“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:6-8)
Mark & Hannah, it’s pretty sexy these days to talk about justice. It’s like apple products and skinny jeans and organic produce. And of course there’s nothing particularly wrong with any of those (except the skinny jeans), but ever since Adam and Eve sinned, there’s been a deep current, a gravity in the world, that pulls people toward hypocrisy. We call these people posers, fakers, Pharisees. And it all goes back to Adam and Eve in the garden: naked, ashamed, hiding from God, trying desperately to be cool, to be safe, to just be OK.
People who are guilty need a covering. People who are insecure and fearful look for something safe, someplace shady. In Micah’s day, instead of black rimmed glasses and hipster tattoos and piercings, people went in for big sacrifices. You have to realize that sacrifices usually included a big feast, so it was more like throwing a huge bar-b-que party in the name of Yahweh. They could invite all their friends and be really popular, and hey, there was a Bible verse on the napkins, something hip and trendy like doing justice. And meanwhile the poor around them were getting crushed, theft ran rampant, and the innocent and weak were despised and forgotten and killed. Continue Reading…
