been wronged but this is not how justice works.

The oddity of the case does not end here, however. When it comes time for the jury to file in, what enters is not the expected well-dressed group of peers but a man who carries in a large rock, a couple piles of dirt, a few potted plants and a goldfish for good measure. When the incredulous laughter dies down the case begins. The woman, now seated in the judge's seat, addresses her former husband:

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Her former husband begins to speak. She cuts him off.

“Tell it to the jury, every human in the court knows what you've done, why shouldn't the rest of the creation as well.”

The man fumbles for words and then blurts out “Alright, it’s true, I admit it, I cheated on you. Many times.” A communal gasp is heard. Everyone present expected this to come out eventually. But they expected admission of guilt only after the woman's lawyer had thoroughly interrogated the man.

“I have been horrible and I offer you 1 million dollars in compensation.”
“Not good enough”, replies the Judge.
“Alright, 10 million,” he counters.
“I don't want your money.”
“Alright, the yacht, the beach house, take them.”
“I'm not interested in those.”
“Oh I know, sole custody of the children.”
“A good offer but I want more.”
“It sounds as if you wouldn't be satisfied with the whole world, What do you want!”
“I want you.”

Again the court gasps as one. This tops all the strangeness they had previously seen. Why would a woman whose husband has cheated on her so many times want that husband back?

This thinly veiled allegory might help us understand how unique and bizarre the acts of God's love can be. Through Micah, God is taking Israel to court for their unfaithfulness. Because there is no higher authority than Him, He sits in Judgment and pleads his case in front of the whole creation.

God begins by listing his deeds of love toward Israel. He lists every major act and intercession he has made for them from Egypt to the time of the Judges. He has done all of this and more. As if to say “What have I done to deserve this?” He asks, “How have I burdened you?”

“I've done all this and you think I'm trying to make it difficult for you?”

Micah lays these word's of God before the people. They know God's accusations are true. They have been unfaithful almost since the time the covenant with God was made. Israel is in exile and they know why.

Thinking they know what God wants Israel begins making proposals; attempts at appeasing him. Sacrifices and appeasement is what all other gods want, why not the LORD, the I Am?

Micah lampoons their efforts by at first making them pitifully small and then ludicrously large. The numbered quantities, and the size and value of what is being quantified grows exponentially.

“A few calves? No? Alright 1000 rams? 10000 rivers of oil? What do you want?”

Even to the offers that Israel could never fulfill, God Replies, “Not Interested.”

If the Israelites owe God more than they can pay, we owe God much more. God has not stopped blessing his people. In fact he has made people from all nations his people. Just as he resurrected Israel from slavery in Egypt, he has resurrected the nations from sin. God gave us his son and there is no way we can pay back a fraction of what we owe him for that sacrificial act.

Like the Israelites, we who live in today's society try to quantify and partition what we give to God. A concept of tithing is something God put in place as a minimum and a small way we can thank God for the prosperity he has given us. A problem arises when we begin to think 10% is all we owe.

A problem also arises when quantity becomes how we judge righteousness. It is not healthy to determine a person's level of righteousness by the number of good things they do and the number of sins they avoid. Judging righteousness by how much we have done quickly becomes a burden. The standards we set quickly become too difficult to achieve. While acting this way, we begin to see God as a killjoy. God becomes a burden and we treat him as such. By doing this we cause God to ask, “How have I burdened you?” when it is really we who have been burdening ourselves.

On top of this, humanity, even those who go by the name of Christian, continue to act in unjust and unloving ways. If we examine ourselves we will see that we have not always treated our neighbors justly and with respect. At the very least we are complicit in one system or another that demeans other humans and does not allow them fully embody the image of God in which they created.

Our misdeeds and inaction are doubly condemnable when we see that we are required to love, and enjoy being kind and merciful to our neighbors. We are to treat them better than they deserve and yet sometimes we act carelessly and cruelly toward our neighbors. And we think this will make our lives better.

Like Israel we are also cheaters. We cheat on God when we run after money, power, fame or pleasure. True, these things themselves can be good in moderation, and when used for God's kingdom, but unless they are used to deepen our relationships with God and our neighbors they become dangerous temptations that can pull us away from God. We also cheat God by having rooms in our lives that we don't let Him enter. Usually these are the things that are closest to us for better or for worse. We tuck them away in the hidden corners of our hearts. In hiding these things from God we are neither humble nor close to God. We are hiding from Him. Making an offering to God from our things is an incomplete action. God wants us and He wants all of us, body, soul, heart, mind, and strength.

Shaking his head, Micah responds to Israel's inappropriate offers. “He has showed you what is good.” Despite Israel's failings God has the grace to show them how to do it right. “And what does the LORD require of you?” Micah continues in an attempt to prompt the people.

He is left to finish his own sentence: “To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” Through Micah, God is saying to Israel, “I don't want your stuff, I want you.” There is no need to hunt down untold riches or flocks or herds of cattle to sacrifice. There are only the requirements seeking the best for others and remaining close to God. There is no need to ask Baal and Asherah for rain. There is no need for priests to cut themselves to get God's attention (thank goodness!). There is no need for Israel to kill their children just to make God happy, no need to suffer in order to ask a blessing from God. God will provide when something is needed because he loves Israel and has promised that he will provide.

God's promise to provide frees Israel from the tyranny of other gods. It frees them from constantly worrying if they have sacrificed enough to make these gods stop punishing them. God has made it clear in Micah 3 that he disapproves of rulers who “tear the skin from my people, and the flesh off their bones.” He also hates the prophets who “lead the people astray.” Through Micah, God promises an end to exile and a freedom from tyranny and oppression in another nation. God promises a ruler who will be completely different. He will not butcher and torture his people. He will lead them like a shepherd.

Exile has also made God seem far off. Israel had pushed God away long enough and he had responded by sending them away. What a marvelous requirement for Israel that he asks them to come close and to walk with him. God's requirement of Israel was also a renewal of his promises.

God has also freed us from the tyranny of our other gods, as well as from our own nervous hearts. He also wants to bring us back from spiritual exile. Christ's death and resurrection has made it so that we no longer have to chase after money, fame, power or pleasure. God is the only one we must chase and he is always running towards us, seeking to have us as close to Him as possible.

God still wants us in spite of all the sinning that we have done. He wants us to work for him and to care for his people and his creation. He made us stewards because he loves us and values us. And we are valuable because of his love. In his requirements of us he invites us into the privilege and responsibility of service. He is calling us to a life of difficult blessings. Each part of God's requirement is both a responsibility and a blessing. Acting justly, or doing justice as it is sometimes more literally translated, includes the idea of governing or being in charge of something. In requiring us to do justice God is calling us to be stewards. God gives us the privilege of being part of His government. Stewards are asked to govern what they do not own. Humans are the crown of creation but we do not rule by our own authority; we rule by God's authority, the authority he has given to us. God has even given us a steward, or Shepherd, to model our actions on in the person of Jesus Christ. It is not our own and to truly do justice we need to remember this. Doing justice is not limited directly to what we do ourselves. In our position as stewards we also have the God-given responsibility to see that justice is done.

Loving mercy, or kindness as it is sometimes translated, goes hand in hand with doing justice. True justice includes mercy. The word “hesed” which is translated “mercy” or “kindness” is one of the most important words in the Hebrew Bible. It is the closest we come in the Old Testament to a concept of grace. There are some who say it implies the sense of loving a family member as you should.

If someone committed a crime against you would want justice. But if this person was a member of the family you would be more likely to be lenient. The love you have for your brother or sister affects how you apply justice to them. We do not always require a young child to pay for a window he has broken. God in his great “hesed” or mercy knew that we could not pay the debt of sin ourselves and showed us kindness. He now asks us to pass that kindness on to others. Through God our neighbors have become our family.

God's third requirement is a further blessing. He asks us to walk with Him. He asks us to walk humbly. This position of closeness is where humans were meant to be from the beginning. Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden. But when the snake appealed to their pride and they gave in, distance was created between God and humans. In requiring this close and humble walk God is calling us back to him and bringing us close. Few of us realize how great this is. To put it in perspective imagine that your favorite celebrity called you on the phone and asked you to spend time with him or her. I think all of us would be thrilled at the opportunity and jump at the chance. God has so much more power and prestige than all the celebrities we can think of combined. And he wants us to spend not only an afternoon with Him, he wants you to spend your whole life with him. God wants you. The ruler of the universe wants you. Why would anyone in the world even think of refusing His offer?

It is true that these requirements are difficult to fulfill all the time. It is a struggle to remember what to do. It also involves engaging heart and mind in the process of relating to God and our neighbors. These requirements respect the intelligence God has given us. Loving our neighbor and our God as we should requires careful consideration. In the end, though, the difficulty and stress we face in trying to determine how best to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God pays off. Through the process God not only blesses us but also the communities and people around us.

God wants us. And this is ultimately why God wants us. He wants to bless us.

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