Requirements? What About Grace?

Do justice -- not just feel good, but do justice.

And love constancy, love loyalty, love mercy. It's not altogether easy to translate the Hebrew word chesedh. Maybe the best translation is "steadfast love," "Constant love." So God requires that you love constant, steadfast, loyal self-giving.

And walk humbly, relate to your God in ways that recognize who He is.

Let's spend a little time examining each of these requirements, over against what Micah saw that God's people were willing to do.

First, Micah says, God requires, God demands that you do justice. But, the people say, we say, Micah, you don’t understand. I've paid out a significant payment. I have made burnt offerings of year-old calves. Or, to put it in contemporary terms, hey, I gave at the office. I support a couple of charities. I take care of the poor and the needy. My old clothes go to the clothes closet and the nearly new shop; the junk from my shelves I turn over to the Good Will and the Salvation Army. I am concerned, I do something about the needy.

But I hear Micah saying, Ah, but you see, that was all at arm's length. That was all out here in the abstract. You gave to help the poor, but God says, work the works of justice, do justice. Change things. Create a just and right relationship in the world. That's what I want. I require not that you rehabilitate the already messed up so much as I require that you make this world one in which justice and fairness and integrity are the orders of the day.

You see, one of our problems as religious people is that we suppose that we've done all we need to do when we've taken the miserable of this world and we've cleaned them up and fed them and tried to put them on the right road. We think that's all there is to it. Now don't get me wrong. We should do those things, we do need to get involved with those who hurt. But God says, DO justice. Do justice. Work to make sure that none of my little ones get hurt like this again. It's not only a matter of being the Good Samaritan who stops along the Jericho Road to bind up the wounds of the bleeding; it's also a matter of controlling the thieves along that road, it's also a matter of laboring to create a world in which that no longer happens. Do justice.

Next, Micah says, God requires you to love constant, steadfast self-giving. Oh wait, we say, wait a minute. Constancy and steadfastness are my thing. You can depend on me. I have given in my time thousands of rams and rivers, ten thousand rivers of oil. I have been in Sunday School every Sunday since the year one; I have so many of those perfect attendance pins I could open a branch of the Baptist Book Store. I have worn a shiny spot on my favorite pew I've been there so often. I have been constant, I have been faithful, I'm right there. And I work, I am busy, busy Baptist. Why, I am the one they wrote the poem about, you know: Mary had a little lamb, It would have been a sheep. But Mary's lamb became a Baptist, and died for lack of sleep. Constancy and loyalty and steadfastness; these things we've done, Lord.