Monday Musings 1, Micah 6.6-8
Published March 3rd, 2008 in Monday MusingsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I’m beginning a new blog series titled, “Monday Musings” that will consist of reflections on what I’m learning and studying in Scripture.
Micah 6.8 is one of those verses that I have known and memorized for over 15 years. It began as part of a song I sang in high school but quickly became the rallying cry of those who recognize that the Christian faith is not only about a personal relationship with Jesus, but seeking to do justice in our world.
In studying the book of Micah for the past couple of months, I have enjoyed seeing the heart of God emerge in response to the injustices and evils that God was witnessing. This book has shown me that God is moved by the evil. Some theologians would call this the passability of God. Micah has shown me that God is indeed passable. He suffers in light of the evil that exists.
When I came to the famous passage of Micah 6.8, I paused and re-read the introduction to this passage. Without it, Micah 6.8 seemed somewhat irrelevant. Micah 6.6-7 reads:
“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?”
Personal Pursuit of God
Micah is wondering a loud how to approach God. What stood out to me is that every one of his solutions are valid, Biblical and perhaps even radical.
He offers
- Burnt offerings: A form of worship that has often been accepted by God. We think of Abel in Genesis 4, Noah in Genesis 8, Abraham in Genesis 22, and the Hebrews in Exodus 10. Leviticus 1 speaks of the burnt offerings as a pleasing oder to the LORD (Lev. 1.17).
- Calves a year old: In Leviticus 9.3, the young calf is sacrificed during the ordination ceremony of the priest.
- Thousands of rams: In Genesis 22, the ram is Abraham’s substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac, and in Exodus 29, the ram is sacrificed as part of the ordination ceremony for the priest. The ram can also be a guilt offering according to Leviticus 5 (for the atonement of sin).
- Rivers of oil: In Exodus 29, oil is used part of the ordination process. Oil is widely used in Scripture (to this day) as an anointing item.
- Firstborn: The firstborn belongs to God (Leviticus 3.5-13), but there was a provision for the Levites to substitute and perform the duties of the firstborns.
- Fruit of my body: This is somewhat of an obscure term. In Psalm 127, it seems to refer to descendant, and as a call/response couplet, it could mean that the author is offering his descendants to God in response to atone for his sins.
What Micah is offering fits within the Biblical framework of offerings. Micah is taking his worship seriously before God. What stands out to me is the radical and generous ways Micah hopes to come and worship God. Yet, God responds that what God prefers is justice, loving kindness and walking in humility (with God). Micah is wondering what personal things he must do to connect with God. God responds by pushing Micah to look toward horizontal relationships as worship.
Loving Others as an expression of Loving God
These three verses wrap up the classic call to “Love God and Love Neighbor” as we discover in Luke 10. This concept is certainly not new in the New Testament but a reaffirmation of Old Testament laws that calls people to seek the welfare of others.
In my observations Love God / Love Neighbor is a classic and on-going tension that people feel in worshiping God. We are looking to “improve” our faith and especially when we are in a season of repentance, we try to figure out what it takes to be right with God again. I’m coming to realize that I and probably the rest of humanity will constantly be drawn to figure out what we need to do personally to know God. And God’s call is always to combine the vertical and horizontal, especially highlighting loving others as an expression of loving God.
In Matthew 5, Jesus seems to go so far as to say that broken relationships with one another will trump worship and relationship with God. We need to be right with others so that we can be right with God.
Micah 6.8 is not just a call to justice, but it is a call to worship God. God redefines worship for us in Micah 6.8. Rather than simply focus on what we have to offer God, God calls us to have eyes to see that the “fields are ripe for harvesting.” (John 4.35). He calls us to love others.
Not a To-Do Christianity
A final observation of the Micah 6.8 in contrast to verses 6 and 7 is that 6.8 is a lot less measurable than the first two verses. Verses 6 and 7 are great to include on a To-Do List. I can do verses 6 and 7 a lot easier than verse 8. How do you know when you’ve done justice or extended kindness or walked humbly?
Micah 6.8 presses me to work out my relationship with God apart from a legalistic structure that affirms me whether I’ve done the deed. It presses me to know God and hear God’s voice in my life rather than going through motions that I can simply point to as a way to feeling like I’ve done religion in my life.
Implications and Lessons
- Seek God relationally not structurally
- Consider loving others as worship of God
- Embrace the tension of personal sacrifices and loving others
- Be as radical in the horizontal relationships as I want to be in my vertical one.
-----
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to grab the RSS feed. Also, please take a moment to submit this post through "Share This" above.
-----
|
Related Posts: |
Thanks for this reflection, Eddy. I disagree with you on one main point, however. I don’t think it’s Micah who speaks in 6.6-7. In verses 1-5, Micah speaks on behalf of God with an indictment against Israel — namely, that Yahweh has been faithful in the covenant, but Israel hasn’t. Verses 6 and 7 seems to me to be the response of the indicted audience asking how he/they need to get right with God again. Verse 8 is Micah’s answer back to that person (”O mortal”). I don’t think God is rejecting the sacrificial system that he set up in the first place. I think Micah’s admonition falls in line with a lot of the prophets, that right worship goes hand in hand with justice for our neighbors, or as you put it, our horizontal relationships and vertical relationships require just as much effort. In fact, one cannot be fully healthy in only one of those relationships if one isn’t healthy in the other simultaneously.
Your reflection made me remember a great commentary I read when I studied the 12 Prophets in seminary. (I don’t care for the term “Minor Prophets.”) Bruce Waltke writes about Micah 6.8, “The prophets did not repudiate sacrifice but subordinated it to ethics (1 Sam. 15:22-23; Isa. 1:12-20; Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:21-27). Sacrifices without a spiritual commitment that displays itself in ethics profit nothing.”
Thanks for the clarification, but not sure it matters. I see Micah throughout the book not just speaking the words of God to the people but also taking on / articulating the people’s thoughts to God.
I think you’re probably right that it may not matter in the big picture, but I think some things can be brought out by seeing verses 6 and 7 as spoken by the people or a person. It seems no one would have the means to offer such lavish sacrifices but the king. (Granted, some may see these verses as hyperbole, but follow me for a second.) If it is the king who wants to make sacrifices that seem beyond compare and God says no to them, what hope do the regular people without great resources have? The answer is the same to king and peasant: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Anyone regardless of class or position can do those things. What’s more, Micah is reminding them that this isn’t a new revelation from God. God has already shown the king what to do in the Torah, where sacrifices are in the context of right relationships with God and neighbor. At the very least, it is fascinating that Yahweh says to the people that by their crimes against one another they haven’t upheld their end of the covenant with God.