A consistant message

Micah 6:1-8

          The message has not changed.  Perhaps the Israelites were hard hearted and needed the rules and laws to guide them but the message was always there. This is the same message that Jesus proclaimed when he walked the earth.

           When I was a young parent I was a strict taskmaster. I had rules and I swatted bottoms when I thought it was needed. I even justified it by giving the kids a bit of rope. Seems fair enough, do this three times and you'll get swatted. I yelled and counted....1.......2........don't ever let me get to three! I was serious and rules oriented but not unloving. I know now the yelling and the swatting was not in order. By the grace of God I never went over the line I feared, that line that turns a parent into a cruel an inhuman monster. The monsters you hear about in the news where children in the guise of discipline are tortured to death. I never crossed that line and I abandoned the corporal for love. But I was strict and I had rules. That was one way in which I loved my kids, rules meant to protect them until they could decide for themselves. Rules so that could learn and eventually make educated, informed decisions on their own. But no mater what, they always knew I loved them. The ways in which I showed them love as a child differs from the ways in which I show my love now that they are adults and parents themselves.

               Throughout the Hebrew scriptures there were rules and laws the Jews had to obey. Always at the heart of these rules was love for God's people.  In this passage we catch a glimpse of a mature message to God's people.  This is the same message that Jesus proclaimed. God does not want sacrifices and rules. Jesus came to fulfill the law and his message was quite clear. The message is synthesized in the two great commandments. There is no third commandment about sacrifices and rubrics.  Humanity in God's eyes had matured enough. Like my own children, humanity had gotten to the point where they could make educated decisions on their own. The primary rule is the same as it always was, it is love.

             The question is how do we carry out that love. Is it a mature adult way or in a law oriented, rules and rubrics kind of way. The problem is, sometimes when you get so used to obeying rules you forget to think for yourself.  You can become beholden to obeying the rules at all cost and never fulfill the act that God wants more than anything - love. The message of love is in Hebrew scripture perhaps buried by the tons of laws they had to obey.

               With love truly in our hearts, let us all go out and love and serve the Lord.

Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

"O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!

For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD."

"With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

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

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?