WHAT DOES GOD WANT FROM ME?
Micah 2: 1-11
Micah 6: 1-8

           Have you ever had a time when you felt like your best just wasn’t good enough? Where you try and try, but still find yourself being critiqued or criticized? When I was in high school, I had a baseball coach who, at the time, I swore was the meanest coach on the planet. No matter what I did, it didn’t seem like he was happy; he was always, in my mind, finding something wrong with what I was doing, whether it was fielding or batting. On more than one occasion, I wanted to throw down my glove or bat scream at him, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?”

           Have you ever felt like screaming that at God? Have you ever had a time in your spiritual life when, no matter what you did, you felt like you just weren’t good enough; you weren’t doing what you thought was expected of you? It can be a scary, frustrating feeling to think that, somehow, we are failing to live up to what God wants/expects of us. I can imagine the people of Israel, after hearing prophecy after prophecy against them and their way of life, wanting to scream at the prophets and at God, “WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO?!”

           The answer to that question is at the heart of Micah’s message. I invite you to recall our last two weeks as we have explored Amos and Hosea. Remember how they prophesied against the oppression and selfishness running rampant on the part of some in Israel? Micah is a prophet coming out of the social group that found itself on the receiving end of this oppression and mistreatment. In fact, as we read in chapter 2, Micah is even told be those being prophesied against to stop preaching. They had heard enough of the warnings and condemnation of their way of life. Yet Israel continues to search for what God wants from them. In chapter 6, we read their questions: does God require the burnt offerings of calves and rams, of rivers of oil, of the offering of the firstborn? Micah’s message is that, more than these, God desires three things.

           The first of God’s requirements is for God’s people to act justly with one another; in other words, to act with fairness, with honesty, and with integrity. These were of special concern to Micah because he saw so little of this going on. Micah saw people desiring what was not theirs and taking it because they had the power to do so, whether it was fair to someone else or not. The message was that God’s desire is a sense of fairness in our relationships with others. Justice involves a standard of equality among people. This justice can be as simple fairness and honesty in a simple business transaction. How many of you have ever found yourself on the receiving end of too much change back from the cashier? How about finding an item in your bag from a store for which you were not charged? Society says that somebody else’s mistake should not be our problem—we reap the benefits of that mistake. Is this really fair? Is it fair for us to accept the benefit of an honest mistake? Society says yes, God says no! Think back to the era of the Civil Rights movement in America. Was it fair for one group of people to be able to go at sit down anywhere they wished at a restaurant while others had to get food from the back? Was it fair to have separate bathrooms or drinking fountains? Was it fair for some to have to give up their seats so others could sit, under the penalty of jail? Is it fair for us to think of ourselves as somehow better than someone else? Fairness and honesty say NO to all these questions.

           There is an old saying that says “honesty is the best policy”. I completely disagree with that saying. In the eyes of God, honesty is not the best policy, it is the ONLY policy. Saying it is the best policy implies there are other options to simple honesty. Not so with God. The people of God are called to be fair and honest in all our dealings with others; not just when it benefits us or suits our fancy. It must be said, though, that for as nice as this idea sounds, it takes a firm commitment to live it. We are tempted all around to “cheat the system”; new ways are available every day to get ahead—cut corners, find loopholes, etc. But God’s requirement for God’s people is justice—fairness and honesty with one another.

           The second requirement of which Micah speaks is for God’s people to love mercy. Said another way, fill our hearts with compassion and kindness toward one another. Looking at the language used, though, there is something that begs to be noticed. Notice that God, through Micah, doesn’t just require that we BE compassionate and kind, but that we LOVE compassion and kindness. There is a huge DIFFERENCE! When we are compassionate because “that’s what God tells us to do”, it implies a sense of obedience; almost as if we are compassionate “because we have to”. Loving mercy, on the other hand, involves showing compassion out of genuine concern; showing compassion because the other is a beloved child of God and seeing them as God sees them. Scripture is full of examples of how God or God through a human demonstrates this unyielding compassion. There is no greater example than the death of Jesus Christ. There are other times this compassion is shown as well. For instance, the woman caught in adultery about to be stoned, or the hemorrhaging woman who only wanted to touch Jesus’ cloak to be healed.

           This idea of kindness and compassion seems increasingly lost on society, though. Society tells us that it is okay to repay rudeness with rudeness. That is okay to take care of ourselves first, and give to God, and others, out of the leftovers of our time, etc. The idea of being merciful to someone else seems almost like an afterthought. Yet, God’s desire from God’s people is a mercy that knows no boundaries and is all about demonstrating God’s compassionate love for all.

           Did you notice something about these first two requirements of God? They are all about how we treat others and don’t appear to have anything to do with God. I would argue that unless we can treat each other well, we cannot even think about a relationship with God. The final requirement, though, deals directly with our relationship with God. It is declared that the people of God should “walk humbly with their God”. How often does our relationship with God take on a tone of humility? The fact is, a right relationship with God requires humility on our part. Unfortunately, though, society tells us to believe that our God’s role is to make us happy, to answer our prayers the way WE want, to be there for us when WE want. In other words, society has told us that a God who does not serve US is really no God at all and unworthy of our time and attention. Here’s my question, though: who is the Creator? Who is the Creation? Who serves whom?

           Human beings like to place ourselves on a pedestal and think of ourselves as rulers of the world. In reality, though, there are some things beyond our power, beyond our control, things that can consume us and destroy us. God’s invitation to us to recognize that we aren’t in complete control, but God is; to recognize that some things are beyond our power, but nothing is beyond God’s power; to acknowledge those things that can destroy us, and know that God can give us life. One of my favorite verses of Scripture is Psalm 46:10. In it, God issues the invitation to “Be still, and know that I am God”. How comforting it is to know that we don’t have to be in complete control of everything, that we don’t have to have all the answers. God’s simply wants of us the acknowledgement that we aren’t God, and that God is God.

           Some of you might be thinking, “We’ve heard all this before”. You would be right! These three requirements set forth by God sound an awful lot like the General Rules John Wesley set forth for the early Methodists—do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. In fact, Wesley based the General Rules off Micah 6:8. So often, we get bogged down with details and feel as if being a person of faith is a complicated set of do’s and don’ts we must follow. This passage presents “simple faith”—breaking everything down into something that is much easier to manage and digest. Making faith something that can be lived, instead of feared. Remember the baseball coach I spoke of earlier? One day, I had a chat with him about what I perceived as constant criticism. His response was that I was simply trying to do too much and making things more difficult on myself and not enjoying the game. I wonder how many times God would like to have that conversation with us and tell us we are trying too hard and just trying to do too much? God’s desire isn’t for us to go out thinking we have to do great things in the eyes of the world (although we can, with God’s help). God’s desire isn’t for us to go out thinking we have to “save the world” by next week, or we will be deemed a failure in God’s eyes. God would simply have us be fair and honest, compassionate toward one another, and to remember who our God is. That’s all God wants us to do! AMEN.



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