What Does the LORD Require?

With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

– Micah 6:6-8

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." – Matthew 9:10-13 (quote from Hosea 6:6)

What if God wasn't about getting people to be afraid of him, but to love him and love people? What if he wanted people to love each other because they are created in his likeness, because they bear the "divine spark" from the creator of the universe? What if God wants mercy and justice and love because he understands that fullness and life only truly come through community and right living with each other, because God is in community from before time?

Does all this make sense? I know I have trouble comprehending the implications of these ideas. I believe God wants us to give/be mercy and grace and peace and love and life to each other. I believe God wants to be loved as the Father he is in creating people in his likeness, whom he calls children. Even assuming these things might be true is a radical step and has serious, world changing implications.

So, how does this apply to PhotoGenX?

What if Christians were to live out the words of Micah and act justly and seek justice in the world? Or what if Christians were to do as Jesus says and practice mercy, not to give people the things they deserve, to forfeit the right to harm or punish when it is within their rights? (And why did Jesus focus on mercy when he quoted this verse?) What if Christians were to walk humbly with God, starting out of acting justly themselves, and forgiving and extending mercy when wronged, knowing they don't know the whole situation like God does?

The first command, act justly, has been most heavy on my heart. I want to see justice come where there is injustice. I want there to be light and hope where there is now darkness and despair. I want to see the oppressed go free.

But there is something important at stake here for the oppressor too, isn't there? The things pimps and crime lords and rapists and people behind genocide and every kind of injustice imaginable have done, I can barely conceive forgiving them, giving mercy. But that is what God wants.

God is interested in freedom for the oppressed and the oppressor.

Because justice can only truly come when the oppressed and set free amends made, and when the oppressor no longer does injustice against anyone. And both parties, on either side of injustice, need to walk humbly with God,

to avoid becoming proud and arrogant,

to keep from condemning themselves for what happened,

to know they are created in the image of the God who created the universe, and he loves them.

That's really what justice, and mercy, and humility are about, right? Knowing the truth of God's love.

χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη,

Χριστοφόρος