“What Is Required Of You?”

Text: Micah 6:1-8

A young man got hired to work in the produce section at the supermarket. But every day as he was setting out the bananas and carrots and apples, he noticed that before people would put a cantaloupe into their cart, they always held the cantaloupe up to their ear and tapped on it. But he never quite understood why people were doing that. So one day the young man went up to an older lady who was shopping there and asked her why she did that, why she held the cantaloupe up to her ear and tapped on it before putting it into her cart. The woman said, “You want to know why I do that? Son, I’ve been doing that for sixty years, and I don’t have a clue why I do it. All I know is that if you buy a cantaloupe, that’s what you’re supposed to do, and if you don’t do it, everybody looks at you like you’re crazy!”

What are we supposed to do? What is required of us? That’s a question that gets asked quite frequently. “What’s required of me?” the student asks the teacher. The translation, of course, is: “Teacher, what is the least I have to do to still get a good grade? What’s the least number of pages I have to read in the textbook? What’s the minimum number of classes that I have to show up for? What’s required of me?”

Or a new employee asks the boss, “What’s required of me?” In asking that question, in all likelihood the new employee is trying to find out: “What’s the minimum I have to do around here so I don’t get into trouble? How early do I have to show up in the morning, and how late do I have to stay in the afternoon? What’s required of me?”

What’s required of me? What’s required of us? That’s the question that the people in Micah’s day posed to God. And they asked that question because they sensed that God wasn’t entirely happy with the way that things were in their society.

And so they asked God, “OK, God, what do you want us to do? Do you want us to say some extra prayers? Or how about sacrifices? Do you want us to offer up some cows or sheep on the altar? Is that what it would take to make you happy with us? Do you want us to take our firstborn children and sacrifice them? What is it, God – what is that you want from us? What is it that you require of us?

And what was God’s answer? God said, “Here’s what I require of you. I’ve told you time and time before. What I require is for you to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

To do justice – what does that mean? Most basically, “to do justice,” from a biblical viewpoint, means to be concerned not just with how things are in our own lives, but to be concerned about how things are in our communities, in our nation, and in our world. To do justice means to do what is in our power to face up to the wrongs that are going on around us, and not just complain about them, but do something about them. After all, God commands us to do justice, not just to think about it, not just to hope for it – but to do justice.

But the problem is that just like in Micah’s day, the temptation for us “religious people” is to get so focused on doing our “religious stuff” that we never get around to doing justice. We end up focusing so much on ourselves and what’s going on inside the church, that we don’t pay adequate attention to what’s going on outside the church. We don’t pay adequate attention to the wrongs that are right outside our doors.

A powerful illustration of that is a scene in the book of Revelation where Jesus is described as standing outside the church at Laodicea knocking on their door. Maybe you’ve seen paintings of that scene. But do you see what the problem is? Apparently the people of that church are inside their building, with the door shut, presumably doing religious stuff in there, but Jesus isn’t in there with them. Instead, Jesus is outside, banging on the door as if to say, “Hey, get on out here! This is where I want you to be – with me, doing what we can to face up to the wrongs that are there in the world and do something about them.”

Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to do what God expects of us, and do justice? People were rightly shocked at the recent shooting in Tucson that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords seriously injured and six others – including a federal judge and a little six-year-old girl – dead. But even though that incident caught the nation’s attention, is it going to have any lasting effect on us? After all, the unfortunate reality is that what happened in Tucson isn’t that out of the ordinary in our country today. Right now in the United States more than 31,000 people are shot and killed every year. In other words, about 86 people per day – more than fourteen times the number that were killed in Tucson – are killed every day in our country.[1]

And it is in the midst of a world such as that that God calls us – and in fact, requires us – to do justice. It is in the midst of a world such as that that God calls us – and in fact, requires us – to face up to the wrongs that are there in the world around us and do something about them. But so often we feel tempted to wonder, “What can I possibly do?”

But maybe it’s time that we gave more serious consideration to what we can do. What in the world do you have a concern and a passion for? Is it the problem of violence, hunger, child abuse? Do you have a concern, a passion, for the plight of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled? Do you have a concern, a passion, for the problems in the areas of education, healthcare, drug abuse? What is it that you really care about? What is a burden on your heart that is also a burden on the heart of God?

Then commit yourself to taking some steps – even if they’re small steps at first – but do something. Maybe you’ll write a letter to your Congressman or state representative, or maybe you’ll attend a borough council meeting or a school board meeting to express your concerns. Maybe you’ll look for others who share your concern and join together in some undertaking. Maybe you’ll find some group or organization that already exists and become involved and supportive with what they’re doing. But decide: what are you willing to do to do justice?

But as we seek to do justice, God also requires us to love kindness. I believe that God adds that requirement because God realizes that sometimes in our zeal to right some wrong, we might end up being filled with anger or hatred. For instance, during the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr. lost the support of a lot of black people because he refused to endorse violence. Many black people figured that the only way to bring an end to the lynchings and murders and bombings and attacks that were being inflicted on them by white people was for black people to rise up and give white people a taste of their own medicine.

But Martin Luther King, Jr. steadfastly rejected that approach to achieving civil rights. Instead, he ultimately led the nation to change its ways with regard to civil rights by insisting on peaceful, non-violent means. He realized that justice could only be finally achieved through kindness, love, and mercy.

Probably you’re familiar with the expression, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” And it means, of course, that if you help me out and do some favor for me now, at some point in the future if you need some help, I’ll do a favor for you. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

But it’s kind of interesting how that expression first came about. As it turns out, that saying originated in the English navy. You see, back in the 1600s and 1700s the English navy was known for the way that it brutally punished any sailors who disobeyed orders or who misbehaved. And one of the most common forms of punishment was for the offender to be tied to the mast and then struck twelve times with a “cat o’ nine tails.” A cat o’ nine tails consisted of nine lengths of thin knotted rope that were all attached to a handle. And so if you were whipped twelve times at full strength with a cat o’ nine tails, the pain would be excruciating, and it would leave your back a painful, bloody mess.

But since that punishment was usually carried out by a fellow sailor, quite often that sailor wouldn’t swing the cat o’ nine tails at full strength. Instead, the sailor would be much more gentle, so that he would just scratch the offender’s back. The sailor would be lenient like that and show mercy toward his shipmate, because the sailor knew that at some point on the voyage it might be him tied to the mast and that other sailor might be the one wielding the cat o’ nine tails. And so the agreement among the sailors in the British navy was: you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You show me some mercy now, and I’ll show you some mercy later.[2]

And so, as we seek to do justice in the world, God requires us to pursue justice in a particular way. Not with anger, not with vengeance, but with mercy, with kindness. Because, after all, someday it might be us who’s engaging in some form of injustice or wrongdoing. And if that day comes when we need to be confronted about the wrong that we’re doing, in what sort of way are we going to be want to be treated?

And as a sort of summary of what God requires of us, we are told that we are required to walk humbly with God. We are required to walk carefully with God. We are required to live our lives with an awareness that God is watching what we do, and knowing that what we do matters to God.

What does the Lord require of us? God has told us: To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.