This has always been one of my favourite verses. Micah contemplates what it is that God desires from humankind. The usual “religious” answers are offered and found wanting. God desires so much more. But those religious requirements are still bantered around by many today. To be Christian, the reasoning goes, one must at the very least do a few Christian-like things, such as attend worship regularly, read one’s Bible faithfully, and have a strong prayer life. All very good practices which I encourage each of us to do.
But God wants more than that. God wants each follower to do justice, to love (and show) kindness, and to walk humbly with God, anticipating the writer of the New Testament book of James who wrote, “faith without works is dead.”
Justice, at its essence, means seeing in every single person, a being created in and bearing the image of God, a person who must be treated with dignity and kindness (Hebrew hesed), befitting a fellow child of God. Furthermore, one must walk humbly with God, acknowledging our sinfulness, and acknowledging that it is we who follow God’s lead and never the other way around.
Lead me, Holy Spirit, so I do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you. Amen. —