Sermon Micah 6:1-8 “Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly”

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon  Micah 6:1-8 “Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly”
Pittsgrove Presbyterian Church
February 2, 2020

I have some bad news for you this morning.  We have received a summons to go to court because we are being sued.  We have been accused of not fulfilling a contract we had agreed to follow.  And so the other party of the contract is suing us for not doing what we promised to do.  We are about to enter the courtroom and be confronted by our accuser.  So we better begin with prayer.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety to thy glory and our own edification.”  Amen. (Calvin)

The nation is gripped by a trail in the United States Senate of the President.   But there is a more important trial going on, our trial.  We have been accused of not fulfilling the contract we have with God.  Here is the complaint:

Micah 6:1 Hear what the Lord says:
    Rise, 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.

So we have come into a courtroom unlike any you have ever visited or seen on TV.  Sitting as our judges are the mountains and hills and the foundations of the earth.  Our judge is everything from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the highest and lowest places of the earth.  This means that all of God’s creation will judge the dispute between God and us. 

We, the people of God, are the defendants.  That is why we are here, to answer God’s complaint. God himself is our accuser.  And God is ready to bring an accusation against us.  Let’s listen to God’s opening remarks.

3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
    In what have I wearied you? Answer me!

So what God wants to know is this:  is there anything that God has done or not done that creates problems for us.  This would be our opportunity to tell God what we are angry about.  But before we do this let’s try to remember what God has done for us.  What kind of blessings have we received from God?  Here is what God wants you to remember.

4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
    and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
    Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
    what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
    that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

God has reminded Israel that he had provided for them during their forty years in the wilderness.  He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.  He provided them with elders, priests, and prophets.  He protected them from curses and armies.  He provided them with food and water.  God had blessed his people abundantly. 

So too with us.  We should remember how much God has blessed us.  God has given us life and health and good land, water and food, and families and homes and church, everything we need for a good life.  God has given us a world of abundant blessings.  God has also given his Son to us, who died for our sins, and was raised from the dead leading us to eternal life.  It is important to remember all that God has given us.  And we should gratefully respond.

But we don’t respond gratefully and God has a problem with our tepid response.  His blessings for us came as part of a covenant.  God promised to bless us richly, which he has, so that we may be a blessing to others.  Listen to the terms of the contract.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

We are blessed to be a blessing.  God has blessed us richly in many different ways.  But we have not kept our end of the bargain.  And so God is suing us demanding that we fulfill our end of the contract. 

We have reached the end of God’s opening statement in the trial.  Now it is time to hear from our defense attorney.  And so an unnamed man stood up to speak and here is what he said. 

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 firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

How are we supposed to respond to God’s complaint?   We come to church on Sundays.  Maybe we should have church every day, maybe six times a day.  We tithe to the church.  Maybe we should empty our bank accounts and max out our credit cards to give to the church.  How much does God want from us?  What are we supposed to do?

We have heard God’s complaint that we are not performing our responsibility in the contract.  And we have heard our response that we are doing enough, to do more would be absurd.  Now it is time for the judge to proclaim a just decision.  All of creation from the mountain tops to the depths of the sea are now ready to resolve our dispute with God.  And here is what we must do.  Here is the verdict.

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?

That’s it!  What we must do to be in compliance with the covenant between God and his people is “to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our creator. 

Act Justly

God has given us a world of abundance.  But sin has caused an imbalance.  Some people do not share in the rich abundance God has provided.  Our role as people of God is to reorder our world, to mitigate the effects of sin,  to ensure that the abundant blessings provided by God are shared by all.  We are to share the blessings we receive from God with those who unjustly have been denied. We are to act with justice and care for the poor and needy and disabled in our community.

Love Mercy

God loves us.  God’s love is steadfast.  God is loyal.  God will never leave us.  God’s love for us is like the love a parent has for a child.  When a young child feels alone and vulnerable she begins to cry.  A loving parent picks her up and the child knows that she is safe and secure in the arms of a loving parent.  This is how God loves us.  It is called, hesed, steadfast love.  And we are to love others just as God loves us.  So when people in our church or our communities are feeling vulnerable we are to love them as God loves us and keeps us safe and secure. 

Walk Humbly

As we go about our ordinary lives we should always remember that God is always there with us.  As the psalmist said:  “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Psalm 119:105)  We should always be aware that God is with us continually.  And God is always bringing us opportunities for us to do justice and love mercy.  We should recognize what God is doing in the world around us and act in the way God wants us to act.

The judgment has been handed down.  And we are to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.  Let’s conclude today with a story of someone who did justice, loved mercy and walked humbly with God.

“In his book, To End All Wars, Ernest Gordon describes his experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II along the Kwai River.  His Japanese captors forced their prisoners to work in low-lying swampland.  They beat to death or simply beheaded any prisoners who seemed to lag.

Eventually, a combination of beriberi, malaria, dysentery, typhoid, and diphtheria took its toll on Gordon.  Basically paralyzed and no longer able to eat, he asked his fellow prisoners to bring him to the Death House where prisoners went to die.

While Gordon was in the Death House, God’s Spirit moved along the Kwai River.  One particular event exemplified that movement.  When no one confessed to stealing a Japanese guard’s missing shovel, he began to scream, “All die!  All die!”  As he raised his rifle to fire at the first prisoner in line, a prisoner of war stepped forward and said, “I did it.”  The enraged guard then raised his rifle high in the air and beat the man to death with it.  However, when the prisoners inventoried their tools that evening, they discovered the guard had made a mistake: no shovel was missing.  They realized that their fellow prisoner had voluntarily given his life in order to spare them.

Gordon remembers how God used such selflessness to change the prisoners along the River Kwai.  They began looking out for each other instead of themselves.  Two Christian Scots demonstrated this change by coming to the Death House every day to care for Gordon.

They dressed the ulcers on Gordon’s legs and massaged his atrophied muscles.  By doing so, they gradually restored him to what passed for health along the Kwai River.  Those Christians showed their love of mercy by nursing Gordon back to health.

Act Justly.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly with your God.  Let’s pray.

Father in heaven,  we thank you for all the blessings we have received from your hand.  We thank you for the day you have created.  We thank you for our lives, our health, and our joy.  We thank you for family, friends, and church.  And we thank you for the gift of your son our Lord, Jesus Christ who saved us from sin. We pledge ourselves today to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with you. In Jesus’ name, we pray.  Amen.