MUSINGS FROM MOUNTAINS TO VALLEYS-MICAH
“(God) 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
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
It is one of the best know verses from the prophets and part of its power and beauty is in its simplicity. But for the most part it was ignored by the people of God when it was first proclaimed in the 8th century BCE and continues to be avoided well into the 21st century CE.
Now I know there have been countless faithful people throughout history (prehistory for that matter) who have sought to live and “be” the good towards their neighbor and the Divine. I am grateful for the hundreds of faithful people that I have known who have “walked humbly with their God.”
But here are just a few things that have come across my desk today: Russia, an allegedly Christian nation, sent missiles into a pizza parlor today killing at least 10 souls; while there was wide-spread press about the tragedy of the five lives lost on the Titan, the over 500 refuge lives lost off the coast of Greece was barely mentioned beyond one news cycle; a Governor, who frequently speaks about how his faith is at the core of his public life, signed a bill denying mandatory water breaks for workers in a region having an historic heatwave; 20% of the America children in the Bible Belt live in poverty, and in the first 150 days of 2023, there have been 263 mass shootings in the US.[LS1]
We must continue not to be silent in either word or deed. I believe that FCC is committed to working for justice in our community and beyond. God is moving in our midst as we grow in love and kindness for each other and our neighbors. And to live in grace and share Christ’s mercy, we must continue to grow in our understanding of what it means to walk humbly with God and gently with humans.
