Doing Justice

DAILY BYTE

We find ourselves in the season of Easter, in which we are called to reflect upon the resurrection of Christ. One of the most beautiful things about the resurrection is that it draws us into an enlarged life. A life in which God’s dream for us can begin to become a reality, as we are beckoned into a bigger, broader, more purpose-filled existence.

So what is God’s dream for our lives?

It’s a question that can be answered in many different ways. There are so many different references in Scripture as to what God wants for us and requires of us. It all points to the same over-arching purpose of God that we live more abundant lives. But rather than trying to collapse it all into ‘one thing’, I prefer to allow the different answers to that question to open me to the diverse possibilities for my life. Thank God for the many different windows that can be found in the Bible that offer us differing perspectives on the dream of God.

Today I’d like us to reflect briefly on that well-known verse from Micah 6:8, which reads:

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

In recent months I’ve been pondering this verse deeply. There is much that can be said about it, but today let me offer this brief observation. The three key phrases in the verse – doing justice, loving kindness & walking humbly with God – occur in an unusual sequence.

Normally, in church circles, the initial focus of the faith journey is upon one’s personal relationship with God (“walking humbly with God”), then on one’s relationships with others (“loving kindness”), and finally, maybe, one’s relationship with the wider world (“doing justice”).

But in this verse that usual order is reversed. What if we were to take this order seriously, that in response to the question, ‘What does the LORD require of you?” the FIRST response would be – do justice! In other words, seek to make right what is wrong. Seek to put the world to rights again. How might our lives be radically and forever changed if we understood our primary task in the world to be that of ‘doing justice’? What would happen if we looked around to see what we might notice that is unfair, unjust, broken, messed up or just plain wrong, and then to try to do something about it?

I have a hunch that immediately we would begin to live more transformed & transforming lives that would be much closer to God’s dream of abundance for us and for our world.

However, the verse doesn’t end there. And if ‘doing justice’ is the only thing that we seek to do, pretty soon we are going to grow despondent, disillusioned, frustrated and burnt out.

Which brings us to the next part of the verse. But we’ll save those reflections for tomorrow.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord God, as we look around at our world there is much that we recognize is unjust. There is such need in our world for that which is wrong to be made right. And more often than not we can feel totally overwhelmed by the enormity of the need, and so we end up doing nothing. Help us, we pray, to recognize that works of justice lie at the heart of your dream for our lives, and that when we embrace that responsibility we discover an abundance and fruitfulness that we never dreamed possible. Give us courage and strength we pray to do what you require of us. Amen

SCRIPTURE READING

Micah 6:8

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.