What God Requires (Really!)

Ok! It's Old Testament time! Here we have God talking directly to the people of Israel. He/She/They don't NOT mince words. The passages in Matthew we looked at previously had a pretty high intensity tone. Micah, an OT prophet, is an order of magnitude or two up the intensity scale. Yoiks!

The Revised Standard Version formats this rant (I use the word intentionally. God is NOT a happy camper here) as poetry so I've left that formatting mostly intact. The chapter is divided into three parts and I'm going to address these individually as we move through the chapter.Once again, thanks to BibleGateway for providing ready access to the Bible.

Micah 6
Revised Standard Version

As we read this, clearly Israel, God's children being addressed in the passage, have let him down, hard! And God asks a painful question that each of us may have faced in our own lives at some point. "You're leaving me? What did I do wrong? How is this my fault?"

Brace yourself. Here we go.

God Challenges Israel
1 Hear what the Lord says:
Arise, plead your case before the mountains,   
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, 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!

(Clearly a shrugged shoulder or an eye roll are not a valid response!)

4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,   
and redeemed you from the house of bondage;
and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,
 and what Balaam the son of Be′or answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,   
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

Now comes another question we may recognize having encountered it a time or two in our life, "What do you want from me!?"

Well, the answer is very clear and astonishingly simple. In this section, God leads with what he/she/they don't want or need. Apparently, this audience got lost in the woods along the way and are missing the forest for all the trees. So God makes his wants very explicit.

He has showed you, O man, 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?

This makes a lot of sense. This is relational stuff. It's how we are to treat each other every day. The three key elements? Justice, kindness and humility. There's nothing here to do with the rituals of religion, attitudes toward sex and gender or any of the other culture war issues we're constantly litigating in the name of following God/Jesus.

The first two requirements are powerfully simple with no need for exposition.. For me, the third principle is the key…humility in our walk with God. My worldview for a sadly long part of my life was, "I have all the answers for you. I'm very clear that gray areas aren't any part of a walk with God. I have TRUTH." 

Well, just maybe this worldview is in dire need of a dose of humility. Your walk and my walk can be very different and still be right for us AND God! It's not my job to deliver "clarity" to you (Well, if you ask, maybe, but I still have to be very careful!) My glasses are always rose-colored when I look at myself.

Actually, my job, my only job, according to this passage, is to make sure you're treated with love, kindness and justice as we walk with each other. This section of the text chokes me up every time I read it. How many times have I inflicted hurt because I assumed my view of God and how They wanted me to live was the only valid view. Or, my view of morality completely ignored the pain someone was facing when they "violated" my moral code. Yeah, weeping is a valid response to this if we are honest with ourselves. 

I have been such a jerk so many times in my life, thinking I was "doing God's work". I'll leave it at that and encourage you to do a "searching, fearless moral inventory" (thank you, AA) of your own actions in your life so far. It's a pretty bracing process. So rather than trying to bribe God with your "righteousness," here is list of what God really doesn't want and what They do want.

What God Requires
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?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, 
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 He has showed you, O man, 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?

And now to the tough love part. Verse 12 starts the litany of evils; rampant dishonesty in the marketplace, violent rich men who oppress anyone that gets in their way, and a population of pathological liars. Any of this sound at all familiar? I'm tempted to post a list of links but these issues are apparently, both back then and in our current life, endemic. 

And, let's not turn this into a "both sides do it" excuse. Clearly, there are good people on both sides of many issues (Although some issues are clearly evil on their face and supporting these issues tag you as not one of the good guys). But this passage makes it abundantly clear who are the evil humans getting chastised…violent, oppressive rich people, brazenly dishonest businessman, and unrelenting liars.

Any questions?

Now, notice the lack of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll in the list. There's no discussion of abortion, fornication, LGBTQ+ issues or other human "failures" or even murder, for that matter! One doesn't have to behave in any specific way in order to deserve justice and mercy. That's where our duty starts, with everyone!

In another post I intend to address how one determines the goodness or evil of humans. It's pretty simple. (Hint: Being able to judge correctly is a safety issue for all of us!)

And now we get to the rough part. God's job in this enviroment, apparently, is setting these reprobates straight. And They don't don't mess around. Buckle up!

Cheating and Violence to Be Punished
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city— 
and it is sound wisdom to fear thy name: 
“Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city!

10 Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
 and the scant measure that is accursed?

11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales   
and with a bag of deceitful weights?

12 Your rich men are full of violence;   
your inhabitants speak lies,   
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

13 Therefore I have begun to smite you,   
making you desolate because of your sins.

14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;    
you shall put away, but not save,   
and what you save I will give to the sword.

15 You shall sow, but not reap;   
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;   
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri,   
and all the works of the house of Ahab;   
|and you have walked in their counsels;   
that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing;   
so you shall bear the scorn of the peoples.

Deep breath time, eh?

This last section delivers some rather fearsome consequences imposed by God. Hunger and poverty top the list, all leading to scorn and desolation. Oligarchs everywhere (and even little wimps who think they're big stuff) should be quaking in their boots!

Before I leave this passage, I want to direct your attention back to the stark simplicity of what God requires; do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God, all actions that are described as evil "bugs" in our current culture.

Now to sum it up what this passage teaches as directly as I know how...

Don't be an ass!

Thanks for reading this and I'd love to hear your thoughts.