God’s Requirements

What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, and to love kindness [mercy]and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6

Wayne Teasdale gives us his personal view of this beloved and popular text in these words:

” I have always loved this Biblical teaching because it is so accessible to all of us. This powerful, eloquently succinct teaching from the prophet Micah (6:8) in a very simple and direct way sums up for us what God expects of us in our deepest commitment to virtue, attitude, and action. To be just, kind, and humble before the divine is a possibility for everyone, even atheists, if they are willing to live with ambiguity and with an open mind about the Ultimate Mystery.

No matter what we believe, we are all bound to seek justice, to think and act with genuine kindness, and to have humility of heart. To seek to be just in all situations, to do justice in society, and to pursue it for the sake of all the vulnerable, is our first edict. The law of treating all sentient beings with kindness should govern our interactions with all others in life. To walk with humility in the sight of God is the ultimate commitment.

Many people, even the “doubting Thomases” among us, will point to this passage in Micah as a guidepost for living an ethical, honest, supportive and just life. It might well be classified as a universal favorite among Jews and Christians, and its parallels can be found in all the great Scriptures of the world, as it closely aligns itself with statements such as The Golden Rule.”

(I added the word mercy to the Teasdale quote, as I have seen it written with the ideal of mercy replacing the attitude of kindness, and would easily include both in any ethical expectation for human interactions.)

They are simple and profound requirements of the ethically responsible life. We can add other qualities such as compassion as we begin to shape all the words of our theology and elaborate on the statement of our ethics from these words, yet another reality rings out…

All too often they are quoted piously, and then promptly forgotten when reentering the worlds of politics, business, or almost any other social and monetary endeavor. We are admonished well when we spout the words as an unlived aspiration, or as a hypocritical action; thereby doing a harsh disservice not only to the words and their meaning, but also to any semblance of a covenant with the God of your understanding, so that these words remain just words. Then there is a breach of trust with all humankind, and the Divine Mystery some call God, as it disappears into an abyss of ignorance and inhumanity.