Do justice. Love Kindness. Walk humbly.

“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?”

Micah 6:8

This sign is what I marched with in several Black Lives Matter protests in the midst of this movement. The sign simply said: Do justice. Love Kindness. Walk humbly. I believe if we take this commandment from the prophet seriously, we will be exhausted. And that’s okay. Because what exhausts is requires the kind of effort that should leave you winded. This commandment requires actions, not intentions, or beliefs, or good will. These are verbs. Verbs are exhausting. We cannot hide behind our degrees or how well-read we are with verbs. There are many ways to act. Please do. Read, study, march, donate, confront the silent corners of our minds. But also pray. So today, let’s pray together. 

God of love, God of justice; God of Abraham and Sarah and your prophet Micah; We pray especially today for the courage to live out the call you gave your beloved prophet centuries ago. To love justice, to know kindness and to walk humbly with you. For all the rules and expectations and roles that we have taken on throughout the years help us to focus on this call to action, a call which you identified as vital to living a life of faith. Justice. Kindness. Humility. May the virtues of kindness and humility guide our way as we seek to be transformers of the systems which are broken; in this world, in this country, we don’t have to look far to find brokenness. We see walls being built and children detained, we see racism still at work and in dangerously deadly ways. We say their names. We walk for them and for a future that looks vastly different.  We see people fighting to survive in poverty; we see the injustices in healthcare as our COVID-19 numbers continue to increase.These are some of the many systems which we are called to confront. As we do, we lead with the direction of Micah. We lead with kindness and with humility. That doesn’t mean meekness. Humility often means we admit we night not know the only way to right these wrongs, but the call to justice demands that we try. The call to kindness demands that we answer the feeling you place in our guts; that feeling that “this just isn’t right.” God we pray that you help us recognize that feeling and respond to it. Bind us in communities of faith as we seek to right wrongs together out of love for you and love for our neighbor. Help us in our quest, to always walk humbly with you. In Jesus name, amen. 

Theme: justice 

Author: Darcy Crain