Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk Humbly with God

Micah 6:6-8

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 tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
8 He has told you, O mortal, 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 is a famous passage from the Bible, especially vs. 8. Vs. 8 describes three things that are required of human beings – to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Many words have been written about these three – and with trepidation I offer a few thoughts.

The three are together – it is not that some people do justice and other people do kindness and others walk humbly with God – the three connect, are to be lived together. Justice matters, wrong cannot be allowed to prevail; injustice must be resisted. But justice by itself, justice alone, can become brittle, harsh, vengeful – it becomes “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” The answer to the harshness of justice is kindness. As the prophet Hosea said, God desires mercy not sacrifice. So justice and kindness are to walk together. This is not letting people off from the wrong they have done, but it is responding to the wrongdoer with kindness, responding to the difficult person with kindness, showing kindness to the adversary.

But how to get the balance correct – how to live both justice and kindness – that is the fundamental question this passage invites us to ask. The answer to this very human predicament is to walk humbly with God. Human beings left to our own devices will get the mix wrong, only has we walk in step with the Holy Spirit will we be shaped into people who balance justice and kindness in proper measure. Only as we let the Holy Spirit draw us deeper into walking the Jesus Way will we begin to be shaped into people who do justice and love kindness in the way that Jesus did. And it is Jesus who is our example.

PRAYER:

O Lord, we want to be people who do justice and love kindness, but we find it difficult to keep those in balance, too often one outweighs the other in our actions. Shape us to be humble people who walk with You the balanced path of doing justice and loving kindness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.