By Rev. Debra Jene Collum
Chatfield United Methodist
Hey mortal one, listen up! That is one way to translate the familiar passage in Micah 6:8. Hey, human being, you who breath, open your ears and listen!
In the 8th century before Jesus, when Micah and other prophets were writing, the problems in society looked very similar to any human century. Reading carefully, the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures reveal that crime, corruption and exploitation were all around. Strangers were treated with bias at best and contempt at worst. Widows were exploited in ways that should make us blush if not red with anger. Children were used in ways no one should ever have to imagine. Even the scales in the stores were rigged for certain customers. The wealthy always got the better deal. And those who provided the foundation for society’s well being, like the farmers, the fishermen, the tradespeople, were taxed beyond their capacity to flourish.
The people were floundering and called out to God’s prophets for answers.
What should we do, they cried?
We have given our taxes to the government like they asked and what do we have to show for it?
We have sacrificed our children to the systems and all the system wants is more and more.
We have supplied society with crops, oil, wind, energy food, every kind of commodity we can produce and it is never enough.
What should we do?
Listen O, human one! Listen to the mountains and hills and the land. Listen, it is crying out against you. Because we already know what to do. It has been written in the language of the wisdom of the universe since the beginning of time.
It is actually simply simple.
God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is, and what YHWH needs from you: simply do justice, love kindness, and humbly walk with your God.
There is a reason this passage of scripture resonates throughout the centuries. Every time and place needs to hear this indictment and encouragement. We already know what good is and we already know that it isn’t hard. Expect that it means we have to step away from the demands of a society that is exploitative and extractive and ruinous.
And we have been doing this, right here in Fillmore County. I have seen it with my own eyes. In my own community.
I have seen it in the people who come by the Chatfield Community Food Shelf regularly with donations of food, money, volunteer hours. I know that we have never had to be concerned about having enough resources to serve our neighbors.
I have seen it in all the various fundraising endeavors for families who face tragedy, for cancer, for telethons, for pie socials. People could stay home, especially on a cold night in January.
I have seen it in all the pro-community messages within our schools throughout the Bluff Country. We put it on t shirts, on signs in our hallways, we have special assemblies and programs to help our young people be empowered to be the best they can be.
No one is required to share their resources with others. No one is required to be kind to others in order to survive in community. No one is required to put themselves out so that others can live with a measure of stability and hope.
Yet, we do it.
It seems to me we have been practicing the commands of the prophets of God in readiness for even harder tasks.
We have had the red cards out on the table at the food shelf for many many months. Even before the horror has been visited on the quiet streets of Minnesota. (IYKYK) Some of us have bought whistles. Some of us have signed up for Signal. Some of us have stood on the streets in bitterly cold weather. Some of us have sent food and supplies to Rochester for our neighbors we will never know. Most of us have wept over the deaths of young people who had so much more to give.
We have been practicing. Practicing for what we aren’t sure of.
But we know that the words of Micah are no longer just nice words to paint on a sign or embroider on a pillow. These are words that could remake our society into the very place all mortals, all God’s children are able to live as if God’s realm is now on earth as it is in heaven. It is what we pray for every Sunday, if not daily.
We have been practicing.
Micah 6:6-8: “What shall I bring when I come before YHWH, and bow down before God on high?” you ask. “Am I to come before God with burnt offerings? With year-old calves? Will YHWH be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings– the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Listen here, mortal: God has already made abundantly clear what “good” is, and what YHWH needs from you: simply do justice, love kindness, and humbly walk with your God. (Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation. Sheed & Ward.)
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